So a new possibility about the raging debate on the direction of the Democratic Party is emerging, and I gave it a stab at New York:

The big debate among Democrats this year is whether the renewed energy being exhibited by the progressive wing of the party reflects an ideological development or something else. Unsurprisingly, there are many voices suggesting a long-awaited “pivot to the left” by Democrats is finally underway, as Ben Davis, a Democratic Socialist who worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign, wrote in The Guardian:

“After the last month, Democratic leadership should be seriously taking stock of their position. The energy is on their left. The people are on their left. Democrats want fighters, and they want a politics rooted in the collective struggles of the masses, not decided in smoke-filled rooms. We still need moderate Democrats to win those pesky median voters, for now. But the party’s leadership is deeply out of touch with its base. A leftist wave is cresting across the country.”

For many left-bent progressives, this trend, if it’s real, is long overdue. The recent history of the Democratic Party, in their minds, has been a long and terrible saga of centrist disappointment and even betrayal of the rank and file and their interests. From Carter to Clinton to Obama to another Clinton to the doddering Biden and the hapless Harris, centrists promoted a duopoly beholden to oligarchical elites and complacent with militarism and mass incarceration. The center-left gave us Donald Trump and then let him return to power, they reason, so why should centrists be trusted to turn the country around? Isn’t it the left’s turn to be in charge?

At the same time, Trump and his mouthpieces are promoting the same “Democrats pivot to the left” idea in luridly cartoonish Red Scare colors. Trump now routinely refers to progressives of any hue as “the communists.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is singing the same song:

“It’s insane to see how far left the Democrat Party has moved to where now literally it’s a Bolshevik Revolution. I mean, the Communists have taken over. This is not your father’s Democrat Party, and it’s really the candidates that they’re nominating that are the far-left extremist lunatics.”

But there could be something else going on that has little to do with ideology, much less “socialism” or “communism.” That’s what G. Elliott Morris concludes in a deep dive on the polling data underlying the “progressive surge” in Democratic primaries:

“I think the data conclusively shows Democratic primary voters aren’t being drawn primarily to the leftism of these DSA candidate, but rather their anti-party orientation. …

“Among self-described moderates — just a fourth of the party — Schumer polls at just bare even and Jeffries lands at 61/100, effectively tied with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg.

“On a comparative basis, it’s worth emphasizing the finding that Bernie Sanders is viewed as the most favorable Democratic figure even among self-described moderate Democrats. In absolute terms, every left-wing ‘insurgent’ figure … lands above 50 with moderates: Mamdani, the highest profile Democratic Socialist in America, lands at 57 — seven points above Schumer.”

So even Democrats who self-identify as nonprogressive prefer progressive politicians to “moderates” like themselves. Why is that? Morris believes it’s clear Democrats of every hue are furious with “the Establishment,” and not just because “the Establishment” isn’t fighting Trump hard enough or successfully enough:

“In public statements Schumer, Jeffries, and Hickenlooper each put roughly two-thirds to four-fifths of their substantive rhetoric into attacking Trump or the GOP. For the left, their conflict is with the establishment. Looking at the language of these groups, it’s like candidates are living in different worlds.”

In other words, “the left” is winning support from voters who are indifferent toward or perhaps even opposed to its ideological agenda but who are now gravitating toward politicians who are demanding change. It’s the same impulse that fed the once-shocking rise of Donald Trump among Republicans. Voters are, if possible, less enchanted about the status quo than they were in 2016, but for obvious reasons Trump and his party can no longer fully harness that angry energy.

So if this analysis is correct, what should Establishment Democrats — or, for that matter, “moderates” — do about it? Yelling more loudly about “fighting Trump” has its limits; as we’ve learned over the last year and a half, promising to “fight” a party with trifecta control of the federal government can guarantee a disappointing result. But what Democratic voters seem to crave is a commitment to change that goes a lot deeper than getting rid of Trump and returning to the status-quo ante. Does that mean they need to all become “socialists”? No, not necessarily: There are “radical centrist” types of pro-change politics available too, like demanding more accountable government that gets things done. With the right tone, an “abundance” centrist enraged by bureaucratic and interest-group resistance to housing construction and infrastructure projects might strike some of the same anti-Establishment chords as a Democratic Socialist. What does seem clear is that today’s breed of Democratic voters are not longing for a return to “normalcy,” as Joe Biden famously offered in 2020. More important than moving left or moving right is just moving.