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from https://www.adn.com/opinions/national-opinions/2025/06/18/opinion-maybe-the-latest-democratic-disarray-means-theyre-coming-to-their-senses/

Opinion: Maybe the latest Democratic disarray means they’re coming to
their senses
By Jonah Goldberg
Published: June 18, 2025

Delegates cheer during the ceremonial roll call vote on the second day
of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Tuesday,
Aug. 20, 2024, in Chicago. Teachers unions typically make up about 1 in
10 of the delegates at Democratic conventions. (Alex
Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, and
Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees, resigned from their positions on the Democratic National Committee. This could be great news.

I don’t really know, because the actual reasons remain murky.

“While I am proud to be a Democrat,” Weingarten told DNC Chair Ken
Martin in her resignation letter, “I appear to be out of step with the leadership you are forging, and I do not want to be the one who keeps questioning why we are not enlarging our tent and actively trying to
engage more and more of our communities.”

(Obviously, they would rather be pure liberal woke, and broke, and small
and losing elections, than adapt to what majority of voters want!)

Color me skeptical that this is the real reason. I doubt Martin’s stated policy is to shrink the Democratic tent or refrain from engaging with
“more and more of our communities” — whatever that means. Much of the reporting on the resignations revolves around old-fashioned Democratic
disarray and internal power struggles. Weingarten and Saunders had
supported Martin’s opponent in the recent election of a new DNC chair.
That may be all there is to it, which would be a shame.

That’s because the Democratic Party is a mess. Don’t get me wrong, so is the Republican Party, but for different reasons. The GOP is also in
charge, controlling the White House and both branches of Congress.
Moreover, for all the problems the Republican Party has, it has the wind
at its back and remains more popular than the Democrats. In 2024, it
made impressive strides with many core Democratic demographic
constituencies, including Black, Latino and young voters.

The GOP has a story to tell voters. You may not like the story. You may
think it’s not actually following through on the vision it’s selling,
but Republicans know how to articulate what they’re for. Democrats not
so much.

Historically, the Democratic Party is the party of government. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. As President Franklin D. Roosevelt
said: “It is the purpose of government to see that not only the
legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and
rights of the many are conserved.”

The Democratic Party has gotten itself into a mess because it has
evolved — or devolved — into a party fairly perceived as more concerned with the interests of the few and less concerned with the welfare and
rights of the many. That was the underlying message of that ad the Trump campaign played more than any other (30,000 times!). It showed a clip of
Kamala Harris explaining her support for government-funded sex-change
surgeries for illegal immigrants. It closed with: “She’s for they/them. He’s for you.” The anti-transgender message was obvious (and broadly popular), but the subtext was more important: Harris is for niche issues
that excite activists while Trump is for the meat-and-potatoes concerns
of the common American.

Few groups represent the Democrats’ broader problem better than groups
such as Weingarten’s AFT (teachers unions typically make up about 1 in
10 of the delegates at Democratic conventions). During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Weingarten consistently put the needs of union
members over the general welfare, while insisting she was putting
children first. She opposed reopening schools long after it was remotely necessary to operate remotely and successfully badgered Joe Biden to
violate his pledge to reopen them quickly.

AFT and other public-sector unions, such as AFSCME, are an ATM for the Democratic Party. And the Democratic Party is responsive to donors. For instance, one of the first things President Biden did when he took
office was issue an executive order repealing a Trump administration
policy that restricted government employees from spending more than 25%
of their time doing union business while on the job. He put the number
back up to 100%.

There’s a reason FDR disliked the idea of unionizing government
employees. The government shouldn’t be captured by special interests
that use state power to further their ends over the general welfare.
Democrats instinctively understand this when it comes to corporate
interests but seem blind to it for members of their own coalition.
Biden’s effort to lawlessly cancel student debt wasn’t just terrible policy; it also sent the signal that the party put the interests of the
few above the many.

As a conservative, I don’t typically root for the Democratic Party. But I’ve come to realize that our system depends on two healthy, sane
parties competing over best policies. When one party goes off the rails,
it gives permission for the other party to do likewise. If the departure
of Weingarten and Saunders is a sign the party is coming to realize
that, that’s good news indeed.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The
Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

• • •
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