Midterm Madness: House Dems to Face a Mamdani Purge

Until the fallout began from the House Oversight releases of Jeffrey Epstein's files, the midterms had begun to look a little sunnier for Democrats of late. The Schumer Shutdown appears to have helped boost their lead in generic-ballot polling to its best level this year, D+4.8 in the RCP aggregate average. Voter sentiment on the economy has turned against Donald Trump and the GOP as well, prompting Republicans to focus on economic messaging after the passage of the continuing resolution. And Democrats did manage a win on redistricting in Texas, although that will likely be only temporary.

Hakeem Jeffries may want to wait before measuring the drapes in the speaker's office, however. The collapse on the shutdown, paired with the big win for Zohran Mamdani in New York City, has catalyzed the radical Left into targeting 'moderate' House Democrats just as the buzz began working on their behalf, Axios reports:

House Democrats are facing a surge of progressive primary challenges inspired by New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani that lawmakers say shouldn't be lightly dismissed.

Why it matters: There's a clear burst of anti-establishment energy in the Democratic Party right now, and the left is eager to test its limits and see how much power they can capture in New York, D.C. and elsewhere.

• Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said he had been predicting "at least 30 percent" of House Democrats would face primaries, but now "that number might turn out to be even higher."
• "You can just tell. It's the year. People's hair is on fire, they just feel like they've got to do something," the former Progressive Caucus co-chair told Axios. "People are pissed, they're sad, they're concerned."

"Hair on fire" is an apt description of the Democrat Party. That description has applied since the party began manipulating its 2024 primaries to protect a senile Joe Biden, and even before then in its singular obsession with Donald Trump. That is the main driver behind the "anti-establishment energy" on the Left, and Democrats have no one to blame for it but themselves. The party establishment, from the Biden Regency on down, relentlessly demagogued the last four years about democracy itself being at risk for extinction, practically calling for popular uprisings in response to [checks notes] the results of an election that no one disputes. 

Nor have Democrats learned a lesson, not in either the establishment nor the hard-Left factions. It's that hair-on-fire obsession with Trump that led several prominent Democrats to create a weird and disturbing video aimed at the rank and file of the military services. Technically, these members of the House and Senate didn't literally commit sedition or insurrection, but they certainly attempted to undermine the authority of the commander in chief by suggesting his orders might be illegal. Worse, they painted a target on the backs of the enlisted and lower-ranking officers by sotto voce threats to prosecute them when, as members of Congress, they have access to flag-rank officers in terms of oversight and policy. 

Democrats have spent the last couple of years, and truly the last decade, transforming itself into the Robespierre Party. No one should be surprised that the current crop of Robespierres may fall victim in a figurative sense to the next round of Robespierres they are creating by setting their hair on fire. They may be on their way to the traditional outcome of purity purges just when the prospects of coming in from the political wilderness began to brighten. 

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