The Nation77%
Establishment Democrats Are Embracing Loserdom 74%
By Jeet Heer91%
6/26/2026, 2:25:01 PM
Topics: US Politics
BS Summary: This article contains 40 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Hasty Generalization, and Appeal to Emotion, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 43.5% saturation with 400 hits. Analysis detected 3,164 faulty-reasoning hits from 919 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 66.1% and a BS Rank of 74% (5,737 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 73.80% of the article peer group.
Establishment Democrats are panicking as voters in their party move sharply to the left.
Politico reports, “Leftist candidates swept a trio of deep-blue House seats in New York City, a seismic victory that toppled two incumbents, including the powerful chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
And after a string of progressive battleground wins in earlier primaries, moderates are making it very clear that the left’s winning streak is potentially just starting.”
The victories in New York this week could partially be explained by local factors.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani is popular, and he endorsed a slate of progressive challengers that successfully won upset battles against rivals with heavy backing from the establishment.
Mamdani’s own surprise victory was powered by the organizational strength of the Democratic Socialists of America, which has emerged as a formidable machine in New York politics.
But the rise of the left is not just a New York story.
As Politico notes, “Progressives have romped through Democrats’ spring primaries, notching a series of wins across both safe and competitive districts and upending House and Senate Democrats’ battleplans.”
In Maine’s Democratic Senate primary, Graham Platner, an incendiary anti-system candidate, handily defeated Janet Mills, the governor of the state who had been singled out for support by the party’s Senate leader, Chuck Schumer.
Establishment Democrats are not responding to these defeats with anything resembling grace or equanimity.
In fact, they are freaking out, sometimes even openly threatening to tear the party apart rather than work in a big tent that includes a robust wing of democratic socialists.
In effect, these establishment Democrats are threatening to hold the party hostage, saying that if the left isn’t stopped, they prefer either to sit out the election or to expel the left.
In a two-party system, this sort of my-way-or-the-highway attitude runs the risk of empowering the Republicans, even in a vulnerable political environment.
Although Donald Trump is historically unpopular, the GOP might still win the midterms and elect a MAGA successor in 2028 if enough centrist Democrats throw a hissy fit and split the party.
CNN reports, “One Democratic lawmaker sitting in a battleground district told CNN that they are so concerned about the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America that they have recently begun having serious conversations with donors about leaving the party altogether.”
James Carville, former campaign advisor to Bill Clinton, expressed the same idea in more florid terms.
On a podcast, Carville ranted about Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Mamdani-backed DSA candidate who won a congressional primary on Tuesday.
Carville cited some extreme positions the candidate took when younger (such as criticizing interracial marriage), which she has since disavowed.
Despite his own constantly stated distaste for purity tests, Carville made no allowances for Avila Chevalier changing her mind.
Instead, he said,
“Lady, I ain’t in the same party as you.
I’m sorry.
I’m just not.
And I actually do think it’s time for Democrats to talk the ‘s’ word: schism.
I really do.
Everybody’s always said, ‘No, no.
We’re a coalition.
We’re a big tent.’
And there’s just some shit I can’t be in the same tent with.”
Carville went on to say that Democrats should “negotiate the terms of a schism” with DSA.
In another interview, he insisted that if Avila Chevalier wins her seat, Democrats “should not seat her in the caucus.
Her views are totally against anything that any Democrat has.
We believe in pluralism.”
Carville seems not to be aware of the irony of praising pluralism while calling for a purge.
Writing in more measured terms, Jaimie Harrison, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, also pushed for a schism in a post on X.com:
I say this with no ill will or animosity: if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don’t run for our nomination.
Don’t use our resources.
Don’t rely on our volunteers.
Don’t use our infrastructure.
Don’t ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign.
Focus on building the party you actually support.
Political parties aren’t perfect, but they’re built by millions of people who knock doors, make calls, organize meetings, and fight for the values they believe in.
If you don’t believe in the party, then don’t ask its members to carry you across the finish line.
Another advocate for a split is Cathy Young, a Never Trump conservative writer for The Bulwark.
She argued that Adriano Espaillat, who was defeated by Avila Chevalier, should run as an independent candidate in the general election.
This is the same sore loser campaign strategy used by Andrew Cuomo, who was rejected by Democratic primary voters in last year’s mayoral race and then ran in the general election, only to be trounced a second time by Zohran Mamdani.
If establishment Democrats want to use Cuomo as a template and reject the will of their own voters in this way, they will likely meet the same fate he did.
When contemplating figures such as James Carville, I’m reminded of Satan, as portrayed in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
In that immortal work, the devil offers this credo: “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.”
In modern terms, figures such as Carville believe it is better to reign in Hell over a fractured and defeated party than to be forced to serve in a victorious party dominated by the DSA.
Milton’s Satan possessed romantic nobility in his defiance.
But translated into mundane political terms, the “reign in Hell” credo is the philosophy of losers.
Speakers
5speakers39%attributed speech564writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageCNN
41 attributed words12% of attributed speech99% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.