CENTRIST DEMOCRATS STILL HATE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS MORE THAN REPUBLICANS, GOOD COP EDITION

A new Axios story suggests that mainstream Democrats are starting to understand why so many of the party's voters are choosing progessives and democratic socialists rather than centrists:

The Democratic establishment's ideas deficit

The centrist Democratic group Third Way recently declared "war" on democratic socialists to head off what they fear could be a far-left hijacking of the party ahead of 2028.

But establishment Democrats have made clear what they're against without making much of a case for what they're for.

Why it matters: It's hard to beat something with nothing.

Democratic socialism, whatever you think of it, is easy to grasp: Tax billionaires and redistribute wealth. Provide government-funded health care and child care for everyone. Rely less on markets for housing and education. Empower workers with stronger unions.

The establishment vision is murky. Raise taxes, but not too high; use government to make health care and child care more affordable, rather than taking them over; rein in the excesses of capitalism without upending capitalism itself.

That's a tougher vision to sum up, let alone rally behind.

"Without question, we agree with the left that we have failed to convince working-class voters that their lives will be better if they put us in charge," Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett told Axios. "You'd have to be insane to disagree."

So with fewer than ninety days to go before Election Day, it's finally dawned on these schmucks that they could have spent this year giving voters a reason to vote for them. They didn't, and now they're paying the price.

But the point of the story isn't to try to rectify that act of political malpractice. It's to put a nicer face on the centrists' war with their real enemy (DSA, not the GOP).

Third Way recently announced a $15 million campaign to take on the progressive left.

Bennett said Third Way has 100-plus people working on a policy menu — a "new kind of offer for working-class voters who have abandoned Democrats" — that he hopes 2028 Democrats will draw from.

The story reporting on Third Way's declaration of "war" appeared in The New York Times and revealed Third Way's "bad cop" side:

“We are preparing for the next war that is coming,” said Jonathan Cowan, the president of Third Way, a leading centrist Democratic group, revealing to The New York Times a new $15 million effort between now and 2028 to discredit democratic socialism.

Third Way apparently realized that this was offputting, so it planted the new Axios story, which depicts the group's "good cop" side: Hey, this isn't really an attempt to beat the democratic socialists into submission -- we're actually planning to compete with them in the marketplace of ideas! It's a healthy rivalry! May the best ideas win!

But the ideas seem a tad ... weak:

There are already clear examples of centrists drawing a bright line with democratic socialists, [Bennett] added. "Where we strongly differ with them is around the particulars. They're for Medicare for all, and we're for ... a health care bill of rights that would improve the existing system, not throw it out and replace it with a $30 trillion socialization of the health care space."

(Did he really say "health care space"? Centrists say that Democrats alienate ordinary Americans by using what they call "faculty lounge language," then they turn around and use corporate boardroom language.)

Why didn't the centrists start developing an agenda two years ago, so they could have had it ready for the midterms? Why don't centrist Democrats simply have an agenda ready to go at all times, because, y'know, they're in politics and politicians are supposed to have ideas?

And even if this is the "good cop" side of the war on democratic socialists, why is this more important, at this moment, than a war on Republicans?

Even Axios seems to know that centrist ideas aren't very exciting:

Some liberals have tried to chart a fresh direction for the party. Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argued in a 2025 book that Democrats should become the party of "abundance" — building more housing, infrastructure and clean energy — by cutting red tape and making government work better.

But it hasn't caught fire.

The Axios story quotes Rahm Emanuel apparently conceding that democratic socialists are winning the ideas war:

"Give progressives credit for bringing ideas to the table. Pragmatists haven't been as good as we need to be about offering our own ideas and agenda," potential Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel wrote on X.

But when you read his entire tweet, which he posted just after David Crowley's victory over Francesca Hong in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, you can see that his message appears to be: We outnumber you commies! We don't really need ideas!

Another Election Day, another result the pollsters and the conventional wisdom misread. The DSA and the far left get the press while the pragmatists notch key wins: WI, MO, HI, VA.

The turnout surge across the South has been driven by the party's most reliable voters, not its loudest online voices. Each wing of the party knows the game's rigged for insiders at the expense of those trying to stretch every paycheck; we just disagree on the fix.

Give progressives credit for bringing ideas to the table. Pragmatists haven't been as good as we need to be about offering our own ideas and agenda. You can't beat something with nothing, and too often we're prisoners of the moment. But what these elections are showing is that the pragmatic wing isn't a faction of this party. It's the majority, it's awake now, and it's exerting itself.

Yesterday we had Hakeem Jeffries on Meet the Press offering elements of a centrist agenda (basically progressivism, but diluted)...

Jeffries stop short of committing to holding a vote to abolish ICE is he's House Speaker next January, but says he's "committed to dramatically reforming ICE ... the masks should come off, body cameras should come on, judicial warrants should be required."

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 16, 2026 at 10:35 AM

... while also playing bad cop, smearing democratic socialist candidates by linking them to ideas most don't espouse, even if the DSA itself does:

WELKER: Do democratic socialists belong in the Dem Party? JEFFRIES: What I can say is I do not support defunding the police, I do not support open borders, I do not support abolishing the Senate. We're focused on actually solving the problems hard-working American taxpayer want us to solve ...

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 16, 2026 at 10:32 AM

The fighting rages. The fight against Republicans seems, if anything, like a second front. The battle against DSA is the main war.