A tea of one's own

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On the surface, the conditions surrounding Democrats’ political standing seem increasingly similar to those that led to a conservative revolt in 2009. Longtime incumbents in deep blue districts are facing restless party activists back home. Three polls last week found registered Democrats disapproving of their party’s congressional leaders by nine, thirty-eight, and fifty-one points. On Monday, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, a channeler of the liberal id, pressed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, with thinly veiled exasperation, for evidence that he “understands the scale of the threat.” Outside groups are promising primary challenges. “Our goal is to beat some of these incumbents,” said Usamah Andrabi, Communications Director for Justice Democrats.

But a closer look at the state of the American left shows a landscape still missing key ingredients for a liberal insurgency — beginning with the willingness to cut its former leaders loose.

Any simple narrative of the Tea Party movement is lacking. Sixteen years after its rise, it’s clear that the Great Recession, working class anger, long-simmering frustrations with Republican elites, cultural anxiety, opposition to the bipartisan consensus on immigration, backlash to the first Black president, and the amplification of conservative media all played some role in the movement's rise. The fact that it came to be associated with deep cuts to the social safety net, which few Republican voters ever actually supported, makes its legacy even more complicated.

But by any fair reading, a crucial aspect of the movement’s success was its willingness to break with George W. Bush, who left office in 2009 historically unpopular. A new generation of Republicans was able to earn credibility with voters by signalling, in both tone and substance, a departure from the previous Republican president and establishment. That ultimately culminated in the party’s elevation of Donald Trump, who ran explicitly against Bush’s domestic and foreign policy legacy, even declaring from a 2016 primary debate stage that Bush had knowingly “lied” to the nation in order to launch the Iraq War. Statements like that horrified other Republicans, but they shouldn’t have. Trump’s ability to distinguish himself was crucial to his 2016 victory and remaking of the GOP. 

So amid speculation of a “liberal Tea Party,” it’s worth considering the prospects for a similar Democratic break with Joe Biden, who not only departed office with an approval rating closer to Bush’s than Barack Obama’s but left his party in unique disrepair. For generations, every presidential election saw the losing party improve in at least some states, even when the country as a whole moved against them. Those outliers were more than mere consolation: John Kerry's growth in major cities presaged Democrats’ urban dominance. John McCain's advances in Appalachia and the south foreshadowed a new Republican base. Hillary Clinton’s inroads in suburbs previewed Democrats’ subsequent comeback.

But in 2025, Democrats have no such green shoots. Kamala Harris became the first nominee — Republican or Democrat, winning or losing — in forty-four years to fail to improve her party’s margins in a single state. Even more significant, she was the first nominee in ninety-two years, going back to the Great Depression, to fail to flip a single county. 

The implications of that performance are worth considering. Every single state in the country moved right. Democrats couldn’t convince a single of the 2,588 counties that voted for Trump in 2020 to change its mind. The president improved his margins in nearly every congressional district (with the few outliers some of the wealthiest enclaves in the country). Unlike defeated parties past, the Democratic Party of 2025 has no natural starting point for a rebellion.

And yet, a clean break from the president and vice president who led Democrats to that performance does not appear imminent. Just this week, MSNBC announced the elevation of two Biden-Harris administration veterans to the network’s primetime lineup: Former Biden campaign and White House communications aide Symone Sanders and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki. The decision was ultimately a business one — and potentially wise, given the network’s flagging ratings — but it was a window into a crucial difference between the 2025 left and 2009 right: At the outset of Obama’s presidency, Republicans were not watching primetime Fox News programming hosted by former Bush aides. Its rising stars were not finding virality and attention by defending Bush — a contrast with Rep. Jasmine Crockett, for example, who appeared on The View last week to brag that Democrats were right to prefer “Sleepy Joe” in 2024 (no matter that Biden was not in fact their nominee for president last year).

The hesitation to immediately move beyond Biden may speak in part to a broader challenge for Democrats right now: No corner of the party has a clear edge in credibility. While many of the party's moderates were the earliest and most outspoken against Biden’s re-nomination, and are closer to public opinion on cultural issues, they also tend to be the least eager to lean into populist energy. While the progressive wing would seem a natural birthplace for a rebellion, it faces a daunting landscape: Congressional Republicans were already moving right by 2009, but the Democratic caucus has drifted to the center in recent years; and while Republican voters were prizing conservative purity in 2009, Gallup last week found fewer than a third of registered Democrats want the party to become more liberal.

For now, one part of a potential Democratic revolt is absolutely present: widespread dissatisfaction with party leaders. Andrabi predicted progressives’ fortunes would reverse in 2026, saying multiple incumbent Democrats will “absolutely” go down in primaries next year. Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, which played a key role in grassroots organizing in 2017, says he sees reason to be “hopeful” about the coming months. But he too cautioned Democratic leaders are on notice. “Either you gotta do something to reassure Democrats that you are indeed leading the way,” said Levin, “or you should expect for them to take it out on you the next chance they get.”

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