The spotlight will now be on those establishment Democrats who will waver and fear upsetting the status quo of a Democrat party always on the defensive against a Republican party constantly, and falsely, claiming the "patriotic" mantle by waving flags. I fear that the establishment Democrats will form a MAGA-like cabal to take down those progressives who did all the heavy lifting. It's happened before and is likely to happen again.
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The Much Maligned “Groups” Are the Reason Democrats Won the Midterms
Perry Bacon
Tue, November 10, 2026
The Much Maligned “Groups” Are the Reason Democrats Won the Midterms
After Kamala Harris lost two years ago, some Democratic-leaning commentators came up with a boogeyman: "the groups." Left-leaning organizations had forced Harris and other Democratic politicians to adopt progressive stances, particularly during the 2020 presidential primary Those positions doomed those candidates in 2024, these pundits claimed. Therefore, a Democratic (and therefore a democratic one) revival would require a diminished role for left-leaning organizations.
The groups didn't close their doors or stop pushing for a more progressive, anti-MAGA Democratic Party. Now that the midterms are over, we can say this emphatically: Thank goodness. The resounding victory for Democrats last week came in part because liberal institutions spent the last two years both forcefully attacking the Trump administration and organizing their communities to resist him—often as elected Democrats stood pat. People with titles like governor and senator would seem the logical leaders of the anti-authoritarian movement in America, but in reality, the heads of groups such as Indivisible are offering the courage and wisdom we desperately need.
Like almost all intra-Democratic debates, "the groups" narrative was in part about ideology and identity. Left-leaning groups tend to have fairly progressive positions. And in particular, they push left wing stances on issues involving gender, race, and ethnicity and are often led by women and people of color. Those lambasting the groups were largely center-left white people—the kind of people not under the gun over the past two years. The white centrists were just using new words for an old argument: A generation earlier this bloc of Democrats said the party was too beholden to "special interests," then personified by Jesse Jackson.
In the months right after Trump's reelection, anti-left, anti-group sentiment pervaded the Democratic Party.
The Much Maligned “Groups” Are the Reason Democrats Won the Midterms
Perry Bacon
Tue, November 10, 2026
The Much Maligned “Groups” Are the Reason Democrats Won the Midterms
After Kamala Harris lost two years ago, some Democratic-leaning commentators came up with a boogeyman: "the groups." Left-leaning organizations had forced Harris and other Democratic politicians to adopt progressive stances, particularly during the 2020 presidential primary Those positions doomed those candidates in 2024, these pundits claimed. Therefore, a Democratic (and therefore a democratic one) revival would require a diminished role for left-leaning organizations.
The groups didn't close their doors or stop pushing for a more progressive, anti-MAGA Democratic Party. Now that the midterms are over, we can say this emphatically: Thank goodness. The resounding victory for Democrats last week came in part because liberal institutions spent the last two years both forcefully attacking the Trump administration and organizing their communities to resist him—often as elected Democrats stood pat. People with titles like governor and senator would seem the logical leaders of the anti-authoritarian movement in America, but in reality, the heads of groups such as Indivisible are offering the courage and wisdom we desperately need.
Like almost all intra-Democratic debates, "the groups" narrative was in part about ideology and identity. Left-leaning groups tend to have fairly progressive positions. And in particular, they push left wing stances on issues involving gender, race, and ethnicity and are often led by women and people of color. Those lambasting the groups were largely center-left white people—the kind of people not under the gun over the past two years. The white centrists were just using new words for an old argument: A generation earlier this bloc of Democrats said the party was too beholden to "special interests," then personified by Jesse Jackson.
In the months right after Trump's reelection, anti-left, anti-group sentiment pervaded the Democratic Party.
In January 2025, dozens of congressional Democrats backed an anti-immigrant bill called the Laken Riley Act, over the objections of civil rights and progressive groups.
Blocs of Senate Democrats, desperate to cast themselves as reasonable and not beholden to liberal activists, voted for many of Trump's radical, unqualified cabinet nominees. Not a single Democrat voted against Marco Rubio's confirmation as secretary of state. (Now, many congressional Democrats say they regret their Laken Riley and cabinet votes. As they should)
Democratic lawmakers whined in closed-door meetings that liberal groups were encouraging rank and file Democrats to call members' offices and demand they stand up to Trump.
Democratic Party officials distancing themselves from activists and groups essentially gave a greenlight to centrist media, which always revels in bashing the left. "The Resistance is Not Coming. It's Tuning Out," claimed Politico. "Goodbye, Resistance," declared The New York Times magazine.
Then, reality struck. The Trump administration was laying off federal workers en masse, shaking down law firms, universities, and other institutions, terrorizing liberal cities, and filing charges against dissenters. It turns out that citing poll-tested talking points about the economy wasn't sufficient to stop authoritarianism, no matter how often center-left pundits and politicians insisted that the key was to essentially "roll over and play dead."
Groups and activists decided to fight Trump, despite the risks of an authoritarian regime potentially jailing them. A grassroots network started protesting at Tesla showrooms across the country, trying to weaken the business of Elon Musk, one of the architects of Trump's destruction of the federal government. Those protests helped drive up Musk's unpopularity and he left Washington a diminished figure.
After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allowed a Trump-backed government funding bill to pass with little resistance, Indivisible called for his resignation. He didn't, but Schumer and Senate Democrats were shamed into not greenlighting Trump's budgets in the future. Indivisible organized anti-Trump rallies in cities across the country in April 2025, ending the dumb discussion about the resistance's demise. The protests organized by the group in October were even larger, drawing out more than 5 million people.
Left-leaning groups in Los Angeles, Chicago, and mostly notably Minneapolis organized aggressive opposition to Trump's immigration raids in their communities, even as Democratic Party officials largely followed the advice of the anti-groups contingent, which argued any discussion of immigration benefits Trump.
Amid this resistance, Trump's poll numbers keep plunging. Those on the center-left and many in the media act [as] if the president's unpopularity is entirely self-inflicted, particularly his decision to join Israel in going to war with Iran, which caused gas prices to shoot up. But it's hard to imagine that American voters decided entirely on their own that Trump's actions went too far. It was critical to have a strong activist community loudly casting the administration as authoritarian, essentially forcing the media and Democratic officials to stop ignoring the obvious.
Trump was unpopular before the Iran war even started. The percent of Americans who disapprove of Trump had jumped from 39 percent at the start of his term to 58 percent long before he kicked of the military misadventure. Lest we forget, the 2025 election, held before the war, was also a blue tsunami.
Many of those groups also did campaign work. In the run-up to the election, Black Voters Matter and other groups mobilized African-Americans in the South, resulting in an unusually high-Black turnout that helped flip key districts and states.
The groups didn't just lead an electoral turnaround. They also defended the targets of the Trump administration directly. Groups such as the NAACP, National Education Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration, often leading to his policies being stopped.
The groups of course will not get much credit. Center-left politicians and pundits want to attribute the massive Democratic victory to anti-Trump sentiment, good Democratic candidates, bad Republicans ones, and centrist messaging, despite little evidence that the messaging in particular mattered much. The anti-left, anti-groups narrative was advanced the last two years by the Times news and opinion pages, many other prominent centrist news outlets, and by many staffers at left-leaning organizations such as Pod Save America, The Atlantic, and The Bulwark. This collective hivemind isn't going to admit that it said people should ignore those fighting the fascists hardest for electoral reasons and were wrong about both the fighting and the elections.
But Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, the heads of Indivisible, have been much smarter and tougher in fighting fascism than Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer the last two years. Greenberg and Levin won't get titles like Speaker and Majority Leader. But we can recognize that pair and people like them as the actual leaders of America's anti-authoritarian movement. Let's hear it for the groups.
Democratic lawmakers whined in closed-door meetings that liberal groups were encouraging rank and file Democrats to call members' offices and demand they stand up to Trump.
Democratic Party officials distancing themselves from activists and groups essentially gave a greenlight to centrist media, which always revels in bashing the left. "The Resistance is Not Coming. It's Tuning Out," claimed Politico. "Goodbye, Resistance," declared The New York Times magazine.
Then, reality struck. The Trump administration was laying off federal workers en masse, shaking down law firms, universities, and other institutions, terrorizing liberal cities, and filing charges against dissenters. It turns out that citing poll-tested talking points about the economy wasn't sufficient to stop authoritarianism, no matter how often center-left pundits and politicians insisted that the key was to essentially "roll over and play dead."
Groups and activists decided to fight Trump, despite the risks of an authoritarian regime potentially jailing them. A grassroots network started protesting at Tesla showrooms across the country, trying to weaken the business of Elon Musk, one of the architects of Trump's destruction of the federal government. Those protests helped drive up Musk's unpopularity and he left Washington a diminished figure.
After Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer allowed a Trump-backed government funding bill to pass with little resistance, Indivisible called for his resignation. He didn't, but Schumer and Senate Democrats were shamed into not greenlighting Trump's budgets in the future. Indivisible organized anti-Trump rallies in cities across the country in April 2025, ending the dumb discussion about the resistance's demise. The protests organized by the group in October were even larger, drawing out more than 5 million people.
Left-leaning groups in Los Angeles, Chicago, and mostly notably Minneapolis organized aggressive opposition to Trump's immigration raids in their communities, even as Democratic Party officials largely followed the advice of the anti-groups contingent, which argued any discussion of immigration benefits Trump.
Amid this resistance, Trump's poll numbers keep plunging. Those on the center-left and many in the media act [as] if the president's unpopularity is entirely self-inflicted, particularly his decision to join Israel in going to war with Iran, which caused gas prices to shoot up. But it's hard to imagine that American voters decided entirely on their own that Trump's actions went too far. It was critical to have a strong activist community loudly casting the administration as authoritarian, essentially forcing the media and Democratic officials to stop ignoring the obvious.
Trump was unpopular before the Iran war even started. The percent of Americans who disapprove of Trump had jumped from 39 percent at the start of his term to 58 percent long before he kicked of the military misadventure. Lest we forget, the 2025 election, held before the war, was also a blue tsunami.
Many of those groups also did campaign work. In the run-up to the election, Black Voters Matter and other groups mobilized African-Americans in the South, resulting in an unusually high-Black turnout that helped flip key districts and states.
The groups didn't just lead an electoral turnaround. They also defended the targets of the Trump administration directly. Groups such as the NAACP, National Education Association, and the American Civil Liberties Union filed hundreds of lawsuits against the Trump administration, often leading to his policies being stopped.
The groups of course will not get much credit. Center-left politicians and pundits want to attribute the massive Democratic victory to anti-Trump sentiment, good Democratic candidates, bad Republicans ones, and centrist messaging, despite little evidence that the messaging in particular mattered much. The anti-left, anti-groups narrative was advanced the last two years by the Times news and opinion pages, many other prominent centrist news outlets, and by many staffers at left-leaning organizations such as Pod Save America, The Atlantic, and The Bulwark. This collective hivemind isn't going to admit that it said people should ignore those fighting the fascists hardest for electoral reasons and were wrong about both the fighting and the elections.
But Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, the heads of Indivisible, have been much smarter and tougher in fighting fascism than Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer the last two years. Greenberg and Levin won't get titles like Speaker and Majority Leader. But we can recognize that pair and people like them as the actual leaders of America's anti-authoritarian movement. Let's hear it for the groups.
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