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1. Social. Democrats.
I don’t begrudge Wisconsin Democratic voters the decision to embark on the Great Francesca Hong Experiment.
But, you know, they shouldn’t have any illusions as to how this is going to turn out.
There are two ideas in tension here.
The first idea is that Democrats, as a party, need to try lots of different stuff. They need to try diligent centrists, Christian libs, populist crusaders, and McKinsey-style technocrats. It’s not crazy to think that they should also try full-monty DSA. You don’t know what the product-market fit is going to be until you test the market.
The second idea is that many of these elections matter. If Hong loses—and I suspect she’s going to get absolutely smoked in November—then there will be a Republican election denier with the power to monkey with certification and voting in a possible tipping-point state in 2028.
So, sure. It’s fine to experiment. But also: You can’t pretend these are free shots.
I have been asked over and over about the DSA-Democratic party split and today I want to propose a solution. Because there’s a way to bring new ideas into the Democratic party while keeping out the people who want to destroy the party.
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