Dems in Disarray!

The MSM can’t help itself. No matter what Democrats do, they have to be in disarray. Thus, with leftist candidate like Mamdani winning New York and centrist candidates like Spanberger winning Virginia, it must mean civil war:

The victories this past week of a democratic socialist in the New York mayor’s race and two moderate Democrats in the governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey represented only the beginning of the battle over the future of the Democratic Party.

On one side are centrists like Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, who declared in her victory speech that voters had chosen “pragmatism over partisanship” and promised “actionable policies.” On the other are progressives like Zohran Mamdani of New York, who warned hours later against bowing “at the altar of caution.”

“Democrats,” he said, “can dare to be great.”

Now the stage is set to test those dueling visions in the 2026 midterm elections, which will feature a staggering number of consequential Democratic primary races, especially in contests for the Senate.

Uh, no? It seems pretty obvious to me that the way forward is to nominate candidates who make sense in a given place among people who more or less agree about basic values?

But see, these narratives are strongly assisted by people on both the left and center with a vested interest in continuing to have a civil war:

So far, Mr. Sanders himself has endorsed Senate candidates in Michigan and Maine, holding rallies in both states and joking in Kalamazoo, Mich., that he was there for the selfish reason that he gets “lonely” in the left wing of the Senate. “I need some friends,” he told the crowd.

“I’d like 99 more friends,” Mr. Sanders deadpanned in the interview when asked how many allies he was hoping to add. “Probably not going to happen tomorrow.”

Still, national progressives see 2026 as a rare opportunity to assert their power. Moderates warn that nominating more stridently liberal candidates could fritter away otherwise winnable races at a moment when the party desperately needs every seat it can to slow or stop Mr. Trump.

“It’s not just about the stakes for the party but for the country,” said Caitlin Legacki, a centrist Democratic strategist advising a moderate Senate candidate in Michigan, where there is a fierce fight to hold the seat of a retiring Democrat. “A lot of these primaries are going to determine whether we win general elections.”

Bernie is Bernie and of course he is going to say things like this. Meanwhile, Third Way types are so high on their own supply that they believe that what The People Really Demand is neoliberalism, i.e., Ezra Klein. And there will be some primaries that are divided over ideas. That’s OK. But the real issue in Democratic politics right now is not policy. It’s communication. Can you actually communicate your passion to workers using the media that matters in 2025? That’s what both Mamdani and Spanberger are quite good at. That’s going to determine a lot of these primaries and thus the general election more than positions on some given issue. Donald Trump is of course a master of modern communication. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are both terrible at it. It seems quite clear to me that this is the first skill one needs in politics.

In any case, Dems are not in disarray right now and I don’t think they will be in 2026 either. But both the MSM and both the left and center all have reasons to continue this narrative and so it will never go away.