David Hogg Is Right: Fascism Is Here. Stop Pretending Otherwise.

The fight for democracy won’t be won by Democrats who refuse to fight back.

To all those who celebrate: Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and Happy 4/20. Early voting starts on Tuesday. Be on the lookout tomorrow for my local recommendations.

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I usually keep my focus on Texas politics. That’s where I live, that’s where I vote, and frankly, Texas gives us no shortage of battles worth fighting. So I don’t wade into national party drama lightly. There are already too many voices in that conversation. But the so-called controversy surrounding David Hogg isn’t just about the DNC or safe-seat primaries. It’s about the kind of politics that will or won’t survive the moment we’re living through. And that absolutely includes Texas.

If you care about what’s happening in Texas, to our trans kids, to our immigrant neighbors, to working people and public schools, then you already know the Democratic status quo in Washington, DC, isn’t cutting it. And the pushback against Hogg’s $20 million strategy to primary entrenched Democrats should sound familiar. It’s the same pearl-clutching we hear every time someone dares to suggest the problem isn’t just Republicans, but the Democrats, too scared, too compromised, or too tired to fight them.

Let’s be clear: the nightmare is already here. A woman was abducted off a street in Boston by unmarked agents. Asylum seekers are being held in US-sanctioned concentration camps. We’re not approaching a constitutional crisis. We’re living inside the fallout. Fascism is here.

And in the face of that reality, “play it safe” is not a strategy. It’s a surrender. The kind of politics that might have passed for acceptable ten years ago is not going to cut it now. Not when people are being kidnapped, deported, erased.

So when David Hogg says he’s putting money behind new candidates in safe blue districts, I don’t hear chaos. I hear a call to rise. To stop waiting for the old guard to find their spine. To stop pretending that Democrats who refuse to act boldly in the face of authoritarianism deserve automatic reelection just because they’ve got a D next to their name.

This moment demands confrontation. It demands clarity. And if we want to survive it, in Texas and every corner of this country, we need to stop treating moral courage as a liability and start treating it as the minimum requirement for public office.

The statas quo is complicit.

The current Democratic establishment has confused caution for courage. While Trump disappears immigrants and ramps up mass deportations, Gavin Newsom is out here hosting podcasts with Charlie Kirk. Gretchen Whitmer is hiding behind carefully curated photo ops. Klobuchar is hedging, Schumer is polling-tested, and the rest are busy trying not to upset anybody while the country burns.

It’s not just a failure of messaging. It’s a failure of moral clarity. These are many of the same Democrats who stayed silent or equivocated on Gaza, who offered vague platitudes while state legislatures were targeting trans kids, and who still seem to believe the best way to counter rising authoritarianism is to downplay it, delay action, or hope it goes away on its own.

And yes, James Carville threw his usual tantrum, called Hogg a twerp and floated some nonsense about suing him. But he’s not the point. He says out loud what a lot of these folks think in private: that the biggest threat to the party is disruption, not dictatorship.

What Hogg understands, and what far too many Democrats still don’t, is that we are not in a normal election cycle. We are not having a polite debate over marginal tax rates. We are in a fight for whether the United States will remain a place where you can speak freely, walk down the street without being abducted, or exist as queer, trans, undocumented, or Black without being targeted by the state.

Fascism is here.

If that sounds dramatic, good. It’s meant to. The moment is dramatic. And if your elected officials don’t see that, or worse, see it and still do nothing, then they don’t deserve to keep their seat.

Primarying safe-seat, stand-by while the world burns down, Democrats is a moral imperative.

There are Democrats, including right here in Texas, who’ve been in office for years without ever stepping up to meet the moment. Who’ve coasted on name recognition and party loyalty. Who’ve stayed quiet while ICE disappeared people from our communities, while the legislature scapegoated trans kids, while far-right operatives organized openly with zero consequences. Some issued hollow statements. Others didn’t even bother with that. (Looking directly at you, Henry Cuellar.)

We all know who they are. In the Texas House. In the Texas Senate. In our City Halls and County Courts. Even within some county parties. And while national headlines focus on David Hogg’s effort to primary safe-seat Democrats in Washington, we should be having that same conversation here. Because the truth is, if you’re a Democrat in Texas and you’ve done nothing while fascism has crept into power, you’ve made yourself part of the problem.

Hogg’s strategy isn’t radical. It’s overdue. You don’t stop fascism by hoping it fades out. You fight it publicly, relentlessly, and without apology. That means challenging Republicans, yes. But it also means challenging Democrats who’ve stood idly by while communities have been criminalized, schools defunded, and people erased from public life.

If you believe in a better future for this state and this country, and you identify as progressive, now is the time to get serious about replacing Democrats who refuse to fight. Not in 2028. Not when it’s “politically convenient.” Now (2026).

So when Hogg says he’s investing in new leadership in places where Democrats have grown stagnant, I don’t hear disunity. I hear strategy. I hear a refusal to wait for permission to demand better. And I think Texas could use a little more of that energy.

This moment demands confrontation. It demands clarity. And it requires leaders who treat moral courage not as a liability, but as a bare minimum requirement to represent the people.

Texas Democrats know this and proved to the world they would replace enablers with progressives when they voted in Lauren Ashley Simmons over Shawn Thierry. And we can prove it again.

This is what fighting back looks like.

James Carville called it “insane” to spend money replacing Democrats who aren’t rising to the occasion. But you know what’s insane? Watching people with power refuse to use it, while our neighbors are abducted off the street, while elections are undermined. At the same time, entire communities are pushed further into danger, and calling that strategy unity.

One more time, for the people in the back: Fascism is here.

If “unity” means circling the wagons around leaders who won’t lift a finger to confront fascism, it’s not unity. It’s surrender. And in Texas, we know a thing or two about what happens when you surrender your power, when you stay quiet to keep your seat, or wait around for the polling to change before you take a stand. The right doesn’t hesitate. The right doesn’t ask for permission.

Real organizing means having hard conversations. Real leadership means putting your seat on the line for your values. And real solidarity means refusing to protect politicians who’ve abandoned the people they claim to serve. That’s not division. That’s accountability. And it’s long overdue.

David Hogg is not tearing down the party. He’s trying to make it worth fighting for again. He’s drawing a line in the sand and saying: if you’re not going to stand up to authoritarianism, step aside. We’ll find someone who will.

And that terrifies people like Carville, not because it’s a bad strategy, but because it threatens the old playbook. It challenges the idea that the Democratic Party is a private club where nothing changes unless the consultant class says it’s time. Hogg’s not waiting for permission. He’s organizing with the urgency the moment demands.

That’s not chaos. That’s leadership.

If you’re a progressive in Texas and you’re tired of watching Democrats shrink from the fight while the far right seizes more ground, now is the time to act.

In Washington, DC, in Austin, and even in your own backyard.

Primarying entrenched Democrats isn’t a distraction. It’s a survival strategy. It’s how we build a party that reflects the people it claims to represent, not just in its values, but in its courage.

Because this moment will not wait, the threats we face are not theoretical. And the next election, in Texas, in Congress, at every level, is not just about what we believe. It’s about whether we’re willing to fight for it.

David Hogg is. The question is: are we?

• April 22: Early Voting Begins

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