Issue #1,076 The Choice, Thursday, September 17, 2026
The Democratic Party is supposed to be the “big tent” party, but the centrist and corporate establishment Democrats refuse to treat the progressive Democrats and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) as equal members of the party.
A reminder that the establishment Democrats lost the 2016 and 2024 elections, both with women at the top of the ticket, to Donald Trump because they did not support those candidates enough to give Democratic voters enough reasons to vote for those candidates.
Democrats did win the 2020 election and, in the first two years of Joe Biden’s administration, passed some very important legislation, even with a 50-50 split in the Senate and a very slim majority in the House.
Conservative Senators Joe Manchin (WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ) left the Senate during Biden’s term, and John Fetterman (PA) has often voted with Republicans, making it harder to pass bills.
Most importantly, the Democrats did not add justices to the U.S. Supreme Court when they had a chance, leaving us with an ultra-conservative Court that primarily does the bidding of Donald Trump.
As soon as Trump won the election both times, he and the Republicans repealed or significantly changed Biden’s legislative wins from his first two years. Now Trump and the Republicans are in charge of the entire government, including majorities in both houses of Congress and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and are quickly destroying our hard-won rights, our health and safety, the environment, and the very foundations of our democracy.
Both FDR and LBJ had large congressional majorities when they passed their major laws and policies, and we need to elect large majorities in the 2026 midterms to make the changes we need.
We need a unified Democratic Party, and we do not have that now, with less than seven weeks until November 3, 2026.
The Democratic Party is not supporting Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, who said he is not a socialist but is promoting very popular policies, such as Money Out of Politics, Money in Your Pocket, and Medicare for All. He won over the corporate Democrat Haley Stevens. Dr. El-Sayed has also said that, as a medical doctor and epidemiologist, he looks forward to calling HHS Secretary RFK Jr. out over his anti-science and anti-vaccine stances that are making Americans sick and actually killing people with the increase in measles cases.
The Democratic Party also isn’t supporting Florida State Representative Angie Nixon, a Democratic Socialist and the Democratic candidate for Senate, who beat the corporate Democrat, Alexander Vindman. Representative Nixon’s proposed policies include Medicare for All, affordable housing, free child care and paid family and sick leave, getting money out of politics, a universal jobs program, and standing with workers.
Both El-Sayed and Nixon say that their programs will be paid for by taxing the billionaires, ending Citizens United, and spending money here in America instead of on wars and violence overseas.
Meanwhile, corporate establishment Democrats are not promoting those popular proposed policies and instead are still supporting the genocide in Gaza and depending on financial support from the corporations, including AIPAC and health company lobbyists, that are against those policies.
According to historian Dr. Heather Cox Richardson, ever since the late 19th century, corporate insiders have called anything and everything that actually helps people “socialism.” Some Democrats recently voted in Congress to be against “socialism” and never use that term.
The primary feature of socialism is that society, workers, or the state—rather than private owners—owns or controls the means of production, such as factories, land, and resources. That is exactly what today’s corporate elites do not want.
And of course, the entire country has seen the phenomenal success of NYC Mayor Zorhan Mamdani, who says he is a socialist and ran for office as a Democratic Socialist. He is not only the mayor of the largest city in America, but he is the most popular mayor in the country.
The corporate Democrats do not need to become actual socialists; they just need to realize that many of the popular policies that lean socialist are the policies that most people want. They need to listen to their voters, not the corporations paying them to pass their priorities.
Establishment Democrats also should not endorse Republican candidates over progressive Democrats.
We need to have a large majority after the midterms, and we need fighters in Congress, not weak and pathetic people who won’t do what We, the People, want and need them to do.
What are your thoughts on the current Democratic Party?
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