When several dozen Democratic political operatives and elected officials gathered at a tony resort off the Potomac River last month, frustration boiled over at the left wing of their party.
Democrats had become too obsessed with “ideological purity tests” and should push back “against far-left staffers and groups that exert a disproportionate influence on policy and messaging,” according to a document of takeaways from the gathering produced by the center-left group Third Way and obtained by POLITICO.
The group of moderate Democratic consultants, campaign staffers, elected officials and party leaders who gathered in Loudoun County, Virginia for a day-and-a-half retreat, where they plotted their party’s comeback, searched for why the party lost in November — and what to do about it. Much of what they focused their ire on centered on the kind of identity politics that they believed lost them races up and down the ballot.
One of the key ways to win back the trust of the working class, some gathered there argued, was to “reduce far-left influence and infrastructure” on the party, according to the takeaways document. That included building a more moderate campaign infrastructure and talent pipeline, pushing “back against far-left staffers and groups that exert a disproportionate influence on policy and messaging,” and refusing to participate in “far-left candidate questionnaires” and “forums that create ideological purity tests.”
MORE:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/centrist-group-dems-reject-radical-181032506.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/02/third-way-patriotism-democrats-campaign-00206890