I know this probably comes as a shock, but it turns out that giving a 25-year-old firebrand activist with virtually no experience in organized politics or the private sector the vice chairmanship of your party’s national committee isn’t a wise idea.
I understand, I’m as shocked as the Democrats are, but apparently just because an irate narcissist like David Hogg can get attention doesn’t mean he can get a party damaged by a 2024 wipeout and internal strife into a better place, electorally.
In fact, he’s promised to actively undermine any attempt to do so by using his position with the Democratic National Committee and an outside group he runs to primary House Democrats he views as insufficiently left-wing and/or young.
The actual DNC chair, Ken Martin, made it clear he was nonplussed — and that Hogg needed to stay out of picking sides as the party navigates its future.
“No DNC officer should ever attempt to influence the outcome of a primary election, whether on behalf of an incumbent or a challenger,” Martin said on a conference call Thursday, according to Fox News.
“I have great respect for David Hogg. I think he’s an amazing young leader who’s done so much already to help move our movement forward,” Martin added.
However, “I’ve said to him, if you want to challenge incumbents, you’re more than free to do that, but just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be neutral arbiters. We can’t be both the referee and also the player at the same time.”
“It’s important for us to maintain the trust that we have built with Democratic voters and to keep our thumb off the scale as party officers,” Martin said.
The comments came after Hogg, a 25-year-old who got his start in political activism after the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, said he would be spending $20 million in blue districts to primary Democrats who “are asleep at the wheel” through his own group, Leaders We Deserve.
Are you glad Democrats elected David Hogg to a leadership role?
That group may be aptly named — although not in the way Hogg intended — but Martin apparently wants to ensure his party doesn’t get what it deserves good and hard at the primary ballot box in 2026.
Other Democrats on the call echoed Martin’s sentiments.
“I, too, have a deep relationship with David. I was just talking with him this morning,” said Jane Kleeb, the president of the Association of State Democratic Chairs.
“We hope that he realizes that he got elected to be an officer of the DNC, which means that we remain neutral.”
Here’s where the narrator’s voice from “Arrested Development” would chime in: “David Hogg did not realize that.”
This moment requires us to have the strongest opposition party possible to stop Trump from destroying people’s retirement savings, disappearing people, plunging our economy into oblivion—and to provide a real alternative to the Republican Party for voters that we simply do not…
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) April 24, 2025
“They’re trying to change the rules because I’m not currently breaking them. As we’re seeing law firms, tech companies, and so many others bowing to Trump, we all must use whatever position of power we have to fight back. And that’s exactly what I’m doing,” Hogg wrote on X.
“This moment requires us to have the strongest opposition party possible to stop Trump from destroying people’s retirement savings, disappearing people, plunging our economy into oblivion—and to provide a real alternative to the Republican Party for voters that we simply do not have right now.”
The role of the DNC is to set the Presidential primary calendar, set the Presidential debate schedule, to help strengthen our state parties, play a key role in building our data infrastructure for the party, and to be the campaign in waiting for whoever the next Democratic…
— David Hogg 🟧 (@davidhogg111) April 24, 2025
“Voters trust Donald Trump more on the economy than Democrats. That is an indictment of our party. Too many of our leaders are asleep at the wheel while Trump creates new crises every day that jeopardize our way of life,” he added.
“The role of the DNC is to set the Presidential primary calendar, set the Presidential debate schedule, to help strengthen our state parties, play a key role in building our data infrastructure for the party, and to be the campaign in waiting for whoever the next Democratic nominee is. Nothing I’m doing is at odds with any of that,” Hogg concluded.
I mean, except for doing the exact opposite of what the party has specifically told you that you couldn’t do, sure. But that’s just David Hogg being David Hogg, which is what anyone should have expected when he got elected to the post in February.
By the by, it’s also worth noting that the DNC does not play by the rules the DNC is laying out for Hogg — as anyone who recalls the 2016 WikiLeaks email drop that proved the party did everything possible to ensure Bernie Sanders had no chance against Hillary Clinton in the primary process will no doubt be aware of.
However, those were the rules made by people who had spent a lifetime of accruing power, learning how to navigate Washington, D.C., and figuring out how to stab someone in the back while still keeping your pantsuit bloodstain-free. I’m not saying that’s moral or democratic, but these are people who know how to win elections — and also knew, from long experience, that Bernie had no chance against Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich, or even Jim Gilmore, for Mayor Pete’s sake.
David Hogg, meanwhile, is an unbearably aggressive self-promoter who has parlayed an unspeakable tragedy into an improbable career he does not remotely possess the skill set for. Even before this stunt was announced, media reports indicated DNC members were already having buyer’s remorse regarding Hogg, who didn’t seem to comprehend the most basic aspects of the gig or American politics, full stop.
But then, what do you expect from a party that lost every single swing state in 2024 and seems to have come away convinced that the real problem was that Kamala Harris wasn’t enough like AOC, who’s looking more and more like the presumptive favorite in the early presidential nomination sweepstakes?
Hogg may not be vice chair the DNC needs, but he’s certainly the one it deserves. As for that buyer’s remorse I was talking about, Democrats should used to hearing this phrase a lot over the next four years if this pattern persists, and not just about Hogg: caveat emptor. For conservatives, meanwhile, he’ll be the gift that keeps on giving.
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