Are The Democrats In A Civil War?

Texas ain’t waiting on DC, we’re building our own damn movement.

All my love and prayers to the Hill Country. Standing with you in spirit and solidarity.

Earlier this month, a Michigan Senator, Elissa Slotkin, was all over the TV and news clips talking about her “economic war plan.” It pissed me off so much, I actually wrote about it (twice), but didn’t publish it… as I do a great many things.

Slotkin is a Bush-era CIA operative, and her economic war plan was a centrist reboot of the same shit we’ve been doing for the last several decades. And the way it was being framed in the media, well, just look:

“Her new vision for the Democratic Party.” Not her pitch or proposal, but her vision. The way the media presented it made it feel like this is what the Democratic Party will be doing now, which would be stupid. I wanted to see if, during the same time frame, any other Democrats were presenting different, even opposing, economic messaging on national media.

There were predominantly two figures who were constantly on the national media talking about economic issues in recent weeks:

1. Senator Elissa Slotkin

2. Zohran Mamdani

And I found a clip of Robert Reich on Democracy Now!, but he’s always around.

Slotkin’s economic message is very different than Mamdani’s. Currently, the younger and more progressive wing of the Democratic Party is aggressively rejecting what the establishment is selling and embracing Mamdani’s vision of a better world. And Slotkin sounds like more of the same.

Then last week, Pod Save America dropped this episode, “The Democratic War over Zohran Mamdani.”

Wait? We’re in a Civil War? Just before that, I was digging into the imbalance with economic messaging, now it’s a full-blown Civil War. But we already know we hate the sell-outs and the push-overs like Chuck Schumer, Joe Manchin, and this CIA-Senator Elissa Slotnik. But what about in Texas? Are we in a Civil War in Texas?

Sure, we have disagreements and intra-party fighting from time to time, with specific individuals hating each other, and others stabbing one another in the back. But are there two clear factions, such as progressives and moderates, fighting against one another? I would say no. Not anymore. Maybe there were years ago.

Our TDP Chair is progressive, the majority of our SDEC is progressive, and so are our DNC members. While not all of our Legislative House Caucus members identify as progressive, more of them vote progressively than do not. Even our congressional delegation is mostly reliable, with a few exceptions. The only thorns are really in our Legislative Senate Caucus.

We have a few straggling moderates in the Party, but really, not many.

This is not a Texas problem.

Not to say there aren’t Democrats out there who need to be primaried (Richard Raymond, Henry Cuellar, Lizzy Fletcher), but the majority of our Democrats are good and are fighting on the same page as the people.

But not enough people are having that conversation, and that impacts turnout.

The National Democrats and the donors that back them have had their puppet strings tied tightly into the hooks of establishment and centrist Democrats in Congress. These establishment Democrats do the donor class’ bidding through economic gatekeeping and prioritizing market-based policies in Congress. The kind that serve the wealthy and the elite. The type that progressives like Zorhan Mamdani, AOC, and Greg Casar fight against.

It’s the classic Clinton-era neoliberalism of think tanks, donor networks, and Democratic-aligned media. Working people are always left out of the conversation because they threaten elite donors, real estate interests, and corporate backers.

But the establishment has spent so long ignoring Texas that they have no foothold here. And if there is an establishment here, the National Party has put its square focus on DC and not Texas.

This opens up a huge opportunity for Texas progressives and for the next progressive movement to truly spawn from here.

Before we move on, our establishment and centerist Democrats at the federal level, who, in my opinion, should be primaried with a progressive vengeance:

• TX07 - Lizzie Fletcher

• TX28 - Henry Cuellar

• TX33 - Marc Veasey

• TX34 - Vicente Gonzalez

On top of that, Colin Allred is another establishment Democrat who shouldn’t be elected to the US Senate.

The success of Morena in Mexico offers a powerful lesson that too many American progressives still haven’t absorbed.

Someone sent me this article last week, and it’s made me think a lot about Texas’ progressive movement. When material improvements for working people are the priority, unlikely alliances can form between progressives and traditionalists. Morena didn’t win by perfecting the aesthetics of wokeness. It won by delivering real gains to the working class. In contrast, many US progressives remain trapped in what AMLO called “vibes politics.” A politics of performance, not results.

Although not all of it was applicable to American politics, a lot of it resonated. Unless we’re willing to ground our movements in the daily lives and values of working people, we’ll continue to lose the very people we claim to represent. Fortunately, there are signs of change. Across the country, economic populists are starting to gain traction.

Zohran Mamdani is not a standalone outlier.

In 2022, Congresswoman Summer Lee from Pennsylvania ran on an economic populist platform, which included Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and union protections.

And do you remember when a political activist named India Walton ran for office in 2021, when she primaried a long-time establishment-backed incumbent in Buffalo, NY? She ran on rent control, public housing, police reform, and public broadband. In the end, the establishment threw in mountains of cash to get the incumbent back in during the general campaign through a write-in election. It was really messed up.

There were commonalities throughout all of these campaigns.

1. Economic clarity. Name thy enemy. Billionaires. Landlords. The political class. And offer bold, tangible solutions.

2. The same old media doesn’t work. Look at what Mamdani did. Look at what Beto did. They communicated clearly and OFTEN outside of traditional press. Social media, podcasts, town halls, livestreams. Wherever the people are, they built trust directly by showing up, speaking plainly, and repeating their message until it stuck.

3. They all had grassroots infrastructure. Volunteers, not super PACs, power these wins.

4. They built coalitions with labor unions, tenant organizations, youth activists, environmental groups, and every other relevant organization.

We should be clear about what we stand for.

Because if we don’t define it, someone else will. And in Texas, we’re not waiting for permission from DC or a nod from national consultants. We know what moves people, and it’s not “messaging alignment” or whatever some think tank cooked up in a PowerPoint deck.

Texas progressives stand for material change. We stand for public schools, not private vouchers. For Medicare for All, not another patchwork half-measure. For housing that’s actually affordable, not handouts to developers. For strong unions, rural broadband, clean water, local food systems, and energy policies that benefit people, not oil executives. We fight for workers, for renters, for the uninsured, for teachers, for parents drowning in medical debt, for the folks who can’t afford groceries by the third week of the month. And we do it without apology.

And we know that this is what Democratic voters of Texas want because it’s all right there for us in the Texas Democratic Party platform.

This is what candidates should be running on. Loudly. Boldly. It’s what county parties should be organizing around. The platform should be the living, breathing center of our outreach, canvassing, meetings, and messaging. It should shape candidate trainings, issue forums, campaign lit, and party resolutions. Because voters notice when we’re vague, but they also notice when we’re real.

We have the platform. We have the values. We have the people. Now we need alignment across candidates, organizers, local leaders, and party infrastructure to make that vision loud and visible in every county, every race, and every election cycle.

If candidates learn to message effectively, it should resemble what we saw at James Talarico’s speech a few weeks ago.

This was at the San Antonio rally with Beto, Joaquin Castro, and Ron Nirenberg.

It’s a short clip (one minute), and you’ll need to turn up the volume, but I want you to hear what he says, and more importantly, I want you to see how the crowd reacts.

And Texas Democrats loved it. Because it was true. We’re Texans first, before party, before punditry. And with that comes grit, independence, and a deep, generational expectation that we don’t take orders from DC consultants who have never knocked on a door in Del Rio or manned a phone bank in Nacogdoches. Talarico named the problem. And Democratic voters in Texas heard what they’ve been waiting to hear for years. We are not subservient to the same centrist establishment that’s ignored us for decades. We know how to fight. And we’re ready.

So, are the Democrats in the Civil War?

The National Dems are for sure, but child, this is Texas and a whole different battlefield. We’re not fighting over vibes. We’re fighting for material wins. We’re not splintering into factions.

Aside from a few bad apples and the occasional squabble, the Party, officeholders, candidates, county parties, and grassroots groups are united in our path forward. We’re building something rooted, righteous, and real.

We don’t need DC’s permission or attention. We need clean water, strong schools, union jobs, and housing that doesn’t bankrupt people. And we’re organizing to get it. Not next year. Now.

If you aren’t already, consider becoming a Precinct Chair in your County Party. They’re desperately needed everywhere and are the heart and soul of everything we do.

Join the Texas Progressive Caucus. Follow their calls to action. Support the people who are willing to fight.

Sign up with Powered by People. That’s Beto’s org, and they’re still out there registering voters, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood. Join them.

Support Mothers Against Greg Abbott. These women have done more actual outreach, voter education, and organizing than half the state party combined.

Because no one’s coming to save us, but we don’t need saving, we need solidarity, and we’ve already got that in spades. Let’s win this damn thing.

• November 4: Constitutional/TX18/SD09 Election

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