DEMOCRATIC CANNIBALISM:
THE PURGE BEGINS
The internal struggle within the Democratic Party continues to illustrate the very problem discussed in this article:
- a political movement increasingly consumed by its own ideological divisions.
The recent Michigan Senate race provides a particularly interesting example. After progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated establishment-backed candidate Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary, Stevens ultimately broke ranks and endorsed Republican Mike Rogers rather than support her party’s nominee. Now, following his Senate victory, El-Sayed is refusing to commit to supporting Chuck Schumer for Senate Democratic leadership, declaring that the party needs “new leadership” and that voters are hungry for it. This is especially noteworthy given Schumer’s support for El-Sayed’s campaign.
The divisions extend beyond personalities, reflecting deeper disagreements over Israel, the direction of the party, and the influence of its increasingly powerful progressive wing. In other words, Democrats are not simply fighting Republicans; they are fighting one another over who is sufficiently progressive, ideologically acceptable, and entitled to lead.
But there is another dimension to this political cannibalism:
- the eventual need for a boogeyman.
As I discussed in my earlier article, The Left Cannibalizing Itself! They’ll Be Looking for a Bogeyman, movements that become consumed by their own ideological contradictions and internal power struggles often look for external scapegoats. When factions turn against one another, when promised political solutions fail, and when ideological purity becomes impossible to maintain, an outside enemy can become a convenient explanation for those failures. Rather than confront the contradictions within the movement, blame can be redirected toward conservatives, Christians, Jews, or other groups portrayed as obstacles to progress.
This is particularly concerning when a movement becomes convinced that its objectives are not merely politically preferable but morally unquestionable. Anyone opposing those objectives can then be portrayed as standing in the way of justice, equality, or human progress. As C.S. Lewis warned, tyranny exercised in the name of doing good can become especially oppressive because its advocates believe their intentions justify their actions.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2002), 292.
Lewis is warning about people who believe they know what’s best for everyone else. They don’t simply disagree with your beliefs, values, or way of life; they consider them defective and believe you need to be corrected, reeducated, or changed for your own good. By convincing themselves that they’re helping you, they justify overriding your freedom and treating you as though you’re incapable of thinking for yourself or making your own decisions. In essence, they don’t see you as someone with whom they disagree, but as someone who needs to be fixed—even if you never believed you were broken in the first place.
The danger, then, is not simply that the Left will continue eating its own; it is that, as the internal cannibalism intensifies, the search for someone else to blame may become increasingly consequential. First comes the infighting. Then comes the search for a boogeyman.