The Concept of America Is on the Ballot This November

By Jim Geraghty

Thursday, August 06, 2026

 

For the foreseeable future, any Republican president will be, at minimum, deeply disliked by most Democrats, and any Democratic president will be, at minimum, deeply disliked by most Republicans. The grassroots of the opposition party will outright hate and detest the president.

 

Donald Trump began his presidency with very little approval among Democrats (–70 on the YouGov poll) and now has almost none (–92 in the same survey). It was a similar story in Trump’s first term: He started with a job approval among Democrats around 10 percent and finished around 5 percent.

 

Joe Biden experienced the same dynamic: He started with a job approval among Republicans around 10 percent and finished around 5 percent, coming awfully close to zero every now and then.

 

It hasn’t always been like this. Ronald Reagan’s job approval among Democrats ranged from 20 percent to 40 percent for almost all of his presidency. Bill Clinton’s job approval among Republicans ranged from 15 percent t0 40 percent. George W. Bush’s job approval among Democrats underwent a post-9/11 surge to 80 percent, but by 2004 it was around 20 percent and then declined to 10 percent. Barack Obama’s job approval among Republicans started around 40 percent but quickly dropped to 10 to 15 percent and stayed there.

 

It is just about impossible to imagine a 2028 Republican ticket that has more than minimal support among self-identified Democrats, and vice versa. The only Democrat with any significant level of support among Republicans is Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, who is a strange outlier; a June Quinnipiac poll of registered voters in Fetterman’s home state found that 77 percent of surveyed Republicans said they approve of Fetterman . . . while just 19 percent of Democrats do.

 

Back in 2023, surveys found that about 38 percent of Kentucky Republicans approved of the job that Democratic Governor Andy Beshear was doing.

 

It is extremely difficult to find any Republican with significant support among Democrats; perhaps Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski comes closest. (If you’re thinking of Maine’s Susan Collins, as of last May, 88 percent of Maine Democrats said that Collins did not deserve to be reelected.) For a long stretch, Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott — who was simultaneously one of the country’s most popular governors and one of its lowest-profile nationally — had a high job approval among Democrats; a late June poll found about 30 percent of Vermont Democrats intended to vote for his reelection.

 

Even if the 2028 presidential race featured a Democratic ticket of Beshear-Fetterman and a Republican ticket of Scott-Murkowski, a significant portion of the grassroots of each party would likely convince itself — or be convinced by media in our polarized political environment — that the opposing party was a threat to all they hold dear and that this was the most important presidential election of our lifetimes. Try to imagine a world where Fox News Channel prime-time hosts declare, “You know, the Democratic nominee isn’t that bad,” or MS NOW hosts conclude, “The Republican nominee has some real strengths and appealing qualities.”

 

When you outright hate the president, it’s a short step to outright hating the people who voted for him. When you detest your political opponent, it becomes very easy to conclude, “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.” Or perhaps you take your guidance from our current president: “[Charlie Kirk] did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

 

And when you outright hate the electorate that voted for the president . . . well, your love for your country declines. Poll after poll this year has shown that on average, Democrats feel significantly less patriotism than do Republicans. A Gallup survey in late June found that “70 percent of Republicans, 28 percent of independents and 14 percent of Democrats say they are extremely proud to be American.” The YouGov survey conducted around the same time found: “The vast majority (96 percent) of Republicans say they are proud to be Americans, compared to just 58 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Independents. One percent of Republicans, 23 percent of Democrats, and 21 percent of Independents are not proud to be Americans.”

 

Many Democrats feel like the rest of the country betrayed them by voting for Trump, in many cases for a third time. A September 2025 poll found that “40 percent of Kamala Harris voters say it is acceptable to cut off a family member over political disagreements. Nearly half of young progressives say it is reasonable to sever friendships. By contrast, only 11 percent of Donald Trump voters said the same.”

 

A May study from UC Irvine psychologists found that “47 percent of Democrats reported having experienced a political breakup, compared to just 29 percent of Republicans. Independents fell in between, at 39 percent. . . . Among those who reported a political split, 66 percent of Democrats said they were the one who ended the relationship, compared to only 27 percent of Republicans.”

 

This brings us to Michigan’s Senate race pitting Republican Mike Rogers against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.

 

NR’s editors note that El-Sayed’s agenda is primarily one of abolishment: abolishing private health insurance, the filibuster, the Electoral College, ICE, and Israel. Despite his denials, he has also called for abolishing the police. El-Sayed wants to end lifetime Supreme Court appointments, impose term limits, and allow each presidential term the same number of Supreme Court appointments.

 

Asked about his supporter Hasan Piker’s “America deserved 9/11” comment, El-Sayed said that Piker’s comments had been taken “out of context.” (Take a moment to try to imagine a context in which “America deserved 9/11” is not morally reprehensible.)

 

Yesterday our Noah Rothman wrote,

 

The GOP has a steep hill before them in Michigan, but it’s one that they must climb. This is no ordinary race. The consequences of failure extend well beyond the bounds of American electoral politics. The race is a proxy fight — a referendum on America as a civilizational proposition. It’s an up-or-down vote, and we cannot afford to see it fail.

 

Over at the Free Press, Eli Lake wrote that El-Sayed’s buddy Piker “represents a strain of American politics that demonizes the republic.”

 

Between now and Election Day, you’re going to see Republicans contending that “Abdul El-Sayed hates America.” He’ll deny it and insist that the charge is an Islamophobic slur. But I think a more precise way of making the argument is that El-Sayed hates America’s current constitutional structure and form of government, to say nothing of its current political consensus (to the extent it has a political consensus). El-Sayed wants the Overton window to be not merely widened but dramatically relocated along the political spectrum.

 

As do many of his most ardent political allies. The Democratic Socialists of America platform calls to abolish the U.S. Senate and “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.”

 

You cannot want to eliminate the Senate and make the executive and judiciary subordinate to Congress and simultaneously be willing to take the oath to which every elected member of Congress swears at the start of his or her term: “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

 

In a recent television interview, the co-chair of the DSA, Megan Romer, affirmed that her party’s agenda includes abolishing borders and giving amnesty to anyone currently in the U.S. illegally, abolishing prisons, and instituting government or public ownership of most large corporations. (If you abolish prisons, what do you do with someone who defies the law by establishing a prison?)

 

Our Charlie Cooke examined this agenda and concluded that what the DSA really wants to abolish is America as we have always known it:

 

The American system of government is built atop the presumption that the government exists to secure the natural rights of the people, and little else besides. The DSA’s vision represents a perfect inversion of this premise. Romer and her friends want to shirk all the basic responsibilities of the state — national defense, territorial integrity, policing, the protection of individual liberty — while micromanaging all of the private tasks that have traditionally been the preserve of civil society. Running Apple and Denny’s is in; maintaining an army and navy is out. Providing housing is included; superintending the punishment for murder is proscribed. “A wise and frugal government,” Thomas Jefferson submitted during his First Inaugural, “shall restrain men from injuring one another,” but “shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits.” Evidently, the DSA prefers the opposite course.

 

We should point out that the ideas of the DSA fringe are not nearly as far on the fringe as they ought to be. Our Dan McLauglin noticed that Pete Buttigieg — Harvard, Oxford, U.S. Navy, former McKinsey consultant, the epitome of the white-collar Democratic establishment — is on board with a lot of the DSA-style constitutional overhaul:

 

In an interview on Steven Bartlett’s podcast, The Diary of a CEO, Buttigieg comes out yet again for destroying the American systems of electing presidents (the Electoral College), Congress (single-member House districts), and our Supreme Court (via Court-packing). Buttigieg shot to prominence in 2019 by pushing Court-packing, which reminds us that no, it’s not a response to Dobbs or other post-2020 decisions. He tells Bartlett that “our entire existence has been about creating a different kind of political system and introducing it to the world,” but now we should be “reforming, tuning up, changing that political system.”

 

There’s a whole bunch of reasons to be upset with Republicans and the Trump administration. (See Tuesday’s edition of this newsletter, or below.) But what the Democrats are offering is not a course correction to the pre-Trump status quo. They want to toss out and replace large swaths of the U.S. Constitution, because in their minds, any constitution that allows the election of Donald Trump twice must be a failure.

 

ADDENDUM: In the entirety of the 2018 Texas Senate race, Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke, with then-record fundraising and unprecedented gushing national coverage, never led Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in any public poll. Not a single time.

 

In this year’s Texas Senate race, between Democratic candidate and bizarre reanimated Howdy Doody doll James Talarico and Republican candidate and human slug Ken Paxton, Talarico has led the last three public polls. Two more of the seven most recent public surveys have shown ties.

 

The most recent YouGov poll shows Paxton trailing by two percentage points. Meanwhile, every other Republican running statewide leads by three to seven percentage points.

 

This is not a Texas Republican Party problem. This is a Ken Paxton problem. You’re already hearing people getting ready to blame the National Republican Senatorial Committee if Talarico wins. Hey, at any point do we hold the candidate responsible for his own atrocious behavior, scandals, and lousy campaign? How about the president who endorsed him over an incumbent who would have waltzed to reelection?

 

Democrats can win in a deep-red state if the Republican nominee is awful enough. Doug Jones beat Roy Moore in Alabama in 2017. Character matters, and a candidate with awful character can fumble away a winnable race in the friendliest territory. But apparently this is a lesson that Republicans do not want to learn.

Hasan Piker Is a Symptom, Not the Cause

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, August 06, 2026

 

It’s pretty bleak out there. But if you’re looking for a sliver of hope, it seems that a critical mass of Democrats understand that most Americans did not like 9/11.

 

That’s the liability — one of so many, in fact — that the far-left podcaster Hasan Piker brings to the table.

 

Democrats in the orbit of the party’s establishment have warned that Abdul El-Sayed’s eager and sincere embrace of the Maoist influencer is destined to backfire on the party’s Michigan senatorial nominee.

 

Before the state’s primary voters anointed him, El-Sayed’s association with Piker was a point of contention.

 

Former Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow branded Piker “the biggest antisemite in media.” Before she dropped out of the race, State Senator Mallory McMorrow called him a “provocateur” who regularly broadcasts “misogynistic and antisemitic” things. New Jersey Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer went so far as to support a House resolution condemning Piker. “Mr. Piker traffics in antisemitic and anti-American extremism that has been met by silence from many on the Democratic left,” he wrote in the New York Times.

 

Even Bernie Sanders is giving voice to his qualms with Piker, while being quick to talk himself out of his own conclusions. “No,” Sanders said when asked if he was “comfortable” with El-Sayed’s proximity to the podcaster who said America “deserved 9/11.” And yet, even if Piker has some intemperate views, “he’s saying things that are making sense to a lot of people.”

 

Senator John Fetterman called on El-Sayed to renounce his affiliations with Piker — a call that the candidate rejected:

 

 

El-Sayed has been consistent in his refusal to condemn his booster. He has previously insisted that he has as many differences with Piker’s views as he does with the hosts of Fox & Friends, but he would no more renounce his buddy than he would eschew the opportunity to speak to Fox’s viewers.

 

And, honestly, shouldn’t we all be as concerned with the company Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers keeps? “I think people get real worried about him, but you think about who Mike Rogers has been palling around with, right?” the candidate said in an attempt to deflect from the liability Piker represents. “I think it’s important for us to just remember what Mike Rogers is and what we’re up against.”

 

Really, what’s the difference between Brian Kilmeade and Piker? Well, one of them said that approximately 3,000 Americans deserved to be murdered by Islamist terrorists because their country liberated Kuwait from Saddam Hussein. He has repeatedly contended that Hamas terrorists occupy the moral high ground. He’s called for the murder of the people he regards as his class enemies, including (specifically and by name) Republican Senator Rick Scott.

 

Tomato, tomahto. Who are we to judge?

 

In one sense, El-Sayed’s obduracy is commendable. He can no more renounce his associations with Piker than he can shed his own views, which are not qualitatively distinct from those of the Bolshevist influencer from whom he has been inseparable for months. What Democrats want is for El-Sayed to lie to Michiganders about who he is. Credit where due: he will not do that.

 

Maybe Democrats want a plausible way to justify their vote for El-Sayed that allows them to say they didn’t know who he was. Blessedly, El-Sayed will not give them that. If they’re going to pull the lever for anti-Americanism (in one Democratic congresswoman’s words), they’re going to have to do so with clear eyes.

He Fights

By Nick Catoggio

Thursday, August 06, 2026

 

Often overlooked among the many shocking allegations about Ohio Rep. Max Miller is a confirmed fact that’s as surprising as the lurid stuff. In 2016 he got his start in Republican politics by working for the presidential campaign of … Marco Rubio.

 

Marco Rubio?

 

In saying that, I don’t mean to imply that Team Rubio was populated by saints. (Look at what’s become of Marco himself.) But read through any profile of Miller and you’re destined to arrive at this thought: The man’s personality was practically designed in a lab to make him a Trump bootlicker.

 

“A cocky bully with a quick-trigger temper” is how Politico described him in a 2021 piece, citing interviews with people who’ve known him dating back to high school. Some acquaintances accused Miller of being “volatile” and “belligerent” and of having “an anger problem.” One remembered that he could be “very scary,” adding, “I can, like, see the red face.” Another warned that you didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his “huge temper.”

 

The way Miller talked about women was also memorable to those who knew him. It wasn’t just that he bragged about his sexual exploits, said one, it was the degree to which he “trashed girls.” A second recalled him going “out of his way to make negative comments” about the opposite sex while a third called him “super misogynistic.” One female source told Politico that Miller was “not the guy you wanted to be alone in a room with.”

 

Once as a teenager, during a gathering of friends at his home, he allegedly shoved a girl “after he became enraged when she resisted his attempts to touch her.” She tumbled through a doorway and down the stairs, witnesses claimed. Miller denies that it happened, but the purported victim told Mother Jones last month that the episode was “one of the more traumatic nights of my life.”

 

What repercussions did young Max Miller suffer for his boorishness? Not many. He’s descended from two of the most powerful families in Cleveland, Ohio, and so “he would get in trouble and just—nothing ever seemed to happen,” one former classmate told Politico. “He gets out of stuff,” said another. “He’s rich, he’s well-connected, his family is well-connected. It’s not surprising to me that he doesn’t pay consequences for the things he does.”

 

An angry, entitled, domineering child of privilege who looks down on women and hurts others with impunity: That species of moth is powerless to resist the Trumpist flame. Miller did eventually end up working for the president’s campaign in 2016 after Rubio dropped out, and by 2021 he was Trump’s choice to replace Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez in Congress.

 

That’s the same Anthony Gonzalez who voted for impeachment after January 6, and who retired from politics following that term to spare his family from further death threats by MAGA lunatics. The president wanted someone new in that seat who would never choose honor over loyalty to Donald Trump, and he knew just the guy.

 

Miller has been in the news lately because of an ugly custody dispute with his ex-wife Emily, who happens to be the daughter of Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, also of Ohio. Earlier this year, local authorities began investigating how the former couple’s 2-year-child ended up with a broken collarbone. One specialist involved in the probe reportedly thought the bruising around the fracture resembled a handprint, and Emily Moreno told investigators that the child has been heard to say “daddy’s house is scary.”

 

Moreno has also claimed that “Miller had previously thrown hot water at her, shoved her, and held a gun to her head,” per records reviewed by Mother Jones. The congressman denies that he was abusive, but that isn’t the first allegation of domestic violence he’s faced: Three people told Politico in 2021 that he once shoved and slapped former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham when they were dating, and Grisham herself claimed in her book that he “got physical” with her. Miller later sued both women for defamation but withdrew his suit against Grisham as part of an undisclosed settlement. (The suit against Emily Moreno is pending.)

 

Last week Moreno sought a new restraining order against Miller after he allegedly grabbed one of her lawyers following a court hearing, daring the attorney to “come at me.” On Sunday, after many weeks of deafening silence, Bernie Moreno finally spoke up about his former son-in-law’s behavior and declared him unfit for Congress. Miller “needs serious psychological help,” the senator warned in a statement. “He is a danger to my daughter, and I hold my breath every minute he has custody of my granddaughter.”

 

How much political trouble is Max Miller in?

 

About as much as a politician in a movement of moral degenerates like the postliberal right could possibly be in, I think. Which is to say: much, much, much less than he should be.

 

A sliding scale.

 

Regular readers of this newsletter know that Trumpism is best understood as an alternate morality, not as a political program. It disdains Christian virtues like forgiveness and compassion toward one’s enemies, as the president frequently makes clear, and celebrates ruthlessness and domination. Power is its highest aspiration, and so the only behavior it regards as sinful is behavior that undermines its chances of securing it.

 

That’s why Trump is obsessed with loyalty. “Disloyal” is shorthand for whenever a Republican chooses some other interest over the party’s—which is to say, the president’s—aggrandizement.

 

To grasp how completely Trumpism has subverted traditional morality on the right, sift through the data Politico compiled last month when it asked Americans whether they’d continue to support a candidate who was accused of various misdeeds. People who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 were no angels: Nearly 40 percent said they’d stick with someone who was accused of domestic violence or sexual assault.

 

But well over half of Trump 2024 voters said they’d remain “loyal” to a candidate accused of the latter charge, and more than 60 percent said so of the former. When Politico narrowed the sample further to strong Trump supporters (i.e., those who voted for him in 2024 and identify as MAGA), the gap was even starker. Fully 72 percent would vote for a candidate accused of domestic violence while 66 percent would vote for one accused of sexual assault.

 

“That’s not because MAGA Republicans are indifferent to those crimes, it’s because they’re more skeptical of accusations against their candidates,” you might reply. In some cases, perhaps, but certainly not all. When the Washington Post interviewed Republican voters in Miller’s home district this week, it found plenty who are still backing the incumbent—not because they doubt the charges against him but because they don’t see them as disqualifying.

 

“I’m not perfect, and I’m not that great of a person all of the time, so I can’t judge him,” one told the paper of Miller. “I’d have to vote for him, even if I can’t stand him.” Another said she was disappointed in him but, in the Post’s words, “thought it was important to keep his seat in Republican hands. She said she would probably separate his personal foibles from her political considerations, as she has done for President Donald Trump.”

 

Even so, I think Max Miller is in a little trouble.

 

It’s not because he’s a terrible person who doesn’t belong within a thousand miles of Congress. It’s because the scandal he’s snared in threatens the right’s hold on power—the cardinal sin of Trumpist amorality—and he’s done little during his political career to demonstrate the sort of ruthlessness toward the base’s enemies that would otherwise earn him ready absolution for that sin.

 

Think of his predicament in terms of a sliding scale, in which the moral depravity of which a Republican is accused is weighed against how important he is to the GOP in gaining and maintaining authority. At one end of the scale is Trump, the alpha and omega of right-wing postliberalism and the man on whom its national ambitions have depended since 2016. Such is his importance to holding power that there’s literally no form of immorality one might accuse him of that will damage his support. Absolution will always be granted—full stop, without exception, regardless of the strength of the evidence.

 

Toward the middle of the scale would be someone like former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was a backbencher in the House, the most dispensable elected position in the federal government. Republican voters should have been willing to cast him aside if and when he created trouble for the party, and might have been if not for his talent as a demagogue. Gaetz shrewdly cultivated a high profile in right-wing media to display that talent, distinguishing himself as a warrior for Trump and a scourge of Democrats and “RINOs.”

 

So when he was accused in 2021 of having sex with an underage girl, he had reason to believe Republican voters in his district might overlook it. They did. They relished his pugnacity and bravado (he fights!), and in the end returned him to office. He romped to victory in 2022 despite the allegations against him and then—with a House Ethics Committee inquiry into his sex scandal brewing—crushed both a primary challenger and his Democratic opponent in 2024 before opting to resign prior to the committee releasing its findings.

 

Gaetz received absolution despite embarrassing the party. (Enough so that he became Trump’s first choice for, ahem, attorney general after the 2024 election.) Through his media antics and combative persona, he made himself sufficiently valuable to the right that its voters believed he was still an asset on balance despite the ugliness of what he was allegedly up to with a 17-year-old.

 

Max Miller hasn’t done that. He’s at the other end of the scale opposite Trump.

 

Max degradation.

 

Miller has kept a low media profile while in Congress. (If you watched the disastrous interview he gave to CNN this week, you can see why.) He’s not a regular in right-wing infotainment or renowned as a skilled hippie-puncher, so he’s not indispensable. The Gaetz lesson is that Republican voters will tolerate a representative being a dirtbag in his private life—provided that he’s also a dirtbag to their enemies in public.

 

If you want to fight Emily Moreno and Stephanie Grisham behind closed doors and still comfortably win reelection, you need to fight the libs on Fox News sometimes, too.

 

Miller has other things working against him. The misconduct he’s accused of, in particular the injury to his 2-year-old child, is unusually infuriating by the standards of political scandals. He also has the misfortune of being pitted in this matter against a fellow Trump-loving Republican politician, which makes the right’s usual knee-jerk response to a test of credibility in assault cases a nonstarter. “I don’t believe the lib accuser” doesn’t work when the accusers are Bernie Moreno and his daughter.

 

The denouement of Graham Platner’s scandal-rama in Maine obliges the GOP establishment to halfheartedly show concern about Miller, too. Democrats made every possible excuse for Platner until a rape allegation shortly before the withdrawal deadline led them to shove him in unison toward the exit—but they did eventually start shoving. Republicans would look terrible by contrast if they didn’t lightly nudge Miller toward leaving the race, and a few have.

 

And it’s the congressman’s bad luck that the midterm environment has left his party with no margin for electoral error, especially in his surprisingly competitive home state of Ohio. “Take a GOP voter depression, mix it with the war in Iran, and now sprinkle with some Max Miller abuse [allegations], and you’ve got the recipe for a very dicey outcome in November,” one party strategist told Axios. If the cardinal sin of Trumpism is weakening the right’s hold on power, Miller’s scandal risks becoming more sinful as the Republican outlook deteriorates.

 

No wonder his good friend, the president, reportedly phoned him on Monday to talk to him about dropping out. “It’s not looking good for you,” he allegedly told Miller. “I’m hearing from people you're not going to win.” See what I mean about an alternate morality? Trump didn’t dial him up out of concern for what a member of his party might have done to his ex-wife and child. (He called Miller “a very good person” as recently as Monday.) He was worried about power, i.e., Miller’s ability to hold the seat.

 

With the president against him (sort of), the congressman’s career is now hanging by a thread, right?

 

I don’t think so. Belatedly, Miller has hit on a strategy that might see him through this crisis and back to the House next year: He fights!

 

He told CNN earlier this week that he’s not dropping out and had a specific reason why.

 

In 2016, when President Donald J. Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world that hit him day after day after day, and people in the media, very much like yourself and others, said that he would have no shot at winning, that he should not be the President of the United States. But guess what? He stayed in, and he was resilient.

 

And what the American people can see, is that they can see that somebody is fighting, who is resilient, and that is a quality that the American people cherish.

 

In a movement of moral degenerates, that’s precisely the right approach. Celebrate the president’s refusal to quit after the Access Hollywood tape leaked; pit oneself against the dreaded liberal media in defying calls to drop out; reframe your own shamelessness and moral bankruptcy as “resilience” and a willingness to fight. I bet Trump saw that answer from Miller and loved it.

 

Nihilistic Republican voters in his red-leaning home district will love it, too.

 

The clock is also working in Miller’s favor. Ohio’s deadline for candidates to withdraw from the ballot is four days away; if he brazens it out until next week, Republicans will be stuck with him. And once they are, there’s not a scintilla of doubt about whether they’ll go on distancing themselves from a man who appears to need serious psychological help, to quote Bernie Moreno, or reluctantly line up behind him in the interest of maintaining power in the House. We’ve been watching that movie for 10 years now. We know how it ends.

 

Congressional Republicans have been watching it too, which probably explains why most aren’t lifting a finger to get Miller to quit. Speaker Mike Johnson wants to let a House investigation into the abuse claims play out; Rep. Jim Jordan is insisting “it’s up to the voters.” Why would they bother calling for him to resign? If Miller insists on staying in, they’ll all be making excuses for him a week from now.

 

And if the “he fights!” strategy succeeds in rallying Republican voters to the congressman’s side, any party official who called on him to drop out risks suddenly being seen as working against the right’s interests. How’s that for irony? Instead of blaming Miller for committing the Trumpist sin of undermining the GOP’s hold on power, the base might turn around after the withdrawal deadline passes and conclude that it’s his critics in the Republican establishment who need to repent.

 

Won’t that be lovely for the Moreno family. Amid living in fear for their own safety and having to watch Miller repeatedly, and none-too-subtly, allude in interviews to blackmailing Bernie Moreno, they may yet endure the indignity of Republican officials siding en masse with Miller against the senator about whether he’s fit for office. You picked a heck of a party to join, Bernie.

 

The story of the Trump era is a story of the remorseless degradation of the United States. Americans chose that degradation. Max Miller isn’t the congressman any decent person should want, but he’s the congressman we deserve. I would not bet against him in a red-leaning district in November.

Republicans Have Themselves to Blame for the Max Miller Scandal

By John McCormack

Friday, August 07, 2026

 

It’s not quite clear what possessed Ohio GOP Rep. Max Miller to sit down for a 20-minute direct-to-camera livestream on Sunday, August 2, to deny allegations that he had abused his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, the daughter of Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno. A couple of news stories—including a detailed Mother Jones report on July 18 and coverage in the New York Times on July 28 documenting Moreno’s claims that he had sprayed hot water on her, held a gun to her head, and shoved her up against a wall—may have provided the motivation to try to refute the allegations on camera.

 

What is clear is that Miller’s media tour has backfired in the court of public opinion, and an increasing number of Republicans are calling on Miller to resign from Congress.

 

“The whole thing is repulsive. Max Miller needs to drop out and get help,” Aaron Baer, president of the Ohio-based Center for Christian Virtue, told The Dispatch. “Even if you set aside the ‘he said, she said,’ the bottom line is being a good father starts by taking care of your child’s mom. Coming out the way Max did … publicly attacking the mother of his child is all the evidence you need that this guy should not be in office right now.”

 

“It’s sad to see that the only person this affects is our daughter,” Miller told Newsmax this week, “and it’s something that I don’t think [her mother Emily] cares about very much.”

 

In the X livestream and follow-up TV interviews, Miller has displayed the demeanor of a movie villain—the dimwitted high-school bully who exudes undeserved confidence because his family’s money has protected him from ever facing any real-world consequences.

 

In his livestream, Miller struggled to pronounce the word “psychologist” while reading from a script and incredulously asked the “ladies and gentlemen” viewing the video if his ex-wife really would have offered to make him empanadas and go to a park with their daughter after he had allegedly abused her. Why, yes, answered the “ladies and gentlemen” in a resounding online chorus—there would be nothing unusual about a woman trying to keep the peace with an abusive ex-husband who shares joint custody with their toddler.

 

In a follow-up interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Miller didn’t even seem to realize he was making arguments that were in direct contradiction to one another. In one breath, Miller complained that CNN would not air “three separate audio videos of my daughter saying, ‘I do not want to go to mommy’s. I do not want mommy’s, and I do not feel safe.’” Moments later, Tapper asked Miller about Moreno’s claim that she had heard their daughter say “Daddy kill you” in the days leading up to the discovery of a bruise and clavicle fracture (and that Moreno had also heard their daughter say “Daddy angry” and that “Daddy’s house is scary”).

 

“Jake, I wish you could talk to my beautiful baby girl. She can’t string together sentences like that,” Miller replied. “She’s 2 and a half years old. She doesn’t have the ability to articulate any of what you just said. That is an entire fabrication of the truth.”

 

When Tapper pressed Miller about his obviously contradictory claims about his daughter’s verbal ability, Miller didn’t address the contradiction and said: “This is incredibly disturbing. I am not going to my child to say ‘Daddy kill you.’”

 

In an attempt to exonerate himself before the public, Miller released a trove of documents, including court filings and private messages with Moreno, which show Moreno and Miller discussing the “Daddy kill you” remark.

 

On February 16, Moreno wrote to Miller: “She said the same comment again that she said in front of us yesterday, so I feel obligated to ask. ‘Daddy kill you’. Any idea where she picked that up or overheard it.” Miller replied to Moreno: “There’s no way she is saying that, the only time I heard that was with you the other day.”

 

Was that reply from Miller an admission that he had in fact heard their daughter say “Daddy kill you” one time but only when he and Moreno were together with their daughter? The Dispatch posed this question by email on Wednesday and again on Thursday to Miller’s representatives, Chris Vlasto of Haven Strategies and Abigail Angelos of his official congressional office, but neither representative for Miller replied. A cover letter in the Dropbox files released by Miller informed reporters that “written questions will receive written answers.”

 

***

 

Ohio GOP Sen. Bernie Moreno explained to reporters this week that he believes Miller is unfit for office but had avoided public comment until his former son-in-law’s public livestream. “My daughter specifically did not want this to be out in the public,” the senator told reporters. “When you have a child, you have to co-parent with that individual for the rest of your life. That means scheduling pickups, scheduling drop-offs.”

 

“This is truly the seventh level of hell,” the senator added. “My daughter lives in constant fear of this man, not like something that’s existential, but deeply in her heart, she fears what this guy is capable of.” A handful of fellow GOP senators, including Roger Marshall of Kansas, Katie Britt of Alabama, Tim Sheehy of Montana, and Rick Scott of Florida, have called on Miller to drop out. But they’ve gotten little help from the GOP leadership that matters most.

 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he wouldn’t call for Miller to step aside while a House Ethics Committee investigation was pending (Miller himself triggered the investigation because he said it would clear his name). According to Miller, President Donald Trump told him in a private call that it would be difficult to win reelection but did not call on him to resign. Miller said he reminded Trump that he had prevailed after multiple allegations of abuse in the 2016 presidential campaign. When a reporter asked Trump earlier this week if Miller should resign, he said: “Well it’s a very sad thing. I know Max, he’s a good person, I mean I always thought he was a very good person. And I’m going to let the families figure that out.”

 

The Max Miller scandal now threatens to cost Republicans not only what ought to be a safe House seat in Ohio—the deadline to certify a replacement candidate is Monday, August 10—it could damage the party more broadly. Ohio GOP Sen. Jon Husted, locked in a tight race with former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, initially took a deer-in-the-headlights approach to the matter. “Let’s focus on letting them sort through this at a family level,” Husted told Newsmax earlier this week. On Thursday afternoon, Husted wrote on social media that Miller should step aside because that’s in the best interest of his daughter.

 

***

 

The predicament Republicans now find themselves in is a direct consequence of Trump’s actions leading up to January 6, 2021, and its aftermath. Barely a month after the House had voted to impeach Trump over his role inciting the Capitol riot, Trump offered his “complete and total” endorsement to Miller in a primary campaign against Ohio GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, a former Ohio State football and NFL player who was one of 10 House Republicans to vote in favor of impeachment.

 

By February 2021, Miller had done little to distinguish himself other than sucking up to Trump. Through family connections, he had gotten a job working on the “advance” team for the Trump campaign and worked a similar job in the Trump White House, where he also did a stint in the office vetting administration appointees. Trump had taken a shine to Miller, known as “The Music Man” for his role in queuing up playlists for Trump rallies.

 

In June 2021, Trump traveled to Wellington, Ohio, to boost Miller at a rally, his first since leaving office. “Max Miller. You know Max? Great guy,” Trump said. “He loves our country. He loves the people of Ohio.” During that rally, Trump did one of his favorite anti-illegal immigration routines, reciting a poem about a snake taken in by a kindhearted woman, who can’t understand why the deadly snake bites her. The concluding lines: “‘Shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin, ‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.”

 

Before Trump had ever stepped on that stage—before he had endorsed Miller in February—he ought to have known that Miller was a snake. Stephanie Grisham, who had worked as press secretary and communications director at different times for first lady Melania Trump and President Trump, claimed that she had told both the president and first lady in 2020 that her ex-boyfriend had become abusive, but neither Donald nor Melania seemed to care, she wrote in her October 2021 book.

 

The ex? Max Miller. The allegation became public a month after the Trump-Miller rally in Ohio, which should have given other Republican leaders and voters all the information they needed to oppose Miller. In an exhaustive profile for Politico, journalist Michael Kruse reported in July 2021 on Miller’s troubled life, including the allegation that Miller had gotten violent with Grisham, whom he’d dated for 18 months. Kruse reported that “according to three people familiar with the incident, Miller … pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment after she accused him of cheating on her.” Miller categorically denied the allegation at the time through his lawyer.

 

Kruse reported in that same story, replete with firsthand accounts of Miller’s lifelong anger management problems, that in high school “Miller pushed a girl out the door of his room and she fell down some stairs after he became enraged when she resisted his attempts to touch her, according to three people who were there and many more who heard about the incident in the aftermath.”

 

“He flipped a switch,” one witness told Kruse. “I know what I saw,” another witness said. Miller again categorically denied the allegation through his lawyer.

 

But there was more evidence of a lifelong problem with violence. Shortly before graduating from high school in 2007, Miller was charged with “resisting arrest after punching a male in the back of the head and running from police,” Kruse reported, adding that the case was “dismissed in part because he was a first-time offender. The file in Shaker Heights is now sealed.” A few years later, Miller needed surgery after punching his hand through a glass door following an argument at a hookah bar. “Miller said rather than striking a person,” an officer wrote in a police report, “he hit the door and his hand went through the glass.”

 

But the July 2021 report didn’t sink Miller. Gonzalez, the pro-impeachment Republican congressman, dropped his bid for a third term that September amid concerns for his family’s safety and an uphill campaign—and Trump stood behind Miller. “Max is a tremendous person who will represent Ohio well,” Trump wrote in September 2021.

 

In October 2021, after Grisham published her book and Washington Post excerpt, Miller sued Grisham for defamation. The suit was withdrawn before a 2023 settlement between Miller and Grisham, which included a non-disparagement agreement. Grisham recently filed a restraining order against Miller related to his recent comments about her.  

 

Miller also filed a defamation lawsuit against his ex-wife in May after a Daily Mail story reported Moreno’s abuse allegations that she had shared with police. How does a congressman—whose résumé before the White House included a stint as a Lululemon retail employee and a Marine Corps reservist (who never deployed)—afford these pricey lawyers? The same way he could afford to drive a Porsche to the White House: His family is very rich. In 2018, the family’s real estate company sold for nearly $7 billion.

 

Moreno first told police about her allegations of abuse after she said she discovered a large bruise on her daughter’s shoulder and neck in February of this year and couldn’t rule out the possibility her husband had done it—something Miller categorically denies. An investigation by child protective services found the allegation against Max Miller was “unsubstantiated”—meaning there wasn’t evidence to prove it—and local prosecutors declined to charge anyone in the case. Miller himself countered in a court document that the injury may have been sustained due to a seatbelt and his ex-wife’s alleged reckless driving (a theory that makes little sense given that the bruise was on one side of the child’s neck, and car seat harnesses cover both sides). A child coordinator for Miller and Moreno speculated it could have happened if the toddler climbed and fell out of her crib. But investigators simply don’t know what happened.

 

“The injury itself is common in ambulatory children, but there is a bruise that accompanies the injury that appears to be in a handprint,” a child protection specialist reviewing the case told local investigators, “so it appears it was inflicted.”

 

Should it really have gotten to this point for Republicans to turn against Max Miller? “If someone wants to say the Stephanie Grisham accusation was enough to disqualify Max, that’s certainly a valid opinion,” Aaron Baer of Ohio’s Center for Christian Virtue told The Dispatch. But, he added, “people can make very serious accusations against people that turn out not to be true.”

 

“Now we have multiple accusations, and we have public behavior and public displays that are shameful,” Baer said, pointing to Miller’s use of his large platform to attack the mother of his child. “That’s not how you lead a family. That’s not how a man should act. That’s not how a father should act.”

 

On Thursday afternoon, another grassroots Ohio conservative leader called on Miller to resign. “Too many Republicans are afraid to call @MaxMillerOH what he is. Unfit for office,” Donovan O’Neil, the leader of Americans for Prosperity in Ohio, wrote on social media. “We were willing just four short weeks ago to call out Graham Platner - and lambast (appropriately so) our Democrat colleagues who only did so once the blessing was granted by party bosses. We should be just as willing to call out Max Miller and exorcise our own demons from the GOP.”

Four-Minute Refutation of the Genocide Charge

By Stanley Kurtz

Thursday, August 06, 2026

 

Now that Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will be making the charge of Israeli genocide a centerpiece of the midterms, it’s helpful to have a powerful and compact reply ready to hand. That reply is provided by Michael Mandelbaum, the Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. You can find Mandelbaum’s elegant and eloquent four-minute refutation of the genocide charge from the 38:18 to 42:17 mark of this video interview of Mandelbaum by Jacob Heilbrunn.

 

By the way, Heilbrunn’s entire 47-minute video interview of Mandelbaum is well worth watching. The topic is Mandelbaum’s brief, fascinating and important study, The American Way of Foreign Policy.

 

In that book, Mandelbaum offers a novel argument: that American exceptionalism carries over into foreign policy. Mandelbaum sets out to refute the strong realist claim that all nations act internationally largely on the basis of power politics and that cultural differences therefore play no significant role in the formation of foreign policy. While Mandelbaum is far from denying that classic realpolitik influences American affairs, he nonetheless maintains that in three fundamental ways, American foreign policy is decidedly different from the realist foreign policies pursued by most other countries most of the time.

 

According to Mandelbaum, the three distinctively American components of our foreign policy are (1) efforts to advance liberty; (2) the use of economic instruments in pursuit of political aims; and (3) the exceptionally large role played by public opinion in the formation of American foreign policy.

 

Heilbrunn pushes Mandelbaum on these points throughout the interview, and it’s interesting to hear his replies — but even more interesting to read Mandelbaum’s thought-provoking little book. By the way, Mandelbaum traces America’s three distinctive foreign-policy traditions back to the very founding of the United States, and even earlier, so the book provides a quick overview of the entire history of American foreign policy.

 

Mandelbaum’s remarks on Israel put me in mind of another important book, John Fonte’s Sovereignty or Submission, which I reviewed here back in 2011. There Fonte defends national sovereignty as a fundamental feature of liberal democracy and presciently warns against the forces of global governance.

 

Fonte argues that Israel is targeted by the advocates of global governance largely as a surrogate, both for the United States and for the idea of the independent democratic state generally. One of Fonte’s targets in Sovereignty or Submission is the International Criminal Court (ICC), and we’ve seen that issue emerge lately in Mayor Mamdani’s efforts to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for “crimes against humanity” on behalf of the ICC.

 

So, over and above the part it plays in efforts to undermine Israel’s moral standing, the bogus genocide charge is part of a broader campaign to subject not only Israel, but ultimately America, to policing by international bodies governed by a coalition of Third Worldists and European leftists — a red-green alliance that the DSA now brings to the heart of the Democratic Party.

 

I wonder how Mandelbaum would make sense of our modern European “global governancers,” as Fonte calls them. Mandelbaum’s argument for American foreign policy’s distinctiveness depends on a contrast with the realist “reasons of state” that he says truly have governed foreign policy in most other nations — certainly including Europe — over most of their history.

 

Does this mean that European foreign policy has now broken decisively with the past? Is the European progressive attempt to undermine national sovereignty, as such, a genuine abandonment of national interest as classically conceived? Maybe, yet no doubt realists would dismiss the biases of contemporary international institutions such as the International Criminal Court as a cloak for the interests of the nations that control those bodies.

 

Any way you look at the genocide charge, however — animus against Israel and/or Jews; disenchanted, overeducated American leftists in need of a new crusade; European appeasement of its Middle Eastern immigrants; Iran and its allies mobilizing international opinion against Israel; a wedge aimed at subordinating American foreign policy to advocates of global governance; or all of the above — the charge is a lie, as Mandelbaum so thoughtfully and effectively makes clear.

Democrats Lived Down to El-Sayed’s Opinion of Them

By Seth Mandel

Wednesday, August 05, 2026

 

There’s no question Abdul El-Sayed attracted enough voters with his single-minded focus on AIPAC to win last night’s Michigan Senate primary against Haley Stevens. But what was surprising was how limited a coalition it turned out to be.

 

“Noun-verb-AIPAC” worked well in younger, whiter, wealthier areas of the state—essentially the tentifada coalition. Stevens did better among black and working-class areas of Michigan. Yet these voting demographics tend not to be Israel’s biggest fans either. Which means “noun-verb-AIPAC” works mostly as a negative ploy: voters who seek a scapegoat will eat it up, but voters who are also critical of Israel but who see the world with more honesty and nuance will be looking for more substance.

 

They won’t get it.

 

Instead, partisanship looks like it’ll come to El-Sayed’s rescue. Stevens has already said she’ll do what she can to help her erstwhile foe. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who had endorsed Stevens in the primary, did the same. Other critics of El-Sayed’s anti-Semitism during the primary woke up this morning ready to bend the knee and tell others to do so as well.

 

In an age of spinelessness, all you have to do is get through the primary.

 

And that, in the end, was the real secret to El-Sayed’s success. Many in the political world had been wondering why he spent the last few weeks of the campaign mimicking the performative aggression of his hero Hasan Piker when he might have been expected to try to win over skeptical Democrats.

 

We have our answer: “noun-verb-AIPAC” was enough to win the primary, and Democrats will do whatever he wants once he’s the nominee anyway.

 

El-Sayed bet on his party living down to his opinion of it. And he won that bet.

 

What that means for the fight against anti-Semitism is clear as day. With the revelation that nearly all seemingly sane Democratic Party figures were only pretending to be offended by Jew-baiting, any recent progress will be lost. Even worse, fewer principled voices will stick their necks out next time around, because now they know they will have no institutional support for criticizing their own party.

 

Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ Senate floor leader, deserves special mention here. “Abdul El-Sayed has run an energetic campaign that inspired thousands of Michiganders across the state, with a clear focus on lowering costs and standing up for working families,” Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand said in a joint pledge of loyalty to the man who couldn’t give an unqualified, total denunciation of the attempted massacre of Jewish children in his state. “Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate. We look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November.”

 

Aside from their national roles, let’s remember that Schumer and Gillibrand are the two senators from New York, where hate crimes are on the rise and are disproportionately aimed at Jewish targets. Where, in New York City, the mayor recites blood libels and Jews are stabbed in the streets.

 

Schumer has, throughout his career, implored the public to hold him to a special obligation to defend his people. “My name as you know comes from a Hebrew word,” he said in 2010. “It comes from the word shomer, which means guardian. My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov and I believe Hashem, actually, gave me the name as one of my roles that is very important in the United States Senate, to be a shomer for Israel, and I will continue to be that with every bone in my body.”

 

Every bone except those in his spine, apparently.

 

Abdul El-Sayed’s contempt for his fellow Democrats was a feature, not a bug. And now it has been vindicated more than even El-Sayed could possibly have expected.

Democratic Socialism Has a Big Problem

By Carroll Doherty

Friday, August 07, 2026

 

Progressive Democrats are on a roll, Michigan has become ground zero in this fall’s midterms, and—stop me if you’ve heard this one—the polls got it wrong. These are among the topics dominating political discourse following Abdul El-Sayed’s hairbreadth victory in Tuesday’s Democratic Senate primary in Michigan.

 

But there’s a subject getting less attention that could have a major impact on Democrats’ fortunes going forward, not just this year but in 2028 and beyond. And that’s the public’s deep skepticism about democratic socialism.

 

Note that’s democratic socialism and not the democratic socialist candidates whose string of election victories in mostly blue areas has been the story of the midterms. El-Sayed, whose Michigan win has been the signature victory for socialists thus far, doesn’t embrace the label of “democratic socialist.” Still, many of his progressive positions align with the movement, and he’s been endorsed by democratic socialist stalwarts Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

 

But there’s no avoiding the fact that democratic socialism just isn’t very popular, except among those Democrats who occupy the far-left quadrant of the ideological spectrum. A good place to look at this is in Wisconsin, where democratic socialist Francesca Hong is currently leading in next week’s Democratic primary for governor.

 

A late July poll in Wisconsin by the Marquette Law School (I know, another state poll, but this one really is the “gold standard”) headlined Hong’s 11-point lead in the race, while noting the large share of voters—45 percent—who were still undecided.

 

Yet beyond the horse race, the poll found more than twice as many Wisconsin voters viewed democratic socialists unfavorably as favorably, 55 percent to 25 percent.  Interestingly, when pollsters asked a separate group of voters specifically about the “Democratic Socialists of America,” the results were less one-sided—43 percent favorable, 25 percent unfavorable—but mostly just because more respondents said they hadn’t heard enough to offer an opinion.

 

The poll’s internals underscore deeply bifurcated attitudes toward democratic socialism: Quite simply, liberals like it, while almost everyone else, including more moderate Democrats, are either negative or still making up their minds. Very liberal Democrats view democratic socialism favorably by an astounding 82 percent to 3 percent; among liberals, the balance is 10 to 1 favorable.

 

Meanwhile, among Wisconsin’s conservative and moderate Democrats, who comprise close to half of all of the state’s Democratic voters, the main response was … democratic what? In a state where the Democratic front-runner for the party’s gubernatorial nomination carries that label, a 56 percent majority offered no opinion of democratic socialism. Among the remainder, slightly more viewed it favorably than unfavorably.

 

Independents, always crucially important in a state famous for its razor-thin election margins, view democratic socialism negatively by 4 to 1. Republicans, you ask? One percent favorable. Enough said.  

 

‘Communism’ or healthcare for all?

 

National polling shows pretty much the same thing. Large shares of voters are unfamiliar with democratic socialism; among the rest, negative views far exceed positive ones.

 

In a year when Republicans are desperate to shift voters’ focus from the affordability crisis and President Donald Trump’s historically low job performance ratings, the rise of democratic socialism seems almost heaven-sent. Trump has gotten a head start in savaging the movement, calling democratic socialists “godless communists” and the greatest threat to the country since its founding.  

 

But there’s enough material in the democratic socialist agenda that’s anathema to voters that Republicans may not need to resort to hyperbole. To start with, take the official program of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). These are the policy proposals of the organization itself, not all democratic socialists and certainly not the Democratic Party. But don’t count on the GOP making fine distinctions when campaigning this fall.

 

The GOP data and polling firm Echelon Insights recently tested a range of policy proposals, some of which mirror those in the DSA’s program. Among other things, the DSA plan calls for “defunding the Department of War.” Echelon found that, by more than 2 to 1, voters were less likely to back a candidate who favors significantly reducing military funding and closing overseas bases. There’s also a proposal to take steps to “fully abolish the police and prison system” (no surprise, 7 to 1 less likely) and restoring voting rights for “incarcerated people and people with criminal convictions” (more than 2 to 1 less likely).

 

It’s hard to know how voters feel about some of the even more out-there DSA ideas, like abolishing the Senate or replacing the presidency and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by Congress. There’s no polling that I could find on these proposals.  

 

Yet there’s another side to the democratic socialist agenda that does have significant appeal, centered on expanding the government social safety net, providing Medicare for all, and hiking taxes on the highest incomes.

 

These are the ideas that helped carry El-Sayed to his primary win this week and Zohran Mamdani to his victory in New York City’s mayoral race last fall. Echelon tested seven economic proposals associated with democratic socialists and found voters, by margins of 2 to 1 or more, said they’d be more likely to support candidates who back them, including raising taxes for high earners, making Medicare available to all, and providing universal childcare and pre-K and tuition-free higher education.

 

And then there’s Israel. Support for cutting off all U.S. aid to Israel—a centerpiece of democratic socialist campaigns across the nation—roughly divides voters overall. Yet there is no question that public opinion is turning against Israel. Pew Research Center, where I used to work, recently found that favorable views of Israel had fallen 18 points since 2022 and 7  points in the last year alone.

 

The image problem.

 

This fall’s midterms are not going to be a referendum on democratic socialism. In the end, the elections will largely be about Trump, the Iran war, and affordability—especially gas prices—all of which is very good news for Democrats.

 

But Democratic leaders are struggling with the reality that a sizable portion of the party’s base is attracted to a movement with a toxic public image and one whose ideas—some, not all—are nonstarters for most voters.

 

Perhaps the only saving grace for democratic socialism is that it is coming to prominence at a time when virtually all political institutions and actors—both parties, the president, and congressional leaders—are all viewed negatively, so it’s definitely not alone in its unpopularity.

 

A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll underscored this in almost comical symmetry: Only 27 percent of Americans said democratic socialists had at least some good ideas. And what about  MAGA Republicans’ ideas? That number was also 27 percent.