Democrats Have An Incumbency Problem

Democrats lost because, as a party, they are out of touch and have lost their will to fight. There was no widespread cheating to blame, and while the media did a poor job of informing the nation, it is the job of a political party to learn how best to use the media to reach voters. Democrats failed.

Nancy Pelosi was more focused on playing kingmaker behind the scenes, pushing the most successful president of our lifetime out of the race to replace him with someone of her choosing. That didn’t go as planned and only made the Democratic Party look dysfunctional. Democrats lost not just the White House but also Congress.

Pelosi then went on to do everything she could to prevent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from gaining the top Democratic position on the House Oversight Committee. She put her weight behind a 74-year-old who has been in Congress for 16 years despite AOC currently serving as the second-ranked Democrat on that committee.

From the moment AOC ran against a powerful Democratic incumbent and won, Pelosi has worked to limit her influence. But Democrats need more politicians like AOC. She is passionate, cares about issues important to younger generations, and, maybe most importantly, knows how to use social media, podcasts, and grassroots efforts to reach voters in a way that many Democrats do not. Clips of AOC talking about issues get millions of views. Pelosi does not.

How can Democrats be the party of change if they’re determined to prevent new, younger voices from rising their ranks or from even getting involved in the first place?

You can find plenty of information from the Democratic Party that explicitly tells people interested in getting into politics not to run for federal office because the party wants to control who those candidates are. That isn’t how the government is supposed to work, and a far cry from what the Founding Fathers intended, who didn’t want there to be political parties at all.

Being primaried shouldn’t be a punishment. It should be an expectation. The only way voters can have proper representation is to have choices. The voters should decide who represents them, not the party. When AOC ran against a 10-term incumbent and chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the party put its weight behind her opponent to protect incumbency. They used all the tricks in the book, including challenging the signatures collected by AOC’s campaign.

Protecting incumbency has risks beyond losing relevancy and becoming out of touch with voters. A significant reason we have a corrupted Supreme Court, fewer Democratic judges than we should have, and the loss of reproductive rights is because Ruth Bader Ginsberg refused to retire when a solid replacement could have been guaranteed, Diane Feinstein refused to retire while suffering from memory and confusion issues, and Dick Durbin lacked the will to fight for proper Supreme Court reforms as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. If long-term incumbents had stepped aside for a new generation or the Democratic Party supported primary challengers instead of attempting to silence them, America might be in a very different place today.

The Democratic Party can only be the party of progress if its members are willing to embrace change themselves. It is time for those who have been in Congress for decades, failed to solve the nation's problems, and enriched themselves in office to step aside or be voted out.

If Democrats want to stop losing, it is time for fresh voices to deliver wins. New candidates funded solely by the people, not special interests, will drive the meaningful progress the party has continually failed to deliver. Campaigning for the midterms begins in full in only one year. There is no time to waste.