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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - Jasmine Crockett can bring the Democratic Party back from the brink
It's hard to walk a mile in America's political-media industrial complex these days without someone asking me about Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Whenever I write about the future of the Democratic Party (often), my inbox inevitably fills with enthusiastic Democrats urging me to watch compilations of Crockett's most viral comments, some of which boast view counts in the millions. The TV-ready former public defender exploded onto the national scene this year as one of Democrats' rawest and most watchable communicators. Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg went so far as to declare her the future of the Democratic Party. On Sunday, Fox News anchor Trey Gowdy devoted an entire segment to denouncing her rise to prominence. At a moment when voters are increasingly tuning out politicians, Crockett is still breaking through. Democrats are about to blow millions of dollars on an almost certainly futile effort to build a 'liberal Joe Rogan' when they should be studying how Crockett's unlikely path to Washington shaped her hugely popular message. As one of the few party figures who can speak with authenticity to the millions of voters who lost faith in the Democratic Party after 2024, Crockett should be playing a lead role in reshaping the party's 2026 message. Do Democrats see what they have? Crockett's brashness may strike some Beltway stiffs as rude or disrespectful, but it's actually a powerful reflection of the alienation millions of Democratic voters feel, including the 7 percent of Black men and nearly 10 percent of nonwhite young people who gave up on the party after the last election. To those voters, Crockett's passion doesn't look disrespectful — it looks appropriate to a moment where most Americans are paying more for everything from groceries to medicine while Donald Trump's Department of Justice tears away civil rights protections root and branch. 'We have transitioned into a space where authenticity is valued so much more than people being proper or polite,' Crockett told Roll Call in January. 'If my raw emotions get the better of me, most people take it just as that, and are happy to know there's somebody who's here because she is very passionate about the work and really believes in it.' One reason institutional Democrats struggle to understand Crockett is because she came to politics not through political triangulation but by channeling the party's simmering grassroots discontent. Instead of traditional party channels, Crockett partnered with candidate recruitment organization Run for Something for her first state political campaign in 2020. That her campaign evolved outside the Texas Democratic Party's political ecosystem still rankles some Texas Democrats. When I tweeted about working on this article, two state party insiders reached out to share their concerns about Crockett's effectiveness. If recent candidate recruitment data from Run for Something is any indication, rank-and-file Democrats don't share those insiders' concerns. Amanda Litman, founder and president of Run For Something, tells me that 'Crockett's name has come up organically in conversation with candidates and potential candidates,' adding that Crockett's 'energy for the work' has played a role in convincing more political novices to run for office in their communities. After months honing her populist message, Crockett is riding high on a political moment she helped mainstream. A new Demand Progress survey found that nearly six in 10 Democrats preferred populist economic arguments over more traditional centrist proposals. That's obvious enough on the ground, where over 30,000 Coloradans packed a populist rally earlier this year hosted by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even moderate Democrats are trying out their own economic populist talking points. Crockett's fluency in the language of populist frustration allows her voice to carry in spaces and among communities where conventional Democratic talking points are normally filtered out. For Litman, the perfect candidate for our modern political era is one who isn't so concerned about being perfect. 'Voters are no longer looking for candidates who embody the perfect politician or those who play with the same old political playbook — they want someone who understands the stakes through lived experience,' Litman said. 'Crockett embodies all of this. She clearly knows who she is and what she believes.' Now Crockett and the Democrats who have rallied around her have an even more challenging goal: reminding go-along, get-along Democrats that they used to believe in things, too. Crockett has built a powerful national brand by telling Democrats that it's OK to pick a fight when that fight is worth having. Millions of voters agree. Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
4 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Jasmine Crockett can bring the Democratic Party back from the brink
It's hard to walk a mile in America's political-media industrial complex these days without someone asking me about Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Whenever I write about the future of the Democratic Party (often), my inbox inevitably fills with enthusiastic Democrats urging me to watch compilations of Crockett's most viral comments, some of which boast view counts in the millions. The TV-ready former public defender exploded onto the national scene this year as one of Democrats' rawest and most watchable communicators. Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg went so far as to declare her the future of the Democratic Party. On Sunday, Fox News anchor Trey Gowdy devoted an entire segment to denouncing her rise to prominence. At a moment when voters are increasingly tuning out politicians, Crockett is still breaking through. Democrats are about to blow millions of dollars on an almost certainly futile effort to build a 'liberal Joe Rogan' when they should be studying how Crockett's unlikely path to Washington shaped her hugely popular message. As one of the few party figures who can speak with authenticity to the millions of voters who lost faith in the Democratic Party after 2024, Crockett should be playing a lead role in reshaping the party's 2026 message. Do Democrats see what they have? Crockett's brashness may strike some Beltway stiffs as rude or disrespectful, but it's actually a powerful reflection of the alienation millions of Democratic voters feel, including the 7 percent of Black men and nearly 10 percent of nonwhite young people who gave up on the party after the last election. To those voters, Crockett's passion doesn't look disrespectful — it looks appropriate to a moment where most Americans are paying more for everything from groceries to medicine while Donald Trump's Department of Justice tears away civil rights protections root and branch. 'We have transitioned into a space where authenticity is valued so much more than people being proper or polite,' Crockett told Roll Call in January. 'If my raw emotions get the better of me, most people take it just as that, and are happy to know there's somebody who's here because she is very passionate about the work and really believes in it.' One reason institutional Democrats struggle to understand Crockett is because she came to politics not through political triangulation but by channeling the party's simmering grassroots discontent. Instead of traditional party channels, Crockett partnered with candidate recruitment organization Run for Something for her first state political campaign in 2020. That her campaign evolved outside the Texas Democratic Party's political ecosystem still rankles some Texas Democrats. When I tweeted about working on this article, two state party insiders reached out to share their concerns about Crockett's effectiveness. If recent candidate recruitment data from Run for Something is any indication, rank-and-file Democrats don't share those insiders' concerns. Amanda Litman, founder and president of Run For Something, tells me that 'Crockett's name has come up organically in conversation with candidates and potential candidates,' adding that Crockett's 'energy for the work' has played a role in convincing more political novices to run for office in their communities. Now, after months honing her populist message, the political moment appears to have caught Crockett at the ideal moment. A new Demand Progress survey found that nearly six in 10 Democrats preferred populist economic arguments over more traditional centrist proposals. That's obvious enough on the ground, where over 30,000 Coloradans packed a populist rally earlier this year hosted by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Even moderate Democrats are trying out their own economic populist talking points. Crockett's fluency in the language of populist frustration allows her voice to carry in spaces and among communities where conventional Democratic talking points are normally filtered out. For Litman, the perfect candidate for our modern political era is one who isn't so concerned about being perfect. 'Voters are no longer looking for candidates who embody the perfect politician or those who play with the same old political playbook — they want someone who understands the stakes through lived experience,' Litman said. 'Crockett embodies all of this. She clearly knows who she is and what she believes.' Now Crockett and the Democrats who have rallied around her have an even more challenging goal: reminding go-along, get-along Democrats that they used to believe in things, too. Crockett has built a powerful national brand by telling Democrats that it's OK to pick a fight when that fight is worth having. Millions of voters agree. Max Burns is a veteran Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Run for Something co-founder: ‘Democrats' reliance on seniority is our downfall'
Amanda Litman spent the past decade building a way for more younger people to run for office. Now, as the Democratic party debates its ageing leaders after the former president's decline led to a bruising loss in 2024, a groundswell of younger Democrats are working to remake the party by challenging incumbents and calling out Democratic leaders who fail to push back against Trump. It's a moment Litman has been waiting for. Litman co-founded Run for Something, an organization that recruits and trains progressives age 40 and under to seek elected office, the day Trump was inaugurated in 2017. Since then, the group has sought to dismantle the gerontocracy, helping to elect more than 1,500 people across 49 states. More than 200,000 people have signed up to explore a run for office, more than 40,000 of whom have signed up since Trump won last November. 'The Democratic party's reliance on seniority is really our downfall,' she told the Guardian. 'Imagine how hard it is to tell your grandparents that it's time for them to stop driving. This is the same: how do you tell someone they're no longer fit to do the thing that they've been doing for decades, but maybe feel called to and derive all their self-esteem and their sense of identity from?' These conversations are 'really hard', but it's vital to have them now, and in the open, because Democrats are seeing the consequences of avoiding the issue for too long, she said. Those younger leaders also have a distaste for institutionsand are more eager to tear it down or propose alternative ways to rebuild the government. Younger leaders are 'very open about what change could look like, and that can be really scary to the people who've been building these institutions for the last 10, 20, 30 years,' Litman said. Three older Democrats have died in office just this year. After the most recent death, Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly, Litman wrote on social media that 'older Democrats need to retire now and go out on their own terms. Let us celebrate your legacy! Don't let your leadership end in a primary loss or worse, real grief.' Her new book, 'When We're in Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership,' details how millennials and Gen Z leaders can remake their workplaces and become the kinds of leaders they've always wanted. It's not explicitly about politics, though some people in elected office or other political work are interviewed. 'When we make workplaces better, we give people back their time to do more politics outside of it, like being a better citizen,' she said. 'It's really hard to imagine going to a protest or volunteering for a candidate if you are working around the clock, and you get home from your nine to five and you're just drained. Part of the reason why I want to push this conversation outside of politics is because I think the more we can make work not suck, the better everything else cannot suck too.' She advocates for separating your work from your personhood and bringing your authentic self to work, albeit a modified version she calls 'responsible authenticity'. The same lessons she found across workplaces apply to politicians, she writes and points to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, as someone who strikes the right balance of showing her humanity but maintaining boundaries. 'The members of Congress I spoke to brought up the same kinds of challenges as the lawyers, as the faith leaders, as the business executives and media folks,' she said. 'They all talked about loneliness. They all talked about vulnerability. They talked about the challenges of wanting to be authentic but not wanting to let everyone into all your shit.' As Democrats debate how to rebuild their side of the aisle, Litman expects to see more primaries, something the party has often sought to avoid at the national level, often believing they're a waste of resources. Primaries are more common in the state and local races Run for Something works on, and the group has at times endorsed more than one person in a primary. Primaries are 'clarifying', Litman said. 'Politics, like everything else, is something you get better at with practice. Primaries are how you get better.' Those primaries aren't simply a progressive vs. centrist surge right now, she said. It's more about who is showing they have the fight in them to stand up to the Trump administration, more about who has 'the skills and the stomach'. Beyond primaries, the left should be having open conversations about who needs to retire - Litman said a retirement, with an open race, is much more preferable than unseating an incumbent, which can get messy. 'If we really think that this is a crisis, we need leaders who are going to act like it and be able to communicate that,' she said. 'I'm not sure that Senator [Chuck] Schumer and other older members of Congress are most well-suited to do that. That's not a personal failing. It's just we got to send our best.'
CNBC
22-05-2025
- General
- CNBC
Millennial founder's best career advice for Gen Z: 'You don't get what you don't ask for'
Amanda Litman was just 26 when she co-founded Run For Something, a political organization that recruits and supports young, diverse candidates running for down-ballot office, in 2017. As Run for Something grew, Litman found that in order to become the kind of leader she wanted to be — compassionate, transparent, effective and accountable — she would have to look outside traditional models of leadership. Millennials and Gen Z are more diverse than previous generations, "so our leadership quite literally looks different," she says. "The models that worked for the old white men of the last three centuries don't necessarily make sense for us." In the eight years she's served as president of Run for Something, Litman, 35, has watched fellow millennial and Gen Z leaders make fundamental changes to workplace culture as they rise to top positions. Litman drew on her own experiences, as well as interviews with other millennial and Gen Z leaders like Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel, comedian and producer Ilana Glazer, and activist David Hogg, for her new book "When We're In Charge: The Next Generation's Guide to Leadership." Here's her advice for the latest crop of leaders. According to Litman, the best professional advice she's ever received is "You don't get what you don't ask for." This advice rings true no matter where you are on the career ladder, she says. For leaders, clarity is crucial when setting expectations for employees. "You have a responsibility to make it clear what you are expecting, what you need, what you want out of people, and you want to make it as easy as possible for them to satisfy your demands," she says. On the other end, Litman encourages early-career professionals to put themselves out there: "If you want help from someone, if you want time on someone's calendar, if you want to have coffee with that person you've never had a chance to interact with, you need to ask for it." "The worst thing that happens is someone says no," she says. "The best thing that happens is they say yes, and you don't know what doors might open for you." Litman is heartened to see emerging leaders taking charge and making changes in the workplace. One crucial difference she notices between today's leaders and previous generations is that the younger generation of leaders is particularly focused on creating a healthy, supportive work culture. The Gen Z leaders Litman spoke to "really thought about the well-being of their teams," she says. "They thought about how to bring a sort of joy to the work in a way that I found really refreshing." Though Gen Z is often stereotyped in the workforce as lazy, unreliable, or difficult, Litman pushes back against those perceptions. "I think Gen Z wants a better balance between work and life, because they have seen how work can let you down," she says. "The career ladders that we thought we could climb no longer exist. The institutions that you thought you'd be able to work for are going through rolling layoffs. So why make your whole life about your job?" She advises Gen Z leaders to "take what works and leave what doesn't" when developing their leadership philosophies. "Don't assume that the way things were done yesterday has to be the way they're done tomorrow. You should know how things were done yesterday, but that doesn't dictate the future. You actually have a lot of agency over what could happen," she says. ,
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
These fired federal employees are considering running for public office
Tony Ruiz was happy to join Veterans Affairs in February 2024. A disabled veteran himself, Ruiz left the private sector to become a veterans service representative and help people who had served their country get the benefits they deserved. Despite glowing performance reviews and an "employee of the quarter" award, Ruiz , who lives in Orange County, California, was laid off just days before he had expected to become a permanent employee. Adrift in the weeks afterward, he came to two realizations, he told USA TODAY: He needed a job, and new people need to run for political office. 'The only way to speak up at this point with everything that's going on ‒ without getting too political here ‒ is to get into power, is to go to some location where there is a Republican and literally running on the platform of 'Hey, I'm one of those federal employees, a veteran, who was cut by the Trump administration.'' Progressive and Democratic groups that help people run for office told USA TODAY former federal employees like Ruiz are contacting them in droves to learn what it would take to run for everything from school board to Congress. Ruiz said he plans to start with a run for mayor or city council, hoping to connect with people in a moderately conservative area of California who aren't happy with the changes President Donald Trump has made, though he hasn't decided where. He called himself a centrist who leans left. "Everybody's seen now that we're under attack," Ruiz said. "That's my base; people that are veterans, Latinos, Americans in general who feel under attack.' In the three days after federal firings began in February, 1,000 people signed up to run for office with Run for Something, said group co-founder Amanda Litman. The organization supports progressive candidates who want to run for local office. It was a 'huge spike for us,' Litman said, adding that the layoffs could represent a pivot point in Trump's presidency that pushes people to get involved in politics. The group has received tens of thousands of calls and emails about running for office since the 2024 election, she said. More: The Donald Trump resistance is ready for when Democrats are done grieving 'I suspect many are coming from either employees or (people) wanting to fight back on behalf of federal employees,' Litman said. On March 25, more than 600 people attended a Run for Something informational call aimed at former federal workers interested in running for office. Attendees said they were tired of waiting for someone else to get it together. Some said they feel frustrated, disgusted and exhausted, while others said they are hopeful, optimistic and empowered. As alumni of the group talked about how they decided to run and organized their campaigns, attendees were in the video call's chat section coordinating local meet-ups or opportunities to share resources. Step one: Figure out their story. More: Rats, card tables and BYO toilet paper: Inside federal workers' return to office Litman said federal workers make compelling candidates because many are veterans and have 'a deep understanding of how the system works and a willingness to fight for it in a different way from the inside.' Also, they can say ''Trump and Elon Musk fired me for wanting to serve the people.' That's a really compelling campaign story,' she said. Running for public office is a logical next step for public servants, Emerge President A'shanti Gholar told USA TODAY. Emerge, which focuses on helping women run for office and supporting them after they win, held three trainings in April for former federal workers. Dozens of women across the country attended, and the group plans to hold another training series for fired federal workers in May and June, Gholar said. She said the training included how to find the right position for which to run. "They have all of this experience in the federal government, they know how it works, and they can take that to the local level, especially to be able to serve their community," she said. "There's 520,000 elected offices in this country, and the majority of them are at the state and local level, and that's where we really need people stepping up to be during this time." Mark Leonard, 35, of Fountain Valley, California, who has volunteered on several Democratic campaigns, said he is already in contact with six former public servants around the country who are looking for a way to serve again. He's advising them on deadlines, available resources, how to shape their message for their particular district, and how to get on the ballot. Leonard said he wants to ease their way into running a campaign, which can be daunting and very different from serving as a nonpartisan government employee. "I don't want to see people dropping out and giving up. I would like to see people run their races through," he said. Several federal employees USA TODAY spoke with said they are afraid to talk about their plans until they are fully separated from the government. Others were more open. Caitie Goddard, 41, is moving home to Michigan after losing her job with the United States Agency for International Development in Washington after less than a year. She had always worked in public education or public service and has occasionally considered running for office. "I had always thought about what it would mean to run … never knowing what would be an appropriate time. This experience of basically eliminating my position and all others, it's forced a choice," Goddard said. She wants to explore a run for state office but doesn't know where she'd fit best. Criticism of federal workers coming from the White House and some Americans has her thinking about whether having federal experience is a strength or a weakness if she runs. She said candidates will have to show that fired federal workers are "not just some random person. It's me, the girl from Royal Oak, Michigan, who has all her friends and family living in the area. It's affecting me and my family and my friends and community. It's not just some random folks without names working on Capitol Hill." Shernice Mundell, 47, of Edgewood, Maryland, joined the Office of Personnel Management in August 2024 where she helped postal workers with health insurance questions. She was excited to spend her final working decades helping fellow Americans. Mundell is considering a bid for Congress because she feels let down by her own congressman, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, who she said hasn't provided resources for the fired federal workers in his district. When she called his office to express concerns about the cuts, the only response she got was an automated message that he supports what the Trump administration is doing. "I've always wanted to do it, but I never had a reason," Mundell told USA TODAY. "Once I was fired, I said, Well, maybe this is God's way of telling me I should run for something." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fired federal workers look to run for office to keep serving
