{"id":4560,"date":"2026-07-15T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4560"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:38:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:38:48","slug":"drucker-is-this-socialist-wave-the-lefts-tea-party-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4560","title":{"rendered":"Drucker: Is this socialist wave the left\u2019s Tea Party moment?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Democratic establishment, shaken by the rise of progressive socialists, is right to wonder where this wave might lead. The similarly populist movement of\u00a0Tea Party Republicans, however muddled, foreshadowed President\u00a0Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Read more Horoscopes July 15, 2026: Forest Whitaker, preparation will eliminate negativity<\/a><\/p>\n

Republican candidates for\u00a0Congress\u00a0backed by the\u00a0GOP\u00a0establishment were pushed to the limit beginning in the 2010 election cycle and continuing through 2012 and 2014. Some even fell in key primaries to conservative populists who identified as\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0candidates. These new voices energized voters itching for change and convinced that congressional\u00a0Republicans\u00a0were not fighting President\u00a0Barack Obama\u00a0hard enough. The fact that\u00a0Republicans\u00a0in the\u00a0House of Representatives\u00a0and\u00a0U.S. Senate\u00a0often did not have the votes to block Obama\u2019s agenda was lost on angry constituents.<\/p>\n

If that sounds familiar, look no further than the progressive populists (including but not limited to candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America) and their impact on Democratic primaries this year. They include Graham Platner\u2019s (now withdrawn) nomination for Senate in Maine, the nomination of Melat Kiros for the House in Colorado, and primary wins for three New York congressional candidates backed by Big Apple Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a card-carrying DSA member.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear the grassroots energy in deep blue districts is entirely with the DSA wing of the party,\u201d said\u00a0Jeremiah Johnson, cofounder of the\u00a0Center for New Liberalism\u00a0and a contributing writer at The Dispatch. \u201cThis is more about a desire for change and a desire for people who \u2018fight\u2019 than about specific policies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two of the prominent Democratic incumbents who fell to socialist challengers \u2014 as Johnson pointed out \u2014 were in good progressive standing per their votes on the House floor: Representatives\u00a0Diana DeGette\u00a0of\u00a0Colorado\u00a0and\u00a0Adriano Espaillat\u00a0of\u00a0New York, who happens to be chairman of the\u00a0Congressional Hispanic Caucus. (Mamdani endorsed Espaillat\u2019s challenger.)<\/p>\n

Adam Green, cofounder of Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a group backing many of the upstart socialists, told me he believes this year\u2019s batch of progressive populists have broader appeal with voters than the\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0did.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy worry with the\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0analogy is that it sounds like a wing of a wing and really, I think that the economic populists that are winning could very much have more cross-partisan appeal in a general election.\u201d<\/p>\n

Centrist warnings<\/h4>\n

Many seasoned Democratic operatives disagree. They worry\u00a0Republicans\u00a0could flip an open\u00a0Senate\u00a0seat in swing-state\u00a0Michigan\u00a0if progressive\u00a0Abdul El-Sayed\u00a0wins the nomination and that the\u00a0GOP\u00a0would capture an open, Democratic-held gubernatorial office in battleground\u00a0Wisconsin\u00a0if socialist\u00a0Francesca Hong\u00a0becomes the nominee there. (Both are competing in August primaries.) Similar concerns have come up related to progressive populists\u2019 potential for upsetting Democratic establishment candidates and incumbents in primaries in\u00a0Connecticut,\u00a0Hawaii\u00a0and\u00a0Missouri.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The fear is that the more success left-wing candidates have in primaries where\u00a0Democrats\u00a0dominate, the more\u00a0Republicans\u00a0will be able to tar the entire party as \u201csocialist\u201d for positions like advocating for the slashing of funding for the police and\u00a0Immigration and Customs Enforcement; implementing government-run, single payer healthcare; and eliminating all fossil fuel drilling.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a recipe for disaster. Socialist wins can undermine centrist and pragmatic\u00a0Democrats\u00a0running in the battleground districts. In red states\u00a0Democrats\u00a0need to win to seize majorities in the\u00a0House and Senate, not to mention increase their control of governor\u2019s mansions and state legislatures.<\/p>\n

Read more Asking Eric: All I said was hello, and my neighbor said I made him nervous<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn a typical jurisdiction, a Democrat needs to capture 60% of the moderate vote to win while a Republican only needs to get 40%. Case in point, (President)\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0won just 41% of the moderate vote nationally,\u201d explained\u00a0Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at\u00a0Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank in\u00a0Washington, DC. \u201cRepublicans can win in many parts of the country by motivating conservative voters to turn out and then winning just enough of the reasonable middle. That is because nationally there are three conservative voters for every two liberal voters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Costly defeats<\/h4>\n

If past is prologue, Democratic insiders are right to be concerned. The Tea Party\u2019s grassroots energy did help produce a historic GOP House majority in the 2010 midterm elections but may have cost the party a\u00a0Senate\u00a0lead, too.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

At the time,\u00a0Republicans\u00a0were positioned to flip a\u00a0Senate\u00a0seat in otherwise Democratic-leaning\u00a0Delaware. But then-Representative Mike Castle\u00a0lost the\u00a0GOP\u00a0primary to an unelectable\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0challenger. In 2012, then-Democratic Senators\u00a0Joe Donnelly\u00a0of\u00a0Indiana\u00a0and\u00a0Claire McCaskill\u00a0of\u00a0Missouri\u00a0were exceedingly vulnerable in states that had turned ruby red during their tenure.<\/p>\n

But they won reelection even as Obama was defeated in their states after their respective Tea Party Republican challengers bungled their campaigns. The\u00a0GOP\u00a0finally won the\u00a0Senate\u00a0majority in 2014 after intervening in party primaries to quash unelectable\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0candidates.<\/p>\n

On top of that,\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0factions of the Republicans\u2019 House majority regularly paralyzed the party during the Obama administration. They insisted on perfection or nothing and regularly thwarted incremental, conservative reforms as part of compromises with the 44th president. The failed \u201cObamacare shutdown\u201d of 2013, for example, was just one political boondoggle the\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0foisted on the Republican establishment.<\/p>\n

But the\u00a0Tea Party\u00a0did leave its stamp on the\u00a0Republican Party\u00a0in a consequential and lasting way: Trump. Despite some small wins at the height of the movement, what conservative populists wanted, more than anything, was a fighter. And the president delivered.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s still a way to go in this year\u2019s Democratic primaries, not to mention the party\u2019s 2028 presidential nominating contest. But this looks eerily familiar.<\/p>\n

David M. Drucker is a columnist covering politics and policy. \u00a92026 Bloomberg. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more Harriette Cole: Don\u2019t you see how mean-spirited the co-worker\u2019s letter was?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A progressive uprising in deep blue districts could end up costing Democrats crucial swing state victories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nDrucker: Is this socialist wave the left\u2019s Tea Party moment? - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4560\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Drucker: Is this socialist wave the left\u2019s Tea Party moment? - Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A progressive uprising in deep blue districts could end up costing Democrats crucial swing state victories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4560\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next City Digest\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-15T10:38:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13065d40d633843429ac57d4e5c06f9b\"},\"headline\":\"Drucker: Is this socialist wave the left\u2019s Tea Party moment?\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-15T10:38:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560\"},\"wordCount\":989,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/ee753c48d0866d33a097990dccecce2d.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Opinion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/nextcitydigest.com\\\/?p=4560\",\"name\":\"Drucker: Is this socialist wave the left\u2019s Tea Party moment? 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