For the last decade or so, the press have produced endless handwringing over the rise of President Trump and “MAGA-aligned” Republicans.
They have a point.
What they describe as a “hostile takeover” of the Republican Party is indeed alarming, as the GOP refashions itself into something more like a personality cult.
On the other side of the aisle, the radical progressive and socialist takeover of the Democratic Party is also alarming.
Yet one would hardly know it based on the relatively muted news coverage.
How very odd it is that one fringe takeover should inspire such high dudgeon, while another, though equally serious if not more dangerous, has not.
The last three years have seen a flurry of activity both inside and outside the political space, suggesting a shift toward ever-more extreme and revolutionary left-wing activity. There have been at least three assassination attempts against President Trump, a targeted political assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk (celebrated publicly by a shocking number of self-professed liberals), multiple deadly or potentially deadly left-wing attacks on government facilities and officers, and actual hostage-taking by anti-Israel student activists.
Meanwhile, in the electoral space, Democratic voters are continuing the trend of nominating socialists for both state and federal office. Avowed socialists now rule Seattle and New York. One of them will soon be mayor of Washington, D.C. — perhaps also Los Angeles.
The swath of socialist Democrats nominated last week in New York — some of them defeating longtime incumbent Democrats — are not just ignorant, inexperienced, and hostile toward the United States as a concept. They are also opposed to the fundamental social framework that makes life in a free society possible. Some of them, for example, do not even support imprisoning murderers and other violent criminals, let alone deporting criminal aliens.
This new breed of Democratic zealot also imposes stringent purity tests on fellow members, demanding absolute fealty to extreme fringe positions that poll at 80-20 against them. Fail to demonstrate the appropriate levels of enthusiasm or, worse, express skepticism, and you can expect a dogpile followed by swift ostracism.
This is not a continuation of Democratic politics in a new direction, but a hostile takeover of a party by revolutionaries who want to scrap altogether its modern center-left ethos.
Outside of conservative media, there have been few, if any, doomsday warnings about this radical new direction — certainly not from the usual suspects who typically warn that anything vaguely conservative, including school board protests or disparaging remarks about biased media, is a threat to the republic.
Among those who won their New York primaries last week was Palestinian-American activist Aber Kawas (D), who has described the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a “manifestation” of America’s systems of “capitalism and racism and white supremacy.” Kawas, a fierce ICE abolitionist, regularly cites her deported father as evidence of America’s “cruel immigration system.”
“That framing is one that I’ve been very proud to be able to say I don’t respond to,” she said during an appearance on MS NOW. “One in which I have been very intentional to say I won’t be reactive.”
El-Sayed has brought on as a campaign surrogate the internet celebrity Hasan Piker, who believes, among other things, that communism is great, that Mao Zedong did nothing wrong, and that murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson got what he deserved for committing “social murder.” Piker also preaches to his online audience that theft is good and that some Jews are “inbred” and “pig-dogs.”
In related news, recent polling found that liberals are more likely than conservatives to say political violence is sometimes justified. A separate survey also found that only 20 percent of Democrats say they are extremely proud to be an American, compared with 77 percent of Republicans.
Are you getting the picture?
The remaining non-radicalized Democrats are right to be worried.
Both the Republican and Democratic Parties have changed in the last 30 to 50 years. But the new Democrats are quite a bit farther from Bill Clinton than the MAGA right is from Ronald Reagan. Could you imagine Clinton — Bill or Hillary — chalking 9/11 up to “white supremacy?” Or arguing that we should not deport convicted criminal aliens?
Yet, based on the relatively calm and measured news coverage of last week’s elections, you’d think that Democrats were having a normal one.
They are not.
The surge of left-wing socialist types into the political space is surely at least as concerning as the success of Republican candidates who are too slavishly devoted to President Trump.
This is more than just an editorial gripe.
The failure to treat left-wing fanatics for what they are builds a permission structure for such radicals to become even more unhinged and incite others to do the same. There is no real social cost to being a degenerate left-wing dirtbag — not like there is for being the right-wing equivalent.
Former Klansman David Duke was neutralized and boxed out of politics and polite society more than three decades ago after serving a single term in the Louisiana House of Representatives, a seat he won in a special election by just 227 votes. His candidacy for the state-level office drew unequivocal opposition from President George H.W. Bush, former President Reagan, Republican National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater, and Louisiana GOP leaders.
Duke’s term came and went. He has not held office since 1992, but not for a lack of trying.
He began as a pariah, he legislated a pariah, and he has wandered as a pariah ever since, including online, where he is banned from most social media platforms.
In contrast, the domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, who traded bombs for the title of “Distinguished Professor” at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was a guest last week at the grand opening of the Obama Presidential Center, seated three rows from the former president.
Every major newsroom is still getting mileage out of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, even five years later. For some in the news and entertainment business, it was worse than Sept. 11. Now compare this to the spotty, misleading news coverage last week of the eight members of a North Texas Antifa cell who were sentenced to a combined 450 years in prison for their respective roles in a premeditated ambush and attempted murder of government workers at an ICE detention center.
Chances are, you didn’t even see anything in the news about their botched attack — and if you did, it might have been framed simply as “a protest that turned violent,” which it most certainly was not. PBS, newly liberated from its federal funding, incredibly tried to frame the prison sentences as a Trump administration “crackdown on dissent.”
Political radicalization is political radicalization.
Either we take it all seriously, or we’re not being serious at all.
A version of this article appeared originally in The Hill on June 29, 2026.
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