WASHINGTON, DC – Once the firm home of the American working class, the Democratic Party now drifts in waters of its own making. After the 2024 election, Republicans took back the White House, locked down the Senate, and kept a slim House edge. The fallout has been brutal. Favorability for Democrats has slid to historic lows.

Only 29 percent of Americans view the party positively, the lowest in CNN’s three decades of polling. This is not a short-term slump. It is a collapse in trust. From factory towns to suburban cul-de-sacs, voters see a party tuned to coastal social circles, not kitchen-table needs. The New Deal coalition that lifted working families has curdled into a hard-left project, leaving room for a Republican comeback sold as plain “common sense.”

The shift is stark. In the mid-20th century, Democrats under Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman practiced practical populism. Social Security for seniors, rights for union workers, and national infrastructure were lifelines, not radical dreams.

Today, the party’s language mirrors academic panels and Twitter fights. A “socialist hellscape,” as one former operative scoffed, where equity edicts outrank economic help and gestures replace service. The base is walking away. Moderates are moving to the GOP and doing it fast.

The Far-Left Ascendancy: When Progressives Seize the Wheel

The party’s left turn was not a snap move. It was built over the years, led by activists who prized purity over votes. The rise of the “Squad” in 2018 marked the pivot. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and allies pushed the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a rewrite of capitalism as a system of harm. By 2024, that agenda set the tone. The platform leaned into wealth taxes, student debt cancellation, and racial reparations, ideas that often test poorly among swing voters.

Inside the party, critics like former Sen. Joe Manchin called it a “hostile takeover” by the far left. Compromise became a sin, centrists were branded sellouts. The Democratic Socialists of America grew from about 6,000 members to more than 90,000 by 2021, fueling primaries and rewriting policy fights.

Progressives ousted moderates in safe blue seats, from Jamaal Bowman in New York to Cori Bush in Missouri. The new bloc pushed “defund the police,” while border security slipped down the list.

The price showed up on Election Day. In 2024, Trump won 15 percent of Black voters and doubled his Latino share, according to Pew Research. Many working-class white voters now view Democrats as elite and out of touch, focused on “woke” debates over daily costs. A post-election Gallup survey found 55 percent of Democrats self-identified as liberal, a record. At the same time, 45 percent wanted moderation. The party feels split, with the far left steering, while the electorate pulls away.

Democratic Party Moderates in Exodus: The Flight to Republican Sanity

The left’s advance lit the flame. The moderate exit turned it into a blaze. The center that once defined the party, think Bill Clinton’s triangulation or Barack Obama’s coalition work, now feels unwelcome. “The party I joined to fight for the little guy became a stage for lectures,” said one Virginia Democrat in a focus group.

The numbers tell the story. From 2020 to 2024, Democrats lost 2.1 million registered voters across 30 states, while Republicans gained in each one, according to a New York Times look at L2 data. By mid-2025, the gap widened again, with 160,000 fewer Democrats and 200,000 more Republicans nationwide. High-profile switches added drama.

California state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, elected as a Democrat in 2022, joined the GOP in 2024, blasting her former party’s “leadership and policies” as out of step with her district. In Florida, two House Democrats, Susan Valdes and Hillary Casel, crossed over after the election, padding the GOP’s supermajority.

This is not a trickle. Ballotpedia counts 92 state lawmakers shifting from Democrat to Republican since 1994, with a spike in 2024 and 2025. Many moderates cite cultural battles as the breaking point, from expansive DEI mandates to gender-affirming care for minors. “I didn’t leave the Democrats; they left me,” said a Pennsylvania steelworker in American Bridge focus groups. Gallup’s 2025 data shows young men moving right by 16 points since 2008, pulled by GOP talk on jobs and security.

This migration looks less like betrayal and more like self-preservation. Republicans, recast under Trump as the party of “forgotten Americans,” offer a clear pitch. Cut taxes, enforce the law, and put the country first without pronoun lectures. As one former Democrat in Ohio said, “The GOP feels like it remembers what a paycheck means.” The tent that once fit many now leans hard, pushing out the pragmatists who once won swing races.

CNN’s Verdict: A Voter Bloodletting in Black and White

CNN’s numbers capture the slide in brutal detail. In March 2025, CNN’s SSRS survey put Democratic favorability at 29 percent, the lowest since 1992. Only 63 percent of Democrats viewed their own party positively, down from 81 percent in 2021. By July, favorability fell to 28 percent, a slight drop from March’s record low, as anger over inflation and the border mounted.

These are not abstract figures. They show open revolt. In January 2025, CNN found 57 percent of Democrats calling for major change, citing leaders as “out of touch” and too weak against Republicans. Among working-class voters who left, 65 percent blamed economic neglect.

An NBC poll around the same time pinned overall favorability at 27 percent, the lowest since the 1990s. Frustration runs deep inside the base. A Quinnipiac survey found 49 percent of Democrats disapproved of Congress, a sign of a party turning on itself.

The demographic shifts are explosive. Voters under 50, who backed Biden by 17 points in 2020, gave Harris only a 7-point edge in 2024, according to Pew. About 8 percent flipped to Trump. Latino men moved away by double digits, tired of identity lectures while bills pile up. CNN’s polling points to a stark risk. Keep bleeding like this, and the party becomes a regional force, locked in urban strongholds while the rest of the map turns red.

Beyond the Rainbow: The Backlash Against Identity Overload

At the core of the rift sits identity politics fatigue. What began as fair civil rights goals, from affirmative action to LGBTQ+ protections, now feels like a consuming fixation. Voters say it looks performative and out of touch. A 2025 Economist/YouGov poll found 57 percent supported laws that require IDs to list birth sex, not gender identity.

Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats to back parental vetoes on youth transitions. PRRI’s American Values Survey showed 47 percent opposed bans on gender-affirming care, but 57 percent favoured birth-sex markers on IDs. That mix points to a public ready for moderation.

Voters are not rejecting progress. They are tired of its weaponization. In focus groups, working-class swing voters across races slammed Democrats for chasing “D.E.I. hires” while ignoring shop floors and paychecks.

A Harvard Youth Poll showed ideology drives views more than gender, with 46 percent of young Republicans, men and women alike, citing “women’s promiscuity” as a social problem. The 19th News poll found most men prefer traditional roles, while women are split, widening a gender gap that helped Harris with young women by 12 points over young men.

This looks less like backlash and more like burnout. Republicans spent about $100 million on transgender-focused ads in 2024. Those ads alone did not decide races, but they reinforced a storyline. Democrats care more about pronouns than paychecks.

As one Rust Belt voter told NPR, “They fight for everyone but us.” Talk of intersectionality, where race, gender, and class stack into grievance, leaves moderates muttering about “reverse discrimination.” With inflation hitting 40-year highs, many see all of this as tone-deaf, even insulting.

Power Plays: When Elites Eclipse the Electorate

Underneath the policy fights sits a deeper problem. Party leaders, sealed in the Beltway, look more focused on political comfort than public pain. Sen. Chuck Schumer’s shrug that “Trump will screw up,” and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries’ talk of “no leverage,” sound like surrender, not leadership. A February 2025 survey found only 22 percent of Democrats think Congress stands up to Trump enough. Nearly half faulted Democrats in Congress for poor performance.

Voters sense self-interest. American Bridge’s $4.5 million “Working Class Project” surfaced a stinging belief. “Democrats don’t care about people like me; their first goal is other groups.” Many see a pattern. From the messy Afghanistan exit to evasive messaging on transgender issues, insiders come first, while everyday concerns wait. Progressives like Pramila Jayapal blast corporate donors, yet the DNC’s biggest backers, from tech to Hollywood, still shape the agenda.

The twist is bitter. A party built to lift the powerless now seems to protect its own standing. That alienates the people who once carried it to victory. Gov. Josh Shapiro warned that Democrats fail “to address real concerns,” preferring social media spats over town halls. In focus groups, former Democrats praise a GOP that “fights for Americans instead of everybody else.” Power became the goal. That swap has cost the party its core identity.

Toward a Republican Renaissance? The Common-Sense Counterrevolution

As Democrats stumble, Republicans polish a “common sense” brand. It sounds practical and feels familiar in places where progressive talk falls flat. Trump’s 2024 gains with non-college voters, up 8 points per Pew, were no fluke. They reflected a promise to focus on paychecks, borders, and crime. The GOP platform kept purity tests light and tax relief front and center, pulling moderates toward it.

This is not blind loyalty to Trump. It reflects backlash to the Democratic drift. A POLITICO review found Democrats underwater with their own voters on congressional approval for the first time. People want pushback without chaos.

Republicans see the opening and move to fill it. They court young men on podcasts like Joe Rogan’s, show up at factories, and stress work and order. “The damage is profound,” said one Democratic strategist. The party’s “broken image” hands the story to Republicans, who sell repair instead of revolution.

There is still room to recover. A Gallup plurality of Democrats, 45 percent, wants moderation. That is a clear banner to rally around. To be competitive in the 2026 midterms, Democrats need to drop purity tests, refocus on wages, prices, and safety, and remember this simple rule. Voters want public servants, not saviours. Until then, the Republican “common sense” tide keeps rising, and a once-dominant party risks slipping into the margins.

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LOS ANGELES – In today’s rough-and-tumble political scene, few conservative thinkers carry as much weight as Victor Davis Hanson. A leading voice in classical and military history, he offers steady analysis in a time of noise and spin. As the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, he applies a lifetime of study to current events.

Born in 1953 on his family farm in Selma, California, he shares the rural traditions he often writes about. A fifth-generation farmer, he worked full-time in orchards and vineyards from 1980 to 1984, then turned to teaching.

He earned a B.A. in classics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1975, followed by a Ph.D. at Stanford in 1980. He founded the classics programme at California State University, Fresno, and later became professor emeritus there.

His awards match the scale of his scholarship. In 2007, President George W. Bush presented him with the National Humanities Medal for his work on Western thought. In 2008, he won the Bradley Prize for contributions to liberty and civic life.

Other honours include the Eric Breindel Award for Opinion Journalism (2002), the Claremont Institute’s Henry Salvatori Award (2022), and the American Spirit Award from the National World War II Museum (2021).

He has held fellowships with the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander Onassis Foundation, and was named alumnus of the year by UC Santa Cruz. He has written more than two dozen books.

Victor Davis Hanson Syndicated

Key titles include The Western Way of War (1989), a major study of Greek hoplite warfare, and Carnage and Culture (2001), an account of why Western militaries have often prevailed through innovation and confidence. His essays appear in National Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, and his syndicated columns reach a wide audience each week.

What makes Hanson a touchstone for many conservatives is his mix of historical insight and frank cultural critique. He often draws lines between ancient examples and modern dilemmas, comparing the complacency of late Rome to elite detachment in America, or reading lessons from the Peloponnesian War into recent foreign policy errors.

His appeal rests not only on learning, but on connection to place. He writes as a farmer-scholar from the Central Valley, not as a coastal insider. He backs traditional ideas like merit, free speech, and deterrence, which speak to readers weary of identity politics and expanding bureaucracy.

A Hoover Institution profile called his approach “principled realism”, a stance that some see as echoing Andrew Jackson’s spirit.

Influential figures such as Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich have praised his clarity. Limbaugh hailed The Case for Trump, first published in 2019 and updated in 2024, as an ideal guide to the 45th president. In an academy that leans left, his position at Hoover gives him a central role as a classicist within modern conservatism, with reach from Capitol Hill to campaign war rooms.

Hasnons Case for Trump

Hanson’s case for Donald J. Trump is central to his recent work. He presents Trump not as a wrecking ball, but as a needed counterforce to a tired and self-protective class. In the updated The Case for Trump, he argues the 2016 result was a Jacksonian revolt, not a fluke. The outsider with no prior office overcame 16 Republican rivals and a well-funded Democratic effort by tapping the anger of the heartland.

That coalition included working-class whites, some union voters, and a fifth to a third of Latino and African American voters who felt looked down on by elites. Hanson compares Trump’s rise to ancient figures who upset entrenched circles, but he says the turbulence has purpose.

In his view, the country could not endure serial presidencies as volatile as Trump’s, yet after years of drift, it needed one outsider who would take on tasks that career politicians would avoid. He argues this posture allows Trump to uproot the stale practices of globalisation, identity sorting, and bureaucratic sprawl.

At home, Hanson frames a second Trump term, beginning in January 2025, as a counterrevolution on the scale of the New Deal, only with a restorative aim. In essays such as “Can Trump Revolutionize America?” in The Free Press (March 2025), he lists early claims of progress.

He points to tougher border policy aimed at reversing what he counts as 10 million illegal crossings under Biden, sweeping deregulation to cut federal costs by trillions over time, and tax changes that put growth ahead of deficits.

Radical Revolution

He says Trump ignores corporate pressure for cheap migrant labour, channels immigration through legal points of entry, and shifts culture from grievance to pride, a trend he links to public figures who once knelt for “systemic racism” and now celebrate wins. On trade and finance, he backs tariffs as a bid for fair-dealing with China and others, guarding American industry and shoring up the dollar’s reserve status.

In society, he targets “woke” orthodoxies. He casts universities as overpriced indoctrination centres that should lose public funds if they silence speech, and calls for procurement reforms in the armed forces to sweep away DEI rules that he believes hurt recruiting and morale. Grounded in his farming past and his study of Greek citizen-soldiers, he praises a system based on merit and duty.

He says this turn would correct the “radical revolution” of the 2020s, which he describes as an Obama third term under Biden, marked by open borders, expanding entitlements, and runaway debt. He wants a reset to constitutional standards and renewed class mobility.

On foreign affairs, Hanson argues the world grows safer when America projects toughness with restraint. He highlights what he calls Trump’s “principled realism”, or a Jacksonian do-not-tread-on-us stance that deters foes without starting new conflicts.

In The Case for Trump, he credits the first term with no major new wars, record domestic energy output that undercut OPEC, and the Abraham Accords, which he says supported a calmer Middle East.

He contends the Biden years rolled back these gains. After Trump’s 2024 win, Hanson points to swift moves he endorses, such as pausing aid to Ukraine to force a negotiated end, paired with resource deals, hitting Iran’s nuclear assets with precise strikes, and leaning on Europe to meet NATO duties in the face of Russian pressure in the Baltics.

Support Isn’t Hero Worshiping

He argues Biden’s approach rewarded bad actors, citing the Afghanistan exit, Chinese balloons, and Houthis attacks in the Red Sea. Under Trump, he says, leaders like Putin and Xi would rethink their plans. He claims tariffs crimp China’s Belt and Road push, and that Israel’s actions against Hamas and Iranian-linked sites gained from stronger US backing after 7 October.

Drawing on The Second World Wars (2017), he warns that American power is finite, so friends should find no better ally and enemies no worse foe. He believes Trump follows that rule, which in his view helps avoid long slogs like the Ukraine crisis or prolonged fighting in Gaza. In a 2025 Hoover podcast, he urges a review of the UN’s New York base, calling it a spent institution like the League of Nations, out of step with real threats.

Hanson says his support is not hero worship, but a judgment shaped by history. He casts Trump as the cure for what he describes as Barack Obama’s flawed reading of demography, where affirmative action grew into tribal politics, and for Joe Biden’s careful branding of radical measures as moderate.

He claims Trump’s knack for baiting elites exposes double standards, from antisemitism on campus to legal cases timed for effect, including those brought by Jack Smith. For conservatives, his voice draws on hard work in Selma’s vineyards and long study of wars from Marathon to the Somme. It backs a picture of America that is guarded, orderly, and fair, where strength keeps the peace and common sense replaces revolution.

He also warns of obstacles. In “Reflections on the Counter-Revolution in America” (June 2025), he argues that the left’s pushback, from lawfare and media storms to sanctuary city defiance, mirrors the zeal of French radicals. He cites early 2025 moves like cancelling clearances for Biden-era officials and cutting refugee funding as early tests of resolve.

Yet he stays upbeat. He says Trump’s base now includes many former Democrats, a sign of a broader “MAGA meritocracy” with staying power. Across his X feed and podcasts, he returns to a theme from antiquity. Great powers fall when they grow soft, but they recover when leaders confront decline.

Hanson’s staying power comes from this mix of history and straight talk. For readers tired of drift, he offers not only argument, but assurance. In his view, Trump’s revolution is not chaos; it is a last push to save the republic.

In a time of wars abroad and discord at home, he says a steadier and safer world is within reach for those who restore deterrence and demand fair play. Like a farmer turning the soil, he works to prepare the ground where hope can grow.

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NEW YORK – After the bruising 2024 election, where Democrats suffered major setbacks, anxiety has spread through the party’s traditional base. Centrists and moderates, the practical voters in suburban swing seats who once powered Joe Biden, now warn of a hard-left turn.

Their worry is simple. Figures like Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, are not outliers. They are the face of a party moving left, economically aggressive, and risky with mainstream voters.

Mamdani’s rapid rise, built on a June 2025 primary win with pledges like a 30-dollar minimum wage, rent freezes, and city-run grocery shops, has heightened those fears. Critics, from business leaders to Democrats such as Sen. John Fetterman, call him “not even a Democrat honestly,” accusing him of pushing socialist plans that could wreck city budgets and drive away working-class voters.

With Mamdani polling well against independents like former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Eric Adams, many see more than a New York story. They see a preview of the party’s 2028 approach, where compromise gives way to ideological purity.

This panic fits a bigger storyline. The progressive wing has, in the eyes of its critics, wrested control of the party over the last decade, powered by young, media-savvy activists. What began as a fringe burst in the 2018 midterms now looks like a dominant bloc, with centrists shunted aside.

Congressional Progressive Caucus

At the centre is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Bronx organiser-turned-MP whose 2018 upset over a two-decade incumbent announced the Squad’s arrival. The group includes Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, and, later, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman.

All members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have used viral media, demands for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and primary threats against party stalwarts who deviate.

By 2025, that influence feels like control. AOC, now 35 and a household name, tops CNN polling as the perceived leader of the Democratic Party, ahead of figures like Barack Obama and rising MPs such as AOC and  Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Crockett, a Texas lawyer-turned-congresswoman elected in 2022, captures the next wave of Squad-style politics.

Her viral clashes with Republicans made her a media star, but her past nods to “defund the police” and digs at party elders show the same insurgent streak. Together, they have shifted the party from a big tent to a vehicle for hard-left ideas, with identity politics, redistribution, and anti-capital messaging eclipsing the pocketbook focus that wins in swing territory.

The shift shows up most clearly in the pressure on moderates. In 2024 primaries, progressive groups like Justice Democrats poured millions into challenges against so-called corporate Democrats, punishing those who broke with them on Israel and economic policy.

Bad Look for Democrats

Crockett, mentioned for roles like House Oversight Committee ranking member, has mocked the party’s seniority system as stuck in the past, urging a generational handover that rewards loud reformers, not dealmakers. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith captured the mood on HBO’s Real Time in August 2025, blasting AOC and Crockett as a “bad look” for the party.

“Republicans are having a field day,” he said, warning that elevating these figures risks electoral collapse. Post-2024 assessments in outlets like The Hill echo that view, arguing the Squad’s message, rooted in failed 2020 slogans like defunding the police, shrank the coalition and cost seats in right-leaning districts that once backed Democrats on stability and security.

Critics say this is not an accident; it is a method. The progressive left capitalised on the party’s post-Trump confusion, using grassroots power and donor cash to overpower moderates. AOC’s “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Bernie Sanders in 2025 raised 21 million dollars.

Yet, as Crockett reportedly told The Atlantic in private, it looked like self-promotion more than party-building, showing rifts inside the left even as the faction grows. On X, conservatives mock a “Squad hijacking” as a gift to Trumpism. Users like @BullDogBorn15 question whether Mamdani’s brand of socialism unites anyone, repeating the fear that Democrats are becoming a party of big-city radicals, not national leaders.

On Reddit’s r/AskALiberal, some praise Crockett’s firebrand style. Many centrists push back, saying they would rather back a winner like Joe Manchin than lose with a candidate like Paula Jean Swearengin. The message is blunt. All-in progressivism carries a big electoral risk.

The Rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

The tension is sharpest in Congress, where AOC is seen as the power behind the curtain. Polls show her beating Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in imagined 2028 New York primaries, 54 to 33 in a Data for Progress survey, with even bigger spreads elsewhere.

Republicans such as Vice President JD Vance and Sen. Markwayne Mullin blamed the October 2025 shutdown on Schumer “listening to far-left radicals,” saying he blocked clean funding bills because he feared an AOC challenge.

AOC called that “ridiculous,” and said Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries were leading the fight. Reports in WIRED tell a tougher story. Schumer’s “stuck in the ’90s” style has worn thin, with insiders guessing he will retire after 2026 to avoid a showdown. Trump piled on in October 2025, saying AOC is “taking Hakeem Jeffries’ place,” a jab at her influence.

Schumer’s moves, including support for progressive asks on spending and foreign aid, look like attempts to head off revolt. During the shutdown, he rallied Democrats against a Republican continuing resolution after AOC publicly demanded added health care protections, which forced his hand. The episode split the Senate caucus.

Nine Democrats broke ranks on a 2025 Israel aid bill, lifted by Squad pressure that Schumer could not contain. TIME reported that even centrists now talk about an “AOC Senate,” with her Gaza comments and anti-oligarchy rallies exciting the base and spooking Jewish donors and moderates. Crockett ducked direct talk of a Schumer fight, but hinted at an “appetite for fresher candidates” by 2028, a sign of the left’s long-term play.

Business Owners Preparing to Flee

The policy package rattles the centre. Universal basic income pilots, cuts to police budgets, and so-called sewer socialism, the kind Mamdani backs, are untested at scale. Mamdani’s DSA links, once dismissed, now help him edge toward a possible win in November 2025, which would make him the country’s most high-profile socialist mayor.

Business leaders, according to ABC News, are in “panic mode,” coordinating with Adams to stop him, worried about tax hikes and a flight of firms and high earners. Nationally, this softer form of socialism mirrors AOC’s Green New Deal. Polls suggest it excites young voters and turns off seniors and independents, the same groups Democrats lost in 2024.

Even so, the left flank acts as if moderates belong to the past. Crockett’s MSNBC clips slam the “old ways,” and AOC’s tour with Sanders frames compromise as betrayal. On X, users call the “Squad hijacking” a slow-motion self-own, with a 2020 thread warning it cost moderate seats. Roll Call notes Republicans now cast Crockett and AOC as their preferred foils, since their viral soundbites make easy ads.

For centrists, the worry is survival. A party driven by ideologues could be locked out of power. Yahoo argues that AOC and Crockett speak to a shrinking faction of purists and that this undercuts hopes for 2028, risking a return to Trump-era irrelevance.

Mamdani’s rise, AOC’s sway over Schumer, and the push to purge moderates do not look like wins to them. They look like warnings. Unless pragmatists take back control, Democrats could become a socialist showcase, while the country’s centre drifts away.

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