The Democratic Party is at a crossroads, and the cracks are starting to show in ways that are hard to ignore. This week, the DNC released its 2024 election autopsy, which was universally panned. It’s obvious that the party isn’t ready to honestly address what’s wrong with it. But they have other problems as well. They can't quite agree on who's supposed to be steering the ship, and that poses a problem for the Democrats heading into the midterms.
CNN's Jake Tapper pressed Sen. Cory Booker on all of it Sunday during State of the Union, and the senator's answers were, to put it charitably, revealing.
Tapper noted the 2024 autopsy managed to omit some rather significant details, like President Joe Biden's catastrophic decision to run for reelection in the first place, questions about his age and fitness, and the festering internal tensions over Israel and Gaza. Then he asked the obvious question.
"How can the Democratic Party hope to win tomorrow if it won't even honestly confront the problems of yesterday?" Tapper asked.
Booker acknowledged the frustrations but pivoted quickly, arguing the party is too focused on itself and not enough on voters. "The DNC has got to do a lot better if they're going to meet this moment in history," he said. "My advice to the party leaders is that, be less concerned about the party and far more concerned about the American people."
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He pointed to a handful of candidates he's been traveling to support, including James Talarico in Texas, Jon Ossoff in Georgia, and Roy Cooper in North Carolina, as examples of the kind of leaders he thinks the party needs. "Those leaders are stepping up and saying, I don't give a damn about parties. I care about people," Booker said. "You cannot lead the people if they don't trust you, and that's what's lacking right now with the party apparatus."
Tapper pushed back, noting that for someone who covers politics for a living, he still can't identify a coherent Democratic message. "I know you all hate Trump, but what else?" he said pointedly.
Booker conceded the point. "You are not going to win this election just by what you're against," he admitted, which is hilarious, because he’s part of the problem. "You need to start articulating who you're for and what you're for. Have a vision that's compelling that not only engenders trust, but makes sense for the American people."
Then came the real question: Does Booker still have faith in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer?
Booker dodged, but you could read between the lines.
"The Democratic Party desperately needs new leadership," Booker said, "and that's what's exciting me about this cycle."
"When you say you need new leadership, who?" Tapper pressed. "New leadership suggests, first of all, that the old leadership, the current leadership, is not delivering. So you haven't said you want Schumer to go, but that's a kind of subtext of it."
Booker's response was a firm "No," followed immediately by a non-answer about primaries being healthy and leaders needing to step up with a vision, yada, yada, yada.
It’s quite clear that in this cycle, being against the party leadership is very much in style. Democrat voters are giving their party miserable approval ratings, and the anti-establishment mood inside the party is impossible to ignore. That’s why even Schumer’s handpicked candidate for the U.S. Senate in Maine, Gov. Janet Mills, got crushed by a guy with a Nazi tattoo and a porta-potty fetish, among other things. Democrat voters are angry and frustrated, looking for anyone who doesn’t sound like the same old party leadership that led them straight into the 2024 disaster. And when prominent Democrats start talking openly about the need for “new leadership” while refusing to defend the current leadership by name, it’s hard not to wonder if the party is already in the middle of a civil war it doesn’t want the public to notice.
