When activist David Hogg ran to become vice-chair of the Democratic National Committee, he made it quite clear that he had a game plan to remove fossils and those not pulling their weight in Congress.
I am guessing the establishment simply fell in love with the idea of having Hogg in a high-ranking party role and dismissed his actual platform.
Hogg was eventually run out of the party under the guise of an unfair election, but now he is back, and the Democrat establishment could soon regret its decision to go to war with this young man.
After the elections for leadership in the DNC, it was Hogg who was getting all the headlines, not the new DNC chairman, Ken Martin.
Martin even expressed his frustrations over all the attention Hogg was getting in the national media.
According to reports at the time, Martin, during a leadership conference call, told attendees, “I’ll be very honest with you, for the first time in my 100 days on this job … the other night I said to myself for the first time, I don’t know if I wanna do this anymore.”
He later added, “No one knows who the hell I am, right? I’m trying to get my sea legs underneath of me and actually develop any amount of credibility so I can go out there and raise the money and do the job I need to to put ourselves in a position to win. And again, I don’t think you intended this, but you essentially destroyed any chance I have to show the leadership that I need to. So it’s really frustrating.”
Hogg’s election was challenged based on an alleged violation of internal diversity rules, and the DNC went with it just to have him removed. Mind you, no other position was challenged, just the position that Hogg won.
When the announcement was made that the election was going to be a redo, Hogg stated, "I came into this role to play a positive role in creating the change our party needs. It is clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair -- and it’s okay to have disagreements."
Hogg continued, “What isn’t okay is allowing this to remain our focus when there is so much more we need to be focused on.”
He later added, "Ultimately, I have decided to not run in this upcoming election so the party can focus on what really matters. I need to do this work with Leaders We Deserve, and it is going to remain my number one mission to build the strongest party possible."
Hogg is clearly not going to switch to the GOP, but he could be a player in Elon Musk’s new party, so this is something we are going to have to watch.
In fact, Hogg has already targeted a seat, backing Deja Foxx to run for the seat vacated by the late Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), who died in March. Foxx, as Hogg has promised, is the youngest candidate in the field thus far.
The primary winners for the seat will face off in a Sept. 23 election to serve out the final 15 months of Grijalva’s term, so by Wednesday, we should have a much better idea of how much influence Hogg has. If his candidate wins Tuesday's primary, Hogg would surely then have to be considered among the true power brokers in D.C. on the left.
Honestly, I am surprised that Musk’s new party did not take a shot at this seat, as Arizona is now a purple state, and this seat is exactly the type of seat that Musk said he would be targeting to get the America Party off the dime. Stay tuned, my friends, things are about to get interesting if Hogg’s candidate takes this primary race.
