In the wake of Platner’s implosion, I was expecting a clash between the DSA and the Democrats, instead what is playing out is a purge on the Left with various activists and strategists turning on each other. The chief targets, Morris Katz, the strategist, who helped make Mamdani, his agency, and Daniel Moraff, a former DSA organizer, who helped create its highly successful strategy of running DSA candidates in Democrat primaries, who scouted and helped vet Platner.
DSA members are calling for a purge of Moraff and Katz and his agency, but the fallout is spreading to new targets. This just appeared in the Huffington Post. Not a site I would usually link to, but the significance of this appearing there should be obvious.
A progressive House candidate whose surge in a battleground district in Michigan has alarmed Democratic party officials once said Black U.S. political leaders are a “pillar” of the “capitalist, imperialist” American establishment whose backing for Democratic leadership “defangs the white left.”
William Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement who is running for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 7th congressional district, made his comments on the Sept. 10, 2024 episode of his podcast, Hegemonicon, which featured conversations about social movements and politics.
The fight for the Democratic nomination here had long been seen as a fight between Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, and Bridget Brink, a diplomat who served as ambassador to Ukraine in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion. Both candidates had raised millions of dollars as of March, far outpacing Lawrence.
But the 35-year-old Lawrence has surged in recent weeks, earning the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive favorite in the state’s U.S. Senate race. The race is now seen as firmly a three-way contest.
This is Platner spillover, but it’s not just happening in Dem circles, but between different factions of leftists. The DSA and the Left have gotten some wins, but that just means they’re ripe for infighting with too many rogue activists running around and organizing and putting forward candidates and fundraising. When it works, it works, but now that it just blew up, there’s a purge underway.
