REPORT: Young progressive DNC official plots to take down Democrat incumbents

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Young radical progressives have ramped up their efforts to hijack the Democratic Party, and are now openly touting their plan to oust older Democrat incumbents.

From the New York Times: Less than three months after the young political activist David Hogg was elected as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, he is undertaking a new project that is sure to rankle some fellow Democrats: spending millions of dollars to oust Democratic members of Congress in primary elections next year.

Mr. Hogg, 25, who emerged on the political scene as an outspoken survivor of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Fla., said his party must squelch a pervasive “culture of seniority politics” that has allowed older and less effective lawmakers to continue to hold office at a moment of crisis.

And so he is planning through a separate organization where he serves as president, Leaders We Deserve, to intervene in primaries in solidly Democratic districts as part of a $20 million effort to elect younger leaders and to encourage a more combative posture against President Trump.

In an interview, Mr. Hogg said he understood that he would face blowback for his decision to serve simultaneously as a top official in the party — which is typically focused on electing Democrats over Republicans — and as a leader of an effort to oust current Democratic lawmakers.

“This is going to anger a lot of people,” Mr. Hogg said of his efforts, which he began to brief allies, some lawmakers and party officials on in recent days. He predicted “a smear campaign against me” that would aim to “destroy my reputation and try to force me to stop doing this.”

READ MORE from the New York Times.

The report notes that Hogg recently refused to sign a DNC “neutrality policy” asking the party’s top officers to refrain from any activity that would “call into question their impartiality and evenhandedness.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin appear to try to distance himself from Hogg, saying, “David Hogg is a passionate advocate and we are grateful for his service to the Democratic Party, whether it be in his role as a D.N.C. vice chair or in an outside capacity.”

Defiantly, Hogg declared, “What we are not saying here is, ‘Oh, you’re old, you need to go.’ What we’re saying is we need to make room for a new generation to step up and help make sure that we have the people that are most acutely impacted by a lot of the issues that we are legislating on — that are actually going to live to see the consequences of this.”

Randi Weingarten, the far-left president of the American Federation of Teachers, confirmed her full support for Hogg’s efforts and declared, “Yes, it will ruffle some feathers, and yes, some people will be upset. The key is that they are trying to create the connection between the long-term values of the party and people who don’t see it. And you have to do things differently to make that connection.”

Hogg’s progressive group, Leaders We Deserve, is no small effort, having raised a whopping $12 million in the last election cycle. The group mostly supports candidates who are 30 or younger for state legislatures and those who are 35 or younger in federal campaigns, but Hogg emphasized he does not support any candidates who leans to the right of incumbent Democrats.

Hogg posted a link to the New York Times report and wrote, “I have met thousands across our country who do not feel that our party is fighting for them- there is a reason for that. Many of our elected leaders are not and are failing to meet this moment. It is time for that to change.”

Democrat commentator James Carville, 80, is blasting Hogg’s effort to primary other Democrats, and called him a “contemptible little twerp.”

Hogg then blasted out a lengthy statement in a series of posts on X, defending his plot.  He wrote:

THREAD: There are a lot of questions about what we are doing and why we are challenging some incumbents at leaders we deserve- (No we are not just focused on primaries we also want to support young people running in red to blue seats to help win the majority)

Too many elected leaders in the Democratic Party are either unwilling or unable to meet the moment and are asleep at the wheel while Trump is demolishing the economy, challenging the foundations of our democracy, and creating new existential crises for our country by the day.

The party has hit an all-time low approval rating of 27%.
https://nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-party-hits-new-polling-low-voters-want-fight-trump-harder-rcna196161

Voters, including many who have been some of our strongest supporters, abandoned us in droves. Our voters feel there is no real vision for the party right now. Rather than looking in the mirror, some Democratic members of Congress are apparently “pissed” that groups like Indivisible are rallying voters and pushing our leaders to wake the hell up and fight back.
https://axios.com/2025/02/12/democrats-jeffries-move-on-indivisible-trump

At this moment, the Democratic Party is one of the most important tools that we have to stop Trump and it is failing, in part because not enough of our leaders are up to the task to do it.

In a recent poll, 69% of Democrats said “the Democratic Party should encourage elderly leaders to retire and pass the torch to the next generation.”

Right now, we have a culture of seniority politics that shuns and attempts to destroy anyone who dares challenge those who have served in the same position for decades.

This culture stifles the real systemic change our base is calling for and massively weakens the future of our party by not giving the next Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Cory Booker the chance to get started (all of whom were first elected before they were 30).

Today’s party politics has an unwritten rule: if you win a safe blue seat, it’s yours for life. No one serious in your party will challenge you. That is a culture that we have to break. And while we need to continue to pressure our current leaders to do more, part of the pathway forward requires us to start primarying out-of-touch, ineffective Democrats in solidly blue districts.

This is something that we as a party used to be much more willing to do. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries primaried a Democratic New York Assembly member in 2000 and 2002. Then, after finally winning the seat in an open primary in 2006, he took on the incumbent Democratic Congressman Ed Towns in 2012, ultimately pushing him to retire.

Many know well how Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez primaried Joe Crowley and won, but few remember that years before Obama became President, he unsuccessfully primaried Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush. This is the political culture we need to get back to.

That’s why my organization, Leaders We Deserve, launched a $20 million investment to challenge some of these Democrats that are asleep at the wheel in primaries while also supporting young democrats running to flip Republican seats in must win districts. We’re doing this to usher in the next generation of Democrats who will go to the mat every day for the American people and use every tactic and tool to stop Trump’s radical right-wing, economically illiterate agenda.

Younger leaders simply bring a different level of urgency that we just aren’t seeing in our politics right now. We grew up with the existential threat of climate change bearing down on us. Adolescence today means active shooter drills and wondering if you’re going to survive math class. And we are told every election is the most important of our lifetime – that we must protect democracy at all costs – all while democracy continues to fail us.

It’s not because it can’t work, but because our politicians have failed to make it work for the people, and instead made it work for the special interests destroying our future.

While there’s clearly a growing appetite for new leadership, we need to be vigilant. Some Democratic challengers will come from the right, and we’ll risk replacing great older leaders with someone young and slick who talks well, but stands for even less. That isn’t progress – it’s regression dressed up as renewal.

We need people who are ready to push the boundaries of what’s possible to fix our broken healthcare system, rapidly bring down the costs of housing, and refuse to take corporate PAC money, because they understand that’s the vehicle the NRA, tech giants, insurance companies, Big Pharma, defense contractors, and all types of special interests use to protect their profits and block reforms that threaten their power, all at the expense of American people.

Some have said that primarying members of Congress is a distraction that diverts money and energy from important races that can help us win back the House. But it would be an absolute mistake to expect that people are going to simply vote for Democrats, only because we aren’t Trump, and without offering a real vision or inspiring leaders to get behind.

But it’s also why we’re going to play our part in helping to reclaim the majority by backing exceptional young candidates, where it makes sense, in critical, must-win Republican-held seats, so our party has the power to enact our vision for the future.

With some of the lowest approval ratings we’ve ever seen, the Democratic Party is viewed dimly in many quarters for a lot of different reasons. In the past though, it has played a transformational role in our country – something we need to hold on to.

Like so many, I care deeply about this party – so deeply that I ran (and was elected) to DNC leadership. I want this party to be strong. It’s personal to me. When my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s almost 15 years ago, the only reason my family stayed afloat was Social Security. And the only reason we were able to get Social Security was because the Democratic Party fought for it.

It was also Democrats who fought for and passed Medicare and Medicaid, which brought healthcare to seniors and low-income Americans. It was Democrats who passed the Civil Rights Act, which ended segregation and banned employment segregation. And it was Democrats that passed the Voting Rights Act, ending literacy tests and poll taxes that suppressed Black voters. These are things we all take for granted now, but would not exist without Democrats and the social movements that fought to make them law.

With all its flaws, the Democratic Party has played a critical role for progress in this country. Revitalizing and rebuilding it is important work. This party is worth fighting for, and not just for the sake of opposing Trump. What that looks like right now is electing younger leaders who have the energy, passion, and vision to meet this moment with the urgency our country deserves

Through all of this, some incumbents will rise to the challenge and emerge stronger. Others will demonstrate why they should be replaced. Either way, we all win. Especially when we are not challenging frontline Democratic incumbents- we all want the house back.

Lest anyone think that Democrat voters won’t follow radical far-left leadership, tens of thousands are turning out to attend rallies across the nation by socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, as seen in the report below:

REPORT: AOC pulls in massive fundraising haul in first quarter, smashing record

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