Emerging Extremes: Democrats and Republicans Have the Same Problem

One of the narratives of the 2026 election cycle is the emergence of candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in Democratic primaries. Republicans are eagerly using the organization’s candidates in campaign messaging to energize their base and persuade independents that the Democratic Party is moving sharply to the left. At the same time, some establishment Democrats worry that DSA-backed nominees could make otherwise competitive races more difficult to win.

Interestingly, the DSA has endorsed only six congressional candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. Those candidates are Cori Bush (MO-01),1 Melat Kiros (CO-01), Oliver Larkin (FL-25), Donavan McKinney (MI-13), Chris Rabb (PA-03), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-12).2 Kiros and Rabb have already won their primaries. Bush, McKinney, and Tlaib will learn their fates this week. Every one of those races is in a safely Democratic district except Florida’s 25th Congressional District, where Larkin is challenging Rep. Jared Moskowitz in the Democratic primary. If Democrats are to have any realistic chance of holding that competitive seat, Moskowitz is generally viewed as the stronger general election candidate.

The DSA has not endorsed a candidate in any Senate race. However, Abdul El-Sayed, who is running against Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, is widely viewed as aligned with the party’s progressive wing and has drawn support from many of the same activists. Stevens is generally regarded by Democratic strategists as the stronger general election candidate, but recent public polling has shown El-Sayed with an advantage heading into the primary.

Republicans are already treating the DSA as a proxy for the Democratic Party as a whole. Rather than limiting their attacks to the handful of districts where DSA-backed candidates are actually running, Republican campaigns are using those races to argue that the party itself is shifting toward democratic socialism. Whether that message resonates with swing voters remains to be seen, but it is likely to become a recurring theme in competitive House and Senate races this fall.

The Republican argument is that DSA candidates are not merely a small faction operating in safely Democratic districts, but a preview of where the party is headed. They are highlighting the group’s hostility toward Israel, support for abolishing ICE, embrace of government-run health care, calls to defund or radically restructure policing, and willingness to use government more aggressively in the economy. The goal is less to prove that every Democrat holds those positions than to blur the distinction between the party’s left flank and its candidates in competitive races. In practice, that means Democrats running in swing districts may be forced to answer for a movement they did not join, candidates they did not endorse, and policies they may not support.

The same political dynamic cuts both ways. If Republicans intend to portray the Democratic Party through the lens of the DSA, they should expect Democrats to point to Donald Trump and the broader direction of today’s Republican Party. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, his repeated attacks on the independence of the judiciary and the press, his promises to prosecute political opponents, and his expansive view of presidential power have led numerous historians, political scientists, former administration officials, and other observers to argue that he has exhibited authoritarian tendencies, even as others reject that characterization.

Just as important, a small but increasingly visible segment of the American right has become more willing to excuse or defend authoritarian ideas that would have been politically toxic a generation ago. Some conservative influencers have minimized the dangers of fascism, expressed admiration for strongman rule, or argued that liberal democracy has failed and should be replaced by a more centralized form of government.3 Those voices don’t represent the entire Republican Party, but they have become prominent enough that Democrats are likely to use them, in much the same way Republicans are using the DSA, as evidence of where they believe the party is heading. Whether either narrative persuades swing voters remains an open question, but both parties are increasingly finding themselves defined by their loudest ideological factions rather than their median members.

There’s another risk for Republicans. In recent years, a handful of influential figures on the American right have become increasingly willing to minimize the dangers of fascism, praise authoritarian leaders for their effectiveness, or argue that liberal democracy has outlived its usefulness. Others have sought to rehabilitate ideas that, until recently, were widely regarded as beyond the bounds of mainstream American politics.4 Those voices remain a minority, but they have attracted disproportionate attention through podcasts, social media, conferences, and political appointments.

Just as Republicans argue that the Democratic Party should answer for the influence of the DSA, Democrats are likely to argue that Republicans should answer for the growing visibility of anti-democratic and authoritarian currents on the right. Whether either characterization is fair is ultimately for voters to decide, but both parties are increasingly being judged not only by their nominees, but also by the movements they tolerate and the voices they elevate.

Republicans also have to contend with the growing influence of Christian nationalism within segments of their coalition.5 Although there’s no single definition of the movement, Christian nationalists generally argue that the United States has a uniquely Christian identity and that government should play a more active role in preserving or restoring that identity. In practice, that vision has often been accompanied by appeals to an idealized past in which political, cultural, and religious power was concentrated in the hands of a narrower segment of society. A substantial body of academic research has found that stronger adherence to Christian nationalist beliefs is associated with higher levels of racial resentment, anti-immigrant sentiment, support for traditional gender hierarchies, hostility toward religious pluralism, and a greater willingness to subordinate democratic norms to perceived cultural or religious objectives. That does not mean every Christian nationalist embraces those views, but it helps explain why critics often describe the movement as exclusionary rather than merely religious.

As someone who values individual liberty, I find Christian nationalism no more attractive than democratic socialism. The Constitution does not condition our rights on our religious beliefs, and the First Amendment protects both the free exercise of religion and the prohibition on its establishment. One of the country’s greatest strengths is that citizenship—not faith—determines one’s standing before the law. The more either party embraces movements that seek to fuse political power with religious identity, the further it drifts from the liberal constitutional order that has allowed Americans of every faith—and none at all—to live together as equal citizens.

Perhaps this is where I lose everyone. I have no interest in defending the DSA. I think democratic socialism is a dead end. History is littered with examples of governments that promised equality through greater economic control and instead delivered stagnation, dependency, and diminished individual freedom. Markets are imperfect,6 but they remain the most powerful engine of prosperity humanity has ever discovered.

I also have no interest in defending the growing post-liberal and nationalist movements on the right. I don’t care whether someone wants to subordinate markets to the state in the name of economic equality or subordinate liberty to the state in the name of national greatness. The destination is remarkably similar. Both traditions are comfortable using government power to reshape society according to their preferred moral vision. Both ask individuals to surrender a measure of their autonomy in service of some supposedly higher collective good. And both ultimately place less faith in free people than in powerful institutions.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’ll stick with liberal democracy. I’ll stick with free markets, free speech, private property, religious liberty, due process, equal protection, and constitutional limits on power. I believe the individual matters more than the collective, rights are more important than outcomes, and governments exist to secure liberty, not to manufacture virtue or engineer equality. That philosophy has produced the freest and most prosperous societies in human history. It has also coincided with the greatest reduction in extreme poverty, the largest increase in life expectancy, and the greatest expansion of human opportunity the world has ever seen. I’m not interested in trading liberalism and liberal democracy for socialism with democratic branding or nationalism with authoritarian overtones.