We’ve been here before
A national organizer advised several years ago that Anderson Clayton, 24, and I needed to know each other. The first time we spoke was by phone. I had to hold the phone away from my ear. She spoke fast and she was loud. She brought energy I saw lacking in conflict-averse Democratic oldsters of my generation. I was sold. About 18 months later, I supported her run for N.C. Democrats’ state chair against a much older incumbent.
Nearly five years before that meeting, I wrote after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Donald Trump:
Nothing like a good drubbing to motivate people. I suppose that’s something to be thankful for this morning. The upside is it seems to be getting people off the couch for the first time ever….
[…]
A broader problem is going to be installing new blood in a Democratic Party encrusted with old ideas and old habits and slow to make way for new talent still on that learning curve. Sen. Chuck Schumer may have rushed to embrace Rep. Keith Ellison’s bid for DNC chair, but he’s reading the wind, not suddenly embracing a fresh vision. There still is not an appetite at top levels for new leadership. The White House is exploring instead whether Joe Biden might be interested or “whether Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez and former Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan would be willing to run for the post.” Whatever their accomplishments and talents, that won’t say “new hotness” to an emerging generation of activists hungry for a party overhaul. It will sound more like “old and busted.”
Non-authoritarians among us suffered an even more impactful drubbing last November. The mass deportations and the massacre world financial markets suffered last week were only the leading edge of the fallout. Eight years on, Chuck Schumer is still testing the wind direction.
Young people set to inherit the mess left them by their elders are following the lead of people Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Clayton. Some were rather unhappy when in December the Democrats’ House leadership selected a 74-year-old over AOC as ranking member of the Oversight and Accountability Committee (The Washington Post):
For [Saikat] Chakrabarti — a 39-year-old software engineer turned political operative who ran Ocasio-Cortez’s 2018 upset primary campaign in New York — it was another sign that the Democratic Party is dominated by an older generation of leaders who he says have lost touch with Americans’ day-to-day struggles. Though Pelosi, 85, stepped down from leadership in 2022 to elevate the next generation, he argues that nearly four decades in Congress “is enough” and that the party needs younger leaders who can do away with a “culture of caution.”
“People are looking for fighters,” said Chakrabarti, who rankled many House Democrats with his confrontational tactics while briefly serving as Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff in 2019. “This old generation of leadership, they’ve been around for so long that they don’t recognize that this Republican Party is a completely different Republican Party. They’re just hoping that the backlash of Trump will build up and we’ll let the pendulum swing back our way.”
Chakrabarti is among those stepping up to “encourage” their elders to find other ways than elective office to scratch their political itches.
In Los Angeles, 37-year-old Jake Rakov announced last week that he is running for the seat of his former boss, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-California), 70. His launch video states that “this isn’t mom and dad’s America anymore” and that it’s time for a leader who can fight effectively in “Donald Trump’s MAGA hellscape.”
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, 38, last week announced bid for her state’s open U.S. Senate seat. Running as a millennial, she’s “coming to grips with the possibility that those in her generation will be worse off than their parents.” You wonder why as a group people under 35 are less engaged and registering as independents?
And in Illinois, Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old content creator, is calling for a “bolder Democratic Party” that doesn’t “suck” as she runs for the seat of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is 80 and serving her 14th term. Abughazaleh built her brand on social media by taking on right-wing media— and she argues that many younger voters would feel less “alone” if they had more representatives their age in Congress with shared experiences such as coping with the rising cost of living and the terror of going without health insurance.
It’s not enough that women now see themselves represented more in Congress, or racial or ethnic minorities. Perhaps younger voters tend to vote less because they don’t see people their age represented. There’s a thought.
… some younger Democrats are treating their party’s age issue with more urgency after their November losses. Some of the younger candidates who are stepping up to run say there has been very little introspection about the November results, and about why, according to an NBC News poll conducted last month, only 27 percent of registered voters have a positive view of Democrats.
“It feels like, historically, the Democrats and Republicans are sitting down to play a game of chess, and the Republicans have set the house on fire, and Democrats are still sitting down planning their next move,” McMorrow said in an interview.
“It is not enough to stand behind a podium in front of the Capitol in Washington and say, ‘We are fighting for you,’ and then turn around and just send text messages with a portrait of yourself asking for $5,” she said.
I’m a Boomer, and she’s right. One of the most frequent criticisms I hear of the Democratic Party is that the only time people hear from them is when they email or text asking for money. That’s because Senators and House members holding a press conference is not exactly fodder for a viral TikTok. Cory Booker’s marathon filibuster broke through the noise, but most other communication is stillborn.
New hotness, please.
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