The Federalist Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway joined Fox News Channel host John Roberts Friday to analyze what she describes as a fundamental shift within the Democratic Party toward “Democratic Socialism.” The conversation focused on how progressive candidates are openly challenging the traditional party establishment.
The discussion opened with a broadcast clip of progressive candidate Zohran Mamdani, who argued that conventional political strategies are no longer viable for the party.
“That old way of thinking will lose on Tuesday,” Mamdani said. “And frankly, it will lose in South Carolina and New Hampshire. It will fall short of 270 electoral votes.”
Roberts noted that these far-left candidates are operating with an institutional agenda that goes beyond simple election victories, stating, “They’re not just in it to get elected. They’re in it to boot out the establishment.”
Hemingway traced the roots of this internal division back to the 2008 presidential election, drawing a contrast between current party dynamics and the leadership of former President Bill Clinton. She noted that Clinton operated on the center-left and was consistently willing to “reposition if he felt he had gone too far or if the public reacted.” She argued that this flexibility ended permanently with the rise of Barack Obama.
“With the election of Barack Obama — and there’s no confusion about it, Barack Obama runs the Democratic Party now — you’re seeing more and more of this type of extremism,” Hemingway stated.
She added that while earlier progressives tended to conceal their radical positions, modern candidates are entirely transparent about their goals. “Now it’s out there in the open, and in really blue districts, you’re seeing they’re letting the freak flag fly about what they’re going to do.”
The conversation shifted to local governance, focusing on Washington, D.C., where progressive candidate Janeese Lewis George won her primary. Because of the city’s heavily Democratic electorate, Roberts observed that Lewis George is a “shoo-in for mayor.” He cited an editorial from the Washington Examiner that called her economic proposals “cartoonishly bad,” highlighting her push for a new business activity tax despite budget deficits and rising office vacancies. Roberts added that establishment Democrats often view candidates like Lewis George and Graham Platner as socialists or communists rather than traditional Democrats.
Hemingway contended that these platforms hurt the party nationally with working-class voters and trigger a localized economic decline. She described this process as a “socialism death spiral.”
“You get a lot of businesses to leave the city, or you get more moderate voters to leave the city, and the people that remain just call for more and more extremism,” Hemingway explained.
She also suggested an alternative to D.C. statehood, stating that the federal government could “retrocede it to Maryland,” though Roberts pointed out that Maryland faces its own regional traffic and infrastructure challenges.
A clip from Janeese Lewis George defended the underlying objectives of her platform, arguing that her focus remains on baseline human needs that cross party lines.
“No matter what city you live in in this country, Democrat or Republican, everyone has an interest in their family having affordable child care and having affordable health care,” Lewis George said. “These aren’t just sort of values attributed to one party or one ideology. These are values attributed to the American people.”
Hemingway agreed that political parties must address cost-of-living and affordability concerns. However, she argued that heavy regulatory frameworks produce counterproductive results, causing businesses to close and ultimately making childcare more difficult for families to afford.
The segment closed by examining the national scale of the progressive movement, featuring a clip from Senator Bernie Sanders celebrating recent primary successes.
“In the last eight months, progressive and democratic socialist candidates all over this country have been winning major victories,” Sanders said, stating that thousands of voters are signaling to the establishment that “enough is enough.”
Hemingway concluded by urging voters to take the explicit policy platform transparency of modern progressives seriously, warning that goals involving court-packing, severe regulatory increases, and halting deportations represent real policy transformations if these candidates secure higher office.
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