No, the left is not at war with itself.
The headlines about Democratic "infighting" are designed to sow division and blunt the left's momentum ahead of the midterms.
If you were on social media at all this weekend, you may have caught this inflammatory headline about Hillary Clinton supposedly throwing left-wing candidates under the bus, which went viral (in a very bad way) on X:
The headline and photo read as if Hillary herself was calling Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed communist as a pejorative and warning that the Democratic Party has moved too far left. It was designed to fuel frustration and bitterness among progressives and to suggest that the party fault lines are dangerously deepening ahead of the midterms.
Few people, I’m going to assume, actually clicked through to get the full context of Clinton’s quote. Here is what Hillary actually said on Kara Swisher’s podcast about the Senate Democratic primary that Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel moderate, just lost this week to the more progressive El-Sayed:
“The real fight will be, how do we make sure that people who voted for Haley feel comfortable voting for Abdul El-Sayed, and how do we get Independents to feel comfortable?” Clinton said.
“It’s not just about Michigan, but the Republican messaging is ‘communist, socialist.’ It’s going to be a very effective attack,” she said. “People on the left have to be prepared to answer that and be effective in answering that.”
When Swisher asked if Clinton actually believes that the “communist” label is going to work against Democratic candidates in 2026, Clinton said, “All I know is that is the attack Trump is leading with, and I assume they’ve tested that and I assume they have reason to believe it’s effective or they wouldn’t be beating the drum on it.”
Nothing about what Hillary said here should actually piss anyone off. This was reasonable political analysis made, ultimately, in support of leftist candidates. It’s true that Republicans are going all in on reviving the Red Scare and that the “commie” thing might actually work on some low-information Boomer voters. If you found yourself seething at Hillary Clinton this weekend over this supposed betrayal, then Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post headline definitely had its intended effect on you.
And it’s not just the (overtly fascist) NY Post; much of the mainstream media seems to be latching onto this narrative that the left is currently eating its own. Here’s the New York Times talking about a “war” by the Democrats against the ascendant left:
…but when you click through to the piece, it’s just an interview with the president of the moderate corporate think tank Third Way saying they’re spending money to help Republicans win in November.
Here’s Fox News, likewise, featuring James Carville as the quintessential moderate Democrat threatening to leave the party over Hasan Piker (lmao), even though Carville has been a raging conservative and irrelevant dinosaur for at least a decade:
Guys: Nobody need give a shit about what James Carville has to say. There’s also no need to give a shit about John Fetterman, who literally had a stroke and woke up Republican, “threatening to leave” the party over a leftist podcaster who is not running for anything. Fetterman would lose his Pennsylvania Senate race to a ham sandwich right now if he were running; he doesn’t represent any voters.
Smart Democrats who actually care about clawing the country back from its current condition understand the reality at play here, which is that they have to be a big tent party if they want to control anything. Centrists can worry that the left has hijacked the party and the left can be angry that centrists are holding it hostage to corporate interests, but the factions must find common cause right now in rooting out the current administration or the entire exercise is pointless. The way to do this is simply to respect primary voters: If El Sayed is who Michigan Democrats choose, the party enthusiastically rallies behind him; if Jon Ossoff is the choice in Georgia, the party gets behind him with the same vigor. It’s okay to send socialist-adjacent candidates to the Senate alongside neoliberals—let them battle it out with ideas on the Senate floor, rather than having an existential crisis right before the midterms.
Also, this is pretty much what’s happening! Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a Democrat who I have very little in common with ideologically, is nevertheless doing what I would like him to do right now and reaching out to El Sayed to offer his full backing and support. “I said to him, ‘I don’t need you to like me,’” Schumer said this week. “‘I just need you to win.’” Pete Buttigieg joined El Sayed at a unity rally in Detroit this weekend. Most prominent Dems aren’t actually spinning their wheels trying to quash the leftist insurgency right now; they’re focusing on clawing the majority back from Republicans in November, as they should be.
There may be a strong argument to be made that a man like Schumer and a man like Zohran Mamdani do not belong in the same party. The two-party system inherently disadvantages the side that tends to be pickier and more thoughtful in choosing its candidates, as opposed to just voting for whatever bozo hates immigrants and has an R behind his name. But the reality of the current moment is this: The Trump administration has erected concentration camps in our backyards. They’ve started a pointless war, lost that war almost immediately, and humiliated the US on a global stage. They’ve tanked the economy, driven up food and gas prices, stripped pollution regulations and protections for endangered species, and opened up national parks to logging and drilling. They’ve defunded medical research and driven hordes of scientists out of the country. They let Elon Musk feed USAID into the wood chipper, killing millions upon millions of children who needed help.
The goal right now must be the broader fight. Defeat this administration; root it out; hold it accountable; attempt to reverse its damage. When a candidate in your party wins by actually listening to his or her voters, that is a win for you. This election is still very much the Democrats’ to lose.
I'm so angry we got the timeline where HRC lost her presidential bid.