Tuesday

June 2nd, 2026

Insight

Dems Are in No Position to Lecture Anyone About Candidates

David Harsanyi

By David Harsanyi

Published June 1, 2026

Dems Are in No Position to Lecture Anyone About Candidates
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Democrats are again acting like they occupy the high moral ground of American politics. But if 2026 has proven anything, it's that there's virtually nothing a left-wing candidate could say or do that would elicit condemnation from Democrats if doing so threatened their power.

Democrats, for example, demand credit for their opposition to Maureen Galindo, the Texas congressional candidate who proposed putting American "Zionists" (wink, wink) into concentration camps and castrating them, lost her Texas primary last week, winning 36% of the vote — not a bad showing for a politician championing mass imprisonment of her political enemies.

The question, though, is whether House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or anyone at Pod Save America or the Bulwark had uttered a word in protest, had Galindo already won her primary before making those comments? All the evidence strongly suggests no.

And by evidence, I mean their explicit support for slightly less offensive cranks, extremists, bigots and terrorism apologists such as new party power broker Hasan Piker or the socialist Hezbollah fan Abdul el Sayed in Michigan or the Hamas apologist Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, a guy who suggested the massacre of Jews at Bondi Beach was a "false flag" operation by "Zionists."

Imagine telling someone 20 years ago that a leading congressional candidate in a New Jersey district situated right outside New York City had both volunteered for an al Qaeda front in Europe and spent years being friends with "The Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman, the longtime jihadi preacher who was sentenced for seditious conspiracy after planning a "day of terror" in 1995. Adam Hamawy defended Abdel-Rahman during his trial. And yet not a single notable Democrat has called him out on it.

Many of the same Democrats who expect Republicans to wring their hands over Republican Texas senatorial candidate Ken Paxton, a man tainted by corruption, have offered full-throated endorsement of a man who knowingly got and kept a Totenkopf SS Nazi tattoo for 20 years.

It's not just that Graham Platner's mentally unstable ravings, including saying a Purple Heart recipient didn't "deserve to live," or that "all cops are bastards," or that white rural Americans were "racist and stupid," or that the Virgin Mary was a "skank" or defending child killers of Hamas or contending that sexual assault victims bring it on themselves. It's that he still uses unhinged Marxist language right now.

Platner isn't the first skeeze to run for major office, but he might be the most extreme. Only two elected Democrats, as far as I can tell, have spoken out about Platner's soft spot for Nazis. One is Sen. John Fetterman, who is under relentless attack from his own party for supporting Israel over Islamists, and Rep. Jake Auchincloss.

Now, if Platner's opponent in Maine was a raging, corrupt ideologue, independents might be torn between two dangerous candidates. But the Republican in Maine is incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, perhaps the most milquetoast centrist member of the entire chamber.

Some Democrats rationalize their support for a self-described "communist" by noting that control of the Senate is far more important than worrying about the individual ravings of unhinged candidates. Though gutless establishment Democrats did virtually nothing to counter extremists during the primaries, there's a utilitarian logic to this thinking. But then you're in no position to lecture Republicans about Paxton or anyone else, for that matter.

The 2026 elections will be held during the second term of an unpopular presidency, so there's no telling how many Democrats will win. Or, perhaps, the new reality is that pro-Islamist Marxists are now an influential part of the contemporary Democratic Party. How popular such a party will be nationally moving forward is yet to be seen.

I am constantly being assured that Democrats are the adults in the room. I'm supposed to believe that self-styled socialists are not only going to uphold norms, decency and democratic institutions but also improve the economic conditions of Americans. That contention clashes with every shred of historical evidence we possess.

Democrats had a chance to be normal. They chose crazy.

(COMMENT, BELOW)


Previously:
05/25/26 Jeff Bezos Is Right About Capitalism, Wrong About Taxes
05/11/26 Why Stay in NATO if Europe Isn't Willing to Help Us?
05/01/26 Nazi Tattoo? Hamas Defender? No Problem, Says Chuck Schumer, a self-styled defender of Jewish interests
04/24/26 James Madison Saw Abigail Spanberger Coming
04/20/26 Hey, Socialists, We've Already Figured Out the Supermarket
04/16/26 Argentina Is Booming -- Capitalism Remains Undefeated
04/13/26Everyone Knows What the Dems' AIPAC Obsession Is Really About
03/27/26 Trump's Iran Deal Must Be Nothing Like Obama's
03/24/26 Class-War Economics Is Counterproductive and Un-American
03/20/26 Paul Ehrlich is dead. Regrettably, his legacy isn't
03/13/26 When 'Islamophobia' Becomes a License to Lie
03/06/26 Trump eradicates 47 years of feckless foreign policy
03/02/26 What Trump Should Tell the American People About Iran
02/20/26 Yes, Dems are crazy
02/20/26 Obama Is in No Position to Lecture Us About Decency
02/13/26 Shut Up and Ski
02/06/26 Don't Cry for The Washington Post, It Helped Destroy Media
01/30/26 Price Controls Won't Work Any Better for Republicans Than It Does Dems
01/16/26 The Left's Silence on Iran Is NOT Hypocrisy
12/26/25: For JD Vance, Free Speech Only Means His Friends Can't Be Criticized
12/12/25: The Left Doesn't Believe in the Constitutional Order
12/07/25: War Powers Are Dead
11/27/25: MTG Embodies the Inanity of Populism
11/14/25: Gaslighting Americans is latest Dem Disaster
11/11/25: Trump's Filibuster Nuke Would Hand Dems the Keys To Remake America
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10/16/25: Obamacare Is a Massive Failure. The GOP Shouldn't Bail It Out
10/10/25: Why Aren't 'Ceasefire Now!' Activists Celebrating Trump's Gaza Peace Deal?
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03/31/25: The Left's Imaginary COVID 'Reckoning'
03/21/25: Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists -- Lee Harvey Oswald Acted Alone
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09/20/24: Fact checked! Harris Is the Extremist
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03/15/24: Turns Out Biden Lied About Hur, Beau, And Why He Pilfered Classified Docs
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02/09/23: Electric Cars Are a Scam
06/30/23: Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by 'Extreme Weather'
03/03/23: Questioning Biden's Ukraine Policy Doesn't Make You an 'Isolationist'
01/20/23: No ribbons? Don't hide behind religion!
01/13/23: On Classified Documents, Joe Biden Is Out of Excuses
04/29/22: Biden's Ministry of Truth
04/08/22: The Most Radical Abortion Law in the Nation
04/01/22: Recuse Yourself, Joe Biden
03/25/22: No, School Boards Are Not 'Banning Books'
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01/28/22: It's Not Government's Job to 'Root Out' Misinformation
01/14/22: Biden's Big Elections Lie
01/07/22: Schumer's Ugly 'Voting Rights' Gamble
12/24/21:AOC's Grasp on American Governance Is a 'Farce'
12/17/21: Dems Pivot from Build Back Better to Useless Extremism
11/19/21: Reckoning' Over Steele Dossier?
10/15/21: The Biden White House Will Pay for Playing Inflation Games
09/24/21: The most demonstrable political scandal still ignored
09/17/21: Sorry, AOC, The Rich Already Pay Their Fair Share
09/02/21: Why Isn't Biden to Blame for COVID-19 Deaths?
08/06/21: Biden's Unprecedented Attack on the Constitution
07/30/21: Jan. 6 Was Deplorable. It Was NOT a Coup
06/21/21: The Myth of Republican Obstructionism
05/21/21: What Does Putin Have on Biden?
04/16/21: Kristen Clarke Is Unfit to Be in Government
03/26/21: No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive
03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
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02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
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12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
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07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
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