This Is Exactly the Right Time for Democratic Infighting

Tim Walz says we 'don't have the luxury' to fight ourselves. He's wrong. The Democrats who created Trump will create the next one too.

Tim Walz recently said Democrats don't "have the luxury to fight against ourselves while that thing sits in the White House." I think he's dead wrong. The Democratic Party is hemorrhaging voters, losing states, and facing electoral extinction. We have no power to protect. What we need is the courage to claim it.

Federal troops, once in Los Angeles, now occupy Washington DC. Chicago may be next.

Trump's Executive Order issued yesterday morning creates an online portal to recruit civilians with "law enforcement backgrounds" into federal forces. These "specialized units" can be deployed "whenever circumstances necessitate" - not just in DC but "in other cities where public safety and order has been lost." This is the creation of a parallel police force answerable only to executive power. A volunteer Trump army ain't good.

I fear that the Democrats we have in power now are not ready for this moment. Confronted with an impossible choice: either mount civil rights-style resistance - taking to the streets, engaging in civil disobedience, direct confrontation - or compete at the level of vision with something as comprehensive as Project 2025 and as clear as "Build that Wall" they do neither.

Instead, they write letters, raise procedural complaints, and send sassy tweets. I imagine this satisfies few and changes nothing.

The Numbers Don't Bode Well

The NYT has been throwing up more red flags than a 3 am Tinder date. Their analysis tells us that Democrats lost 4.5 million registered voters since 2020 - ground lost to Republicans in all 30 states that track party registration. In 2018, Democrats captured 63 percent of new voters choosing between the two parties. By 2024, that collapsed to 48 percent.

Democrats haven't just been losing elections; they've been bleeding voters and the party's future. By 2032, red states gain seven EC votes and blue states lose as many - making a third of Democratic winning paths disappear.

What say the people? Congressional Democrats hit 19 percent approval. The party holds no chamber of Congress, no presidency, and faces a Supreme Court stacked against them. It seems to me that we're seeing the collapse of the Democratic Party.

It Ain't Gotta Be This Way

The reality that Walz and other party leadership seem unwilling or unable to see is that Trump isn't the cause of all this. He's a symptom. He's also not an anomaly or a one off, but a predictable outcome to the decades of economic extraction and social breakdown. Democrats helped oversee while telling voters they were living in the most prosperous of times. This tragic time in American history will not end with Donald Trump.

But it could end with the rebirth of FDR's Democratic Party.

Americans are struggling with the core expenses of life - housing, healthcare, education, transportation, childcare. On average over 260,000,000 Americans spend 105% of their income on these six categories alone. Unbelievable you say? Click here. We also spend more on healthcare than any other country and get poorer results. We spend more on infrastructure than anyone and watch bridges collapse and floods close sections of the country for months or years.

Both parties treated government as a piggy bank for extraction instead of a builder. They handed over production and delivery to interests that profit from scarcity and failure, then blame messaging when people lost faith in Democrats and our institutions.

Trump offers desperate Americans answers, however cruel: blame immigrants, worship billionaires, tear it all down. Democrats offer denial: the economy is great, institutions are sacred, just vote harder. The talking heads say move to the center. The center of what?

Two Versions of What Real Opposition Might Look Like

Democrats are paralyzed because they are uncomfortable with either of the two forms of opposition that might work.

Street-level resistance - The civil rights model of direct action, civil disobedience, mass mobilization. Put bodies on the line to disrupt the system until it responds. This works but requires confrontation with armed federal troops and risks giving Trump the chaos he wants.

Visionary competition - Build a comprehensive alternative like Project 2025 but for rebuilding instead of extraction. Offer Americans a future where government competes in captured markets, builds what people need, and holds power accountable. This works but requires admitting the current economic system has failed. Neoliberalism would be dead.

So Dem leaders wait, sure the pendulum will again swing their way. They file lawsuits that take years to move through captured courts while democracy dies today. They defend broken institutions instead of offering better ones. They unite around nothing except opposition to Trump - which has already proven to be a failed campaign agenda. Twice.

The Mission for America: An Alternative We Need

Trump has Project 2025 - a detailed blueprint for remaking America around extraction and authoritarianism. Where's ours? Where's the mission for rebuilding this country from the foundation up?

Government as Builder: Imagine rural clinics as common as post offices. Government pharmaceutical plants producing insulin at cost. A million Americans trained as nurses, technicians, doctors through public programs. NASA reclaiming the innovation that made SpaceX possible. Public banks in every town offering free checking and fair loans. This isn't fantasy - it's what we did before we forgot government could build.

Accountability That Reaches Up: Impeach Supreme Court justices who declared presidents above the law - nothing could be more antithetical to the Constitution and the framers' intentions. Prosecute Congress members trading on inside information. Release the Epstein files and pursue every lead. Scale consequences with power - the higher you rise, the harder you fall when you break the law.

Democracy That Delivers: End gerrymandering by creating districts that serve communities, not parties. Expand voting access instead of restricting it. Give people actual power over the systems that govern their lives, not just the illusion of choice between corporate-funded candidates.

Democrats, especially the new crop running now, need to stop being afraid of the word socialism. That's not what we need. What we need is competition — but competition owned by us, the people, through our government. Trump just took a 10% stake in Intel, cut himself in on 15% of Nvidia and AMD's sales to China, and grabbed a golden share in U.S. Steel. He's already bulldozing free-market taboos to bend industries toward his own power. The lesson isn't to shrink away from that — it's to do it right. We need to wield public power to break private monopolies and prove that when profit isn't the only motive, we can deliver. We need to reignite the engines of prosperity through real competition, and the only force big enough to do it is the American people acting together through their government.

The Civil War We Can't Avoid

The fight inside the Democratic Party isn't a distraction from stopping Trump. It's the prerequisite. Until Democrats choose a path to oppose authoritarianism, they can't effectively oppose anything.

Party leaders don't want to confront corrupt justices or lead protest against authoritarianism. They want to return to "normal" - but that "normal" isn't waiting on the other side of this.

Right now progressives hold rallies while establishment Democrats cut deals with the same interests bleeding the country dry. Bernie draws crowds talking about oligarchy but won't endorse Saikat Chakrabarti. AOC electrifies audiences but refuses to spend her millions ensuring that a new vision prevails. At present, rallies and speeches aren't building a movement.

Our choice is stark: either figures like Bernie, AOC, and Ro Khanna start primarying Democrats who block transformation, or we must figure a way to build around candidates who will. Either they put money and organizing behind people like Saikat Chakrabarti (running against Pelosi), Abdul El-Sayed (running for Senate in Michigan), and Graham Planter (taking on Susan Collins in Maine), or we do it ourselves. Sure, Graham Planter and Abdul are on the "Stop the Oligarchy" tour but where are the ads where is the infrastructure? We need to move past the idea of rallies that amount to gatherings with no support. Rallies that say, "It's up to you!" I didn't realize that "Not Me. Us." meant, "Not me. You, if I'm not running for president."

Why Now

Walz wants Democrats to postpone internal battles until "after Trump." But there is no after Trump without figuring out what Democrats stand for. The party can't compete with authoritarian populism by offering nothing except restoration of a system most people think is already broken.

Voter registration. Congressional approval. Electoral College math. Americans are abandoning Democrats not because they've moved too far left, but because the party won't move anywhere at all. It manages decline while promising prosperity, defends extraction while preaching free markets, enables oligarchy while condemning authoritarianism.

We cannot win by unifying around failure. The civil war is already happening - between a party establishment that thinks small fixes will save democracy and a movement that understands we need to rebuild from the ground up. Mamdani?

The only question is whether we'll fight it honestly or pretend it's not happening while Trump consolidates power.

What Happens Next

We have 537 days until the midterms. Not to "resist" - to prepare to govern. That means primarying safe-seat Democrats who won't commit to building. It means funding candidates who understand government must compete, not just regulate. It means building year-round infrastructure for transformation, not just campaign operations.

We need supermajorities to deliver change this comprehensive. That should be explicit. Without overwhelming democratic power, you can't impeach corrupt justices, impose term limits, or break up monopolies. The only other form of government strong enough for this scale of change is dictatorship - and that's not the future we're building.

This is exactly the time for Democratic infighting. Not in spite of Trump's authoritarianism, but because of it. The system that enabled Trump won't stop the next Trump. Only something fundamentally different will.

The troops are in Washington. Civilians are being recruited into federal enforcement. The authoritarian playbook is being implemented. Electoral math is tilting against Democrats permanently. Voter registration is collapsing.

If not now, when? If not us, who?

The choice isn't between unity and division. It's between transformation and extinction. Between a party that builds the future and one that manages the past. Between leaders who fight for structural change and ones who think better messaging will save us.

I say embrace and win the Democratic civil war we can't avoid. Not because I want to divide the party, but because it's already divided - between those who see the scale of this crisis and those who don't.

P.S. If you work for WFP, DSA, Indivisible, Run for Something, Leaders We Deserve - if you're with the Osborn, Planter, or El-Sayed campaigns - I hope you all are talking.

We've been siloed too long. Every organization doing their own thing. Every campaign reinventing the wheel. Every leader waiting for someone else to lead.

I co-founded Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress. I was in AOC's office trying to build this coordination. It didn't work. But that was before Trump deployed troops, before Democrats hit 19% approval, before we lost 4.5 million voters.

537 days isn't much time. We need real coordination - campaigning as a bloc, aligned messaging, coordinated primaries. Not another coalition that meets monthly to share updates. Actual infrastructure.

I don't know if that's a movement website, a physical gathering, or something else. But I know solo efforts won't cut it anymore.

If you're have ideas or are already building together i would love to hear about it. Reply to this email.

Otherwise: share this piece. The ideas need to spread whether or not the coordination happens.