A Tea Party for the Democrats? Be Careful What You Wish For

I get those impulses. But I have a hard time embracing any idea that in the long term would remove some of the best members of Congress (Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) and potentially bring in duds who happen to be under age 70. What we need is akin to 2018 and 2020. There were more primaries. They swept into office members of Congress such as Representatives Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley, who were more media savvy and oppositional to Trump than their predecessors. A targeted approach yielded important gains.

Pelosi has opted to retire. If Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn, the other eightysomethings who led the party with her for two decades, don’t soon announce that they are stepping aside, they deserve primaries. They’ve had their time. The bigger issue is the Senate. There is a chance, however small, that the Democrats will control the Senate, House, and presidency in 2029. If so, they’ll need to go really big then: get rid of the filibuster and pursue policies like making D.C. a state. Anyone who might stand in the way must be primaried. Delaware’s Chris Coons, Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, Rhode Island Jack’s Reed, and Virginia’s Mark Warner are up for reelection next year and occasionally like to brag about their bipartisan reputations and friendships among Republicans. We need primary challenges to them—either replacing them or forcing them to pledge to fight hard for real democracy reforms in 2029.

In 2028, some of the ringleaders of last week’s deal, including Nevada’s Catherine Cortez Masto, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, and New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan, are up for reelection. Those are swing states, so this is tricky. It’s imperative in the next few years to identify Democrats who are moderate enough to win elections in those states but who are likely to embrace a reform agenda on Capitol Hill, even if they fudge that on the campaign trail to seem more centrist. For example, Conor Lamb, who lost the 2022 Pennsylvania U.S. Senate primary to Fetterman, had a centrist voting record on Capitol Hill but would likely embrace filibuster reforms in a way that Fetterman would not.