The Radicalized Democratic Base

Party leaders may have no message, but their base demands blood

ICE and Border Patrol have targets on their back. A Hispanic gunman tried to murder Border Patrol agents over the weekend, spraying multiple rounds while managing only to get himself killed. Shortly after, eleven Antifa militants were charged for their involvement in a terror attack on an ICE facility. Riots broke out in Los Angeles last month over ICE raids, with several other cities witnessing aggressive demonstrations and attempts to disrupt immigration law enforcement.

These efforts find ample support among the Democratic base. In fact, Democratic voters want their lawmakers to join in these efforts. According to an Axios report, Democratic politics are getting deluged with demands that they resist immigration enforcement by any means necessary. "Our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough ... [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public,” one anonymous Democrat told the outlet.

It’s clear that the base has settled on a message for the party: it wants a militant anti-Trump position that will risk violence to stop his anti-immigration and anti-DEI agenda. But the party leadership knows this will alienate independent voters. A majority of Americans still back mass deportations. It’s not going to be a hit for Democratic congressmen to take up arms to defend illegal alien rapists and drug dealers. The public has little appetite for riots and political violence in the first place. The LA riots helped Trump’s immigration agenda rather than turned America against it. Democrats have tried to barge into ICE facilities and disrupt press conferences. They’ve been arrested for these efforts, but they did little to sway the public or activate their base. The base seems to want them to do more. They want blood, not mere theatrics.

The radicalized base presents problems for the establishment’s attempts to move the Democrats to the center. While plenty of 2028 hopefuls want a less woke party, the faithful want militant libtardism. This will further compound Democratic problems, as well as create the grounds for left-wing terrorism.

Democrats have no idea what to pitch to the country. They’ve tried a couple of lines. They complained about rising egg prices, but they’ve returned to normal. They challenged the tariffs, but Trump managed to offset their ill effects. They didn’t bother to raise much fuss about Trump striking Iran, even though it upset the Democratic base. They’ve made some lukewarm protests about the big, beautiful bill, but it’s possible Americans forget about it come the midterms. The only consistent message is hostility towards the ICE raids. It’s not been enough to raise money or unify the party, but it’s all they got at the moment.

Meanwhile, the base is seething. It’s outraged that the party lost an apparently winnable election. It’s angry how Democratic leaders look impotent in the face of Trump’s tyranny. These folks are also not happy about how Democratic leaders continue to support Israel in spite of the ongoing outrages in Gaza. They’re also furious at how the rest of the country doesn’t seem to care that we are losing our “democracy” at the hands of Trump and his goons. They want a party fanatically anti-Trump and committed to ACTION.

It is notable that the party hasn’t rallied behind a clear, unifying message several months after the 2024 election. The Democrats quickly coalesced around anti-Trumpism as its message following their loss in 2016. The same hasn’t occurred today, largely owing to the detoxification of Trump and less public outrage over his moves this time around. It’s no longer as popular to be fanatically anti-Trump. They need more of a message than knee-jerk hostility. But they can’t find that one, while the base wants an even more violent version of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

This does offer the possibility of left-wing terrorism. We’ve already seen plenty of instances of it, with the Tesla firebombings and now the attacks on immigration law enforcement. There is plenty of underlying support for the violence among the Left. These people genuinely believe Trump is establishing a fascist dictatorship. That provides ample justification for violent acts.

Does this mean the entire left-wing base is ready to head to the barricades? No. The vast majority of them are not going to do violence themselves. Many of them are incapable of it. Lawmakers told Axios they primarily received the demands for blood from older, white middle-class people. These are the elderly people going to “No Kings” protests and doing boycotts against Tesla. They’re annoying, but harmless. This is not a base from which to launch a civil war. Low-energy Gen Xers and Boomers are not going to be fighting any wars.

However, these people do provide the moral support for violent acts. Potential terrorists need that to know they’re right. The terrorism will be the work of lone wolves, not organized networks. All it takes is the sentiment to push them towards murder. The outpouring of support for Luigi Mangione did more to encourage left-wing terrorism than anything imaginable. I predicted a few months ago that we would see a lot of lone-wolf left-wing terrorism during the second Trump term. This grim prediction is starting to become true.

The Left’s demand for blood illustrates where most political violence will originate in America. The Right doesn’t maintain the same sentiment. Of course, right-wingers spend countless hours fantasizing about civil wars and guerrilla activity on social media. But they will never do this stuff. They have a lot to lose, while the Left can count on a large number of people with nothing to lose. The Right also thinks any right-wing violence is the work of the feds or attributes it to the Left. Compare the Right’s reaction to the schizo who shot Minnesota Democrats to the Left’s embrace of Mangione. The entire Right thought the Minnesota gunman was a leftist and blamed his violence on Tim Walz.

While the view that all right-wing violence is a false flag may be wrong, it at least encourages the Right to be anti-terrorism. The Left does not share the same attitude.

The Democrats are in a rough spot. Public approval of the party is near record lows. They know they need to reach out to the center to have a chance in 2026 and 2028. However, their base wants them to embrace terrorism, socialism, and fanatical Trump hatred. That will be an obvious loser in elections, but Democrats have to entertain these delusions. Expect more lame theatrics, more arrests at ICE facilities, and more apologetics for left-wing agitators from Democrats. It won’t win over the public, but it will please the base.