Cenk Uygur’s Uphill Battle to Reclaim the Democratic Party

Cenk Uygur announced last month that he was launching a new initiative called the Rebellion PAC, with the goal of orchestrating a populist takeover of the Democratic Party. The problem, however, is that the Democratic Party is no longer a populist party—it has become the party of elites and the wealthy.

For the third straight presidential election, the Democratic candidate received more support from big-dollar donors than the Republican candidate.

In the most recent election, Kamala Harris actually won voters who made over $100,000 a year. Meanwhile, Donald Trump won voters making less than $50,000 a year.

This is a dramatic reversal. Democrats used to perform best with low-income voters, while Republicans had stronger support among high-income voters.

But over the last 10 years, under Trump’s influence, the Republican Party has transformed into a populist movement that appeals to working-class voters—those who earn less and are less likely to be highly educated white-collar professionals.

This shift explains why Bernie Sanders struggled to regain momentum during the 2020 Democratic primaries. In 2016, Bernie came close to defeating Hillary Clinton, largely thanks to support from working-class white voters who still identified, to some extent, with the Democratic Party.

But by 2020, many of those voters had already aligned with Trump and the Republicans. That’s why Bernie performed worse in 2020 than in 2016.

And this presents a major hurdle for Cenk and his new PAC. The Democratic primary voter base is now largely wealthy—and wealthy people are generally averse to populism, since they’re doing well under the current system and have little incentive to challenge it.

Moreover, those who vote in primaries tend to be more politically engaged, and politically engaged voters are disproportionately wealthy. That makes Cenk’s mission to return the Democratic Party to its populist roots even more difficult.

There are also very few true populist firebrands left in the Democratic Party. The closest was Bernie Sanders, but his repeated concessions to the Democratic establishment—even after being mistreated—left a sour taste in the mouths of populist-leaning Democrats. Many of them fled to Trump.

Bernie is now in his mid-80s, and it’s hard to imagine him leading a populist resurgence at this stage.

Another potential leader is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she is too focused on progressive social issues to establish herself as a unifying populist voice. Many populists, for example, don’t agree with her positions on issues like transgender participation in women’s sports.

Us at the Right-Wing Populist, we support Cenk’s effort to reclaim the Democratic Party for the people. He’s essentially the godfather of independent media, and in recent months he’s been willing to criticize some of the more extreme voices on the left.

We wish him well in his efforts to push back against the elite Democratic establishment and bring the party back to its populist roots.