The democratic party has been taken over by extremists.
The Making of the Democratic Insurgency
https://www.city-journal.org/article/evan-barker-nothing-left-democratic-establishment-far-left
Moderates in the Democratic Party increasingly worry that the far-left faction could undermine the party’s electoral competitiveness and eventually take control of the party itself. Yet the response from moderates so far has emphasized accommodation over confrontation. From their perspective, it may be better to welcome Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)-aligned candidates into the fold and hope that the demands of governing temper their revolutionary fervor. This strategy of containment and assimilation rests on the assumption that the radical elements remain sufficiently distinct from the rest of the Democratic Party.
Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative, a new memoir by former Democratic insider Evan Barker, challenges that premise. Barker spent more than 15 years rising through Democratic politics, raising money for establishment candidates before becoming a director at
Left Rising, a fundraising firm dedicated to supporting insurgent left-wing candidates and causes that challenge the party establishment, including several members of “
the Squad” in Congress. But as Barker moved further left, she became increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party itself. In 2024, after attending the Democratic National Convention and leaving more alienated than when she arrived, Barker announced that she could not support Kamala Harris. She wound up voting, of all things, for Donald Trump.
Barker’s account of her career offers a firsthand look at the increasingly blurred line between the Democratic Party’s insurgent Left and the rest of the Democratic ecosystem. Rather than depicting two clearly separate political worlds, her story shows how closely connected they have become. The arc of her career, from volunteering on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign to her eventual consulting for progressive district attorney candidates, complicates the notion of an outside insurgency infiltrating the Democratic establishment. In Barker’s telling, one grew out of the other.
She entered politics through Obama’s campaign as a high school volunteer, at precisely the moment Democrats were pioneering a more personal and emotionally resonant electoral politics, which encouraged supporters to connect their own stories to a sense of shared purpose and political urgency. The approach was particularly powerful for a generation beginning to experience politics through social media.