The previous and new guard within the Democratic occasion is on a painfully uncomfortable collision course as a younger occasion official with daring new concepts is being pressured out for attempting to main out of contact incumbents.
May our personal fossilized septuagenarian Ed Markey and Invoice Keating be listening to footsteps?
Markey, 78, has introduced he intends to hunt one other six yr time period subsequent yr whereas Keating, 72, is prone to run once more in 2026 for his eighth time period.
They could possibly be subsequent within the occasion’s transfer to oust longtime incumbents who at the moment are on the skin wanting in because the Trump administration and Republicans have the reins of presidency, whereas disgraced Democrats attempt to rebound from their devastating loss final yr.
Is the previous guard going to be kicking and screaming till the bitter finish? Appears that method.
The present Democratic Nationwide Committee chair, Ken Martin, is attempting to dam occasion vice chair and activist David Hogg from a plan to defeat “ineffective” and “asleep at the wheel” incumbents by booting him from occasion management. Hogg is attempting to shake up a celebration that doesn’t wish to be shaken up. The previous boy community is closing ranks.
“If you want to challenge incumbents you’re more than free to do that, but just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be neutral arbiters,” Martin stated in a press name on Thursday.
The ultimatum got here after Hogg, the 25-year-old survivor of the Parkland college taking pictures, introduced plans to spend $20 million to take away lifeless wooden incumbents by way of his group, Leaders We Deserve.
However Hogg – one of many few daring, vibrant lights within the occasion – will now have to depart the DNC if he strikes ahead along with his plan.
That is what the occasion has to fall again on? It doesn’t have any credible new leaders and continues to be in shock over Donald Trump’s victory.
Irate Democratic leaders are seemingly attempting to guard their previous incumbents by stopping challenges from youthful candidates. Why is there an unwritten rule you could’t main a Democratic incumbent?
Markey survived a problem by former U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy third however how for much longer can he go on?
Keating has been round Massachusetts politics seemingly endlessly, serving as state senator and Norfolk County DA earlier than getting elected to Congress in 2011.
And what about our different septuagenarian senator, Elizabeth Warren?
Will she run for president once more after her embarrassing loss in 2020, or attempt to grasp on within the U.S. Senate for a number of extra years?
Warren’s newest embarrassing episode got here in a podcast this month the place she was pressed repeatedly to elucidate why she stored insisting Joe Biden was mentally superb even after his devastating debate efficiency in 2024.
“Do you regret saying that President Biden had a mental acuity, he had a sharpness to him?” requested Sam Fragoso, host of “Talk Easy.”
“I said what I believe to be true,” Warren insisted, then nearly laughed when the podcast host requested if Biden “was as sharp as you.”
“You know, the, the thing is, he is, look, he was sharp,” Warren went on. “He was on his feet. I saw him at live events.”
“On his feet is not praise,” Fragoso interjected.
Then there’s octogenarian Nancy Pelosi, who imagine it or not continues to be in Congress after forcing out former President Joe Biden final yr. Having Pelosi boot Biden from the race is sort of a brawl in a nursing residence.
Pelosi adamantly refuses to budge even now after she was one of many architects of 2024.
“As long as Nancy takes a breath, she is going to do what she wants to do,” former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown stated.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is getting a number of consideration as a possible presidential candidate, but it surely solely exhibits how determined the occasion is to alter. AOC has no probability to win, she doesn’t have broad sufficient attraction.
Additionally she’s tied to the hip with Bernie Sanders, the strolling lifeless.
