The reaction of the Democrats to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani says something about how lost they are as a party. When you're embracing someone who has used the radical language he has, you may have a problem.
As Rebecca Downs at our sister site Townhall reported, Democratic strategist Joel Payne tried to square that circle during a panel discussion on "CNN NewsNight With Abby Phillip" on Thursday:
"Democrats actually should be happy that we have folks, again, who have a wide range of appeal that are within our tent," Payne claimed. "And you're going to need Zohran Mamdanis and people who are moved by Zohran Mamdani as a part of a bigger Democratic coalition."
"So, yes, he might not use the language, he might not actually line up with the agenda of every other Democrat across the country, but that's okay. I mean, you, big tent parties need to have room for people who do not actually align pure--purely with every single thing that the master party says," he continued, as he went after Jennings for chuckling about such a point.
READ MORE: Watch: Zohran Mamdani's New Comments About Billionaires, ICE and Taxes Have Jaws Dropping
That's when Scott Jennings skewered that claim of "big tent diversity" from the Democrats.
Democrats are having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that Republicans are taking all of their voters.
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 4, 2025
The Democratic tent is so diverse that in one corner they have the socialists and in the other corner they have the communists! It's really wide - lol pic.twitter.com/nkd7tRC8t4
"I mean, their tent is so diverse that in one corner, you have the socialists, and in the other corner, the communists. It's really wide!" he snarked.
At another point in the conversation, Jennings got down to the nub of the problem for the Democrats: their extremism and the GOP's better policies have caused a flood of former Democrats to flee to the Republicans, which is one of the reasons President Donald Trump won the popular vote in 2024.
"Democrats are having hard time coming to grips with the fact that we're taking all of their voters, working class Americans, multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-generational working class Americans all over this country who heretofore have almost uniformly voted Democrat en masse came towards the Republican party last November, and Trump did win the national popular vote because of it. It is an ideologically diverse party because of all of our new constituents."
Democrats have two big problems and they're related. First, the lack of ideological diversity, with the energy on the radical left side of the party, and the "moderates" willing to embrace them. That leads to the second problem: bad policies that people don't want, once they understand what you're trying to sell them.
Jennings pointed out how this contrast was playing out in NYC, that it was the rich liberals who could leave who voted in the Democratic primary for Mamdani, and that the working class voted for other people.
Rich, white liberals in NYC voted for a communist because they know they can afford to LEAVE once he destroys the city.
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 5, 2025
The working class will be left to clean up the mess. They may end up flipping NYC red before this is all said and done. pic.twitter.com/8AnO1uniQq
Now faced with trying to find their way out of the chaos and figure out why they are lost in 2024 and hemorrhaging voters, Democrats are still embracing the radical left.
It's likely what will continue do them in, in 2026.
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