The Most Establishment Paper In The US Wants To Introduce You To The New DLC— As Bad As The Old One

Corporate Sellouts Trying To Hijack The Left's Momentum…Rebranding The Rot: Status Quo Gets A Makeover

A bunch of corporate-aligned right-of-center Democrats eager to claim the energy around Zohran Mamdani without identifying with any of his democratic socialist agenda, have glommed onto a putrid new group called Majority Democrats. Katie Glueck, a reporter for the vehemently anti-Mamdani NY Times, wrote about the new group yesterday without once mentioning that the elected members all come from the most Republican-like fringe of the party, garbage lesser of two evils Democraps like Angie Craig (New Dem-MN), Abigail Spanberger (New Dem-VA), Mikie Sherrill (New Dem-NJ), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Michael Bennet (CO), Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI), Pat Ryan (New Dem-NY), Jake Auchincloss (MA), Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME), Joe Neguse (CO), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Blue Dog-WA), Kristen Rivet (New Dem-MI) and Gabe Vasquez (New Dem-NM).

Glueck presented them as younger Dems sick of their party’s status quo, never mentioning they may be relatively young— Mikie Sherrill and Angie Craig are in their 50s— but they’re either part of the status quo or even worse than it, some frustrated that their careers haven’t moved up the ladder as rapidly as they think they deserve it. When they talk about "younger" it's for the sake of age and their appeal is foolishly ageist. As The Hill’s Dana Dolan wrote yesterday, “Democratic leaders aren’t failing because they’re too old. They’re failing because their political strategy is obsolete. You think for a nano-second the Democratic Majority people have a less obsolete strategy? “The DNC,” wrote Dolan, “forced Hogg out for challenging party orthodoxy— specifically his plan to raise millions through his Leaders We Deserve PAC to support young progressives against incumbent Democrats in safe seats. Party officials said DNC officers should focus on defeating Republicans, not ‘sowing division.’ But Hogg’s parting shot captured the real issue. He decried ‘a serious lack of vision from Democratic leaders, too many of them asleep at the wheel.’ Polling confirms that voters agree with Hogg’s diagnosis... Democratic leaders consistently choose ‘unity’ over effectiveness. They suppress confrontational tactics instead of channeling them strategically. They draft thoughtful position papers that get buried while Republicans manufacture outrage that dominates news cycles. They rely on pollster-tested talking points instead of speaking with authentic conviction. And they treat primary challenges as party betrayals, rather than mechanisms for democratic accountability.”

Democratic strategy must be updated to match current realities— and actually learning from what works. Modern political battles are fought in public, in real-time, through narrative competition. The party that controls attention controls outcomes. This means creating political moments that advance Democratic goals rather than avoiding conflict. It means treating competitive primaries as tools for generating beneficial coverage, not threats to institutional stability.

Republicans figured this out years ago. They have mastered creating controversy that generates coverage. That coverage shapes narratives and narratives determine policy outcomes. Democrats have watched this happen repeatedly while responding with carefully crafted talking points that audiences ignore.

…The DNC’s response to Hogg  and Democratic leadership’s cautious reaction to unexpected primary victories suggests they are choosing institutional comfort over strategic effectiveness. That’s not just bad politics — it’s a betrayal of the tradition of productive conflict that built the modern Democratic Party.

Glueck also wrote that Majority Democrats has “big ambitions to remake their party’s image, recruit a new wave of candidates and challenge political orthodoxies they say are holding the party back,” although various members “have different theories about how the national party has blundered. Some believe a heavy reliance on abortion-rights messaging or anti-Trump sentiment has come at the expense of a stronger economic focus. Others say party leaders underestimate how much pandemic-era school closures or reflexive defenses of former President Biden’s re-election bid have eroded voters’ trust in Democrats.” They aspire to be the new corporate whores of the Democratic Party— the “abundance agenda” sell-outs and the next DLC (which failed and closed up shop in 2011).

Obviously no mention of Mamdani who would be their mascot if they weren’t pack of right-leaning swine but “the roughly 30 elected officials at the federal, state and local levels who have so far signed on to the group broadly agree that the Democratic Party must better address the issues that feel most urgent in voters’ lives— the affordability crisis, for example— and that it must shed its image as the party of the status quo. Many of the group’s members have, at times, challenged the party’s establishment, something the organization embraces. ‘If we don’t build this big-tent party that can win majorities,’ warned Representative Angie Craig of Minnesota, a leader of the initiative, ‘we’re on the path of being the party of the permanent minority from a national-election perspective.’”

I’m not sure if hereditary multimillionaire Dean Phillips is part of the group or even still a Democrat, but he was a close colleague of Craig’s when they served in the House together and who, like Ritchie Torres, Ruben Gallego and AIPAC, has endorsed her for Senate and has a mind set like almost all of these turds:

“Being the anti-Trump party ‘might win a midterm election,’ Craig, who is also running in a competitive primary [against progressive Lt Gov. Peggy Flanagan] for the Senate, added, ‘but it’s not going to build lasting majorities. We’ve got to lay out the case for what we’re for as a party’.”

Discussions are underway about how the officials could mobilize politically on one another’s behalf, and plans are in the works for public voter-engagement events starting later this summer.

But the group is also a political operation, employing around a dozen people— both full-time staff members and consultants— and aiming to support and expand a pipeline of talent, organizers said.

Majority Democrats will be organized as a hybrid federal political action committee, meaning that there will be a traditional PAC and a super PAC arm, said Eric Koch, an adviser to the project. It is required to disclose its donors.

Organizers declined to share its budget but said the group would not accept corporate PAC money.

The group builds on some earlier initiatives, including the Democratic Future Fund, a modest effort to support some House members in 2024. It also incorporates ideas laid out after the 2024 elections in a memo by Seth London, an adviser to major Democratic donors, especially his recommendation to establish a “leadership committee.” London is involved in the Majority Democrats initiative.

The group’s executive director is Rohan Patel, a former Tesla executive who worked in the Obama White House. Others working on the communications side include the Democratic strategists Lis Smith [who invented Pete Buttigieg and most recently worked for the failed Andrew Cuomo campaign], Andrew Mamo and Jackie Rosa.

…Leaders at the federal level are Craig, Representatives Pat Ryan of New York, Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts and Joe Neguse of Colorado. Mayor Aftab Pureval of Cincinnati is the group’s local-level leader, and its state leaders are Assemblywoman Sandra Jauregui of Nevada and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis of Pennsylvania.

The group also plans to work with five candidates running in Republican-held House districts, including Cait Conely, who is running in a competitive primary to challenge Representative Mike Lawler of New York, and Sarah Trone Garriott, a state senator in Iowa, who is seeking to challenge Representative Zach Nunn.

“We’re going to measure success by the candidates that we recruit and support and that win, but also by the amount of people who want to engage with our network,” Davis said. Other members think the tenor and substance of the 2028 presidential primary will test the group’s impact.

…The group’s launch comes as long-simmering generational tensions within the party increasingly break into open view, after Biden’s abortive campaign and ignominious exit. Last month, in New York City, the party’s establishment failed to stop a charismatic 33-year-old democratic socialist from winning the mayoral primary, though some still hope to clock him in the general election. 

“We are either a big tent or we’re not,” Pureval, the Cincinnati mayor, said. “You know how you lose elections? Turn on talented young candidates who are actually winning.”

Other publicly-known information that Glueck forgot to mention:

• Eric Koch is a co-founder of Downfield which works for the Blue Dogs

• Seth London works at the shady intersection of politics and venture capital

• Lis Smith, who is vehemently anti-progressive, only works for corporate Democrats like Buttigieg, Claire McCaskill and Martin O’Malley

So... “Majority Democrats” because America is crying out for more Pete Buttigiegs! This is a management strategy, not a movement and the furthest thing you’ll ever find to “grassroots.” It’s a cynical bet by the failing political class that if they wrap themselves in enough Zoomer-friendly vibes, hire the right operatives and drop the right anti-woke dog whistles, they can preempt a real realignment. But no matter how many memos Seth London writes or how many “big tent” panels they host, they will never be the future. The future is already here—and it scares the hell out of them. These are not the children of Bernie, AOC, Pramila or, obviously, Zohran. They are the political grandchildren of Evan Bayh, Harold Ford Jr., Joe Manchin and Joe Lieberman— wax museum relics trying to stage manage relevance in a post-2020s political landscape.

What they really want is to be the respectable alternative to the populist left— palatable to donors, friendly to banks, soft on monopolies, safe for brunch. The Majority Democrats aren’t offering an alternative vision; they’re offering an aesthetic. Younger, media-savvy, post-woke and 100% committed to keeping the structural status quo intact— just with better lighting. They speak in vague nods to affordability while refusing to confront the profit-driven systems that have made life unaffordable in the first place. They talk about “abundance” the way Reagan talked about “morning in America”— a marketing slogan designed to sell Uber-fied social policy and preempt real structural reform. It’s capitalism with better UX… same exploitative system, just more polished, more “modern,” more palatable— especially to younger hipster audiences. They have no intention of changing the underlying late-stage capitalist system; they’re just giving it a sleeker, friendlier interface— like an app that looks good but still exploits you behind the scenes.

As for not taking corporate PAC money, these folks all still suckle at the same venture-funded teats, just with an extra compliance consultant and a DNC lawyer in the room. “No corporate PAC” is to modern centrists what “No new taxes” was to George H.W. Bush: a talking point, not a principle.