By Joshua Arnold
The Washington Stand
The far-Left won greater control of the Democratic Party on Saturday, when a far-left candidate won an eight-way race to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) with a clear majority of votes. For those wondering whether their 2024 electoral rout would prompt the Democratic Party to moderate, the answer appears to be, “no.”
When party delegates gathered in National Harbor, Md. — just four miles down the Potomac River from last week’s fatal plane crash — Minnesota Democrat-Farmer-Laborer (DFL) Party Chair Ken Martin won 246.5 out of 428 votes cast (57.6%). Meanwhile, Wisconsin Democrat Party Chair Ben Wikler placed second with 134.5 votes (31.4%), despite having the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and George Soros’s political action committee.
After this substantial victory, Martin’s job is now to unify the party, while analyzing why the party lost the 2024 election — two objectives that may be at odds with one another. Martin’s role also involves much fundraising and determining where the party will allocate its resources in the years ahead.
During his 14-year stint as state party chair, Martin has presided over a party that has moved away from its working-class roots toward the identity politics favored among highly educated elites. In the long, hot summer of 2020, Minnesota’s capital became a national flashpoint for racially charged riots after the death of George Floyd — riots which caused more damage than necessary because city and state officials were too busy dismantling their police departments. In 2023-2024, with only a narrow legislative majority, the DFL declared the state a “sanctuary” for trans-identifying children, outlawed non-“gender-affirming” therapy, and passed other pro-transgender, pro-abortion legislation that rivals California in its radicalism.
Consequently, Martin has also overseen the gradual erosion of DFL strength in Minnesota. In 2008, the last presidential election before Martin became DFL Chair in 2011, Barack Obama cruised to victory in Minnesota with 54.1% of the vote, 10.24% ahead of John McCain. In 2024, Kamala Harris carried Minnesota with 50.9% of the vote, only 4.24% ahead of Donald Trump, despite choosing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. Minnesota has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972 (longer than any other state), yet now it almost seems within striking distance.
Martin himself has publicly espoused far-left positions. In June 2020, he declared that President Trump “should be immediately impeached and then put on trial for treason” for allegedly ignoring intelligence that Russia was offering the Taliban bounties to attack Americans. Such intelligence was likely ignored because it was based on little evidence and never verified by the U.S. intelligence community.
Despite Martin’s progressive bona fides, Democratic Party leaders may have viewed him as a more moderate choice simply because he is a white man. According to NPR, “the DNC chair has been a woman and/or person of color since 2011” — one further reason to remove public funding from the propaganda outlet.
While Martin is tasked with conducting a review of the party’s failures in the 2024 election, he already seems to have a good idea of what that review will find. “The policies that we support and the message that we have is not wrong,” he told The New York Times after his victory. “It is a messaging problem and a brand problem. Those voters are not connecting our policies with their lives.”
This is what the Biden-Harris administration (and campaign) told itself for four years.
Nevertheless, Martin has persisted in exploring this political box canyon further. “My job is to get out there and define the Republicans,” he said. “We will go on offense against Donald Trump.” Again, he declared, “This is a new Democratic Party. We’re taking the gloves off.” Apparently, he considers the multi-front lawfare of the Biden administration to be amateur hour.
Meanwhile, party delegates also elected three vice chairs for the DNC. One of these was 24-year-old David Hogg, who turned a 2018 shooting at his high school in Parkland, Fla. into a career of gun control advocacy. Hogg labeled the NRA a terrorist group after January 6, called for defunding the police and abolishing ICE in 2020, and warned the only way to survive climate change is by preventing it. In 2024, Hogg predicted, “If this election is a match-up between Taylor Swift and Ted Nugent, I think it’s safe to say I’ve seen enough — Biden wins the 2024 election.”
Hogg left no ambiguity about the direction he wants to steer the party. “It’s time we stop surrendering, go on offense, and take the fight to Donald Trump and every single Republican,” he urged.
This strategy is the same sort of scorched-earth radicalism that lost Democrats the election last November. Voters were already upset about President Joe Biden’s disastrous immigration policy and the lingering inflationary effects of a runaway spending spree. They were disgusted by the Biden administration’s lawfare, disinterested in its abortion extremism, and perplexed by its insistence on inventing imaginary genders. After attempting to re-offer a comatose Biden, the Democratic Party offered voters a campaign transparent with platitudes and feelings, with no real substance to address voters’ concerns.
Thus far, Democrats have demanded more of the same, only with better messaging. They believe this will yield, in Hogg’s words, a “Democratic Party that is authentic, relatable, earns people’s trust, and wins again.” To pull off that transformation, without major mistakes by Republicans, the Democratic Party must undergo far more substantive changes.
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
