Democrats Are Burning $15 Million to Fight Each Other While Families Can’t Afford Groceries

By Tammy-Jo Pritchett · August 7, 2026

Opinion

So let me get this straight. There’s a think tank called Third Way, run by people you’ve never heard of, and they just announced they’re dropping $15 million to wage war on… other Democrats. Not Republicans. Not inflation. Not the fentanyl crisis. Not the fact that my grocery bill looks like a car payment. Other Democrats.

I saw this with my own eyes on the news this morning and had to read it twice because I thought maybe I needed more coffee. Third Way co-founder Matt Bennett went on Fox News and called the Democratic Socialists of America “dangerous” and “toxic.” Their politics are “toxic,” he said. A “mortal danger.” Fifteen million dollars to discredit their own side. You can’t make this up. If I ran my household like this, my husband would have me committed.

Here’s what kicked this off. A guy named Abdul El-Sayed just beat Representative Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Senate primary. He’s the left-wing candidate. The establishment candidate lost. And instead of doing what normal people do, which is shake the winner’s hand and move on, the centrist brain trust decided to open up a $15 million war chest to make sure nobody like that ever wins again. Kate deGruyter, some senior vice president over there, told the Washington Examiner that the party “cannot be associated with these kind of far-left radical ideas.” She said voters in 2024 looked at the Trump-Harris race and thought Democrats were “more extreme than Republicans.”

Ma’am. I don’t need a $15 million research project to tell me why Democrats lost. I can tell you for free. It’s because normal parents like me looked at the party and saw people who couldn’t define what a woman is, couldn’t control the border, and couldn’t stop printing money while telling us the economy was actually great. But go ahead and spend $15 million on opposition research. I’m sure that’ll fix it.

And here’s the part that really got me. The DSA isn’t even backing down. Their co-chair, Megan Romer, fired right back. She said, and I’m quoting here, “$15 million to tell working class people that a better world isn’t possible?” She said they’ll keep building their movement and Third Way will waste their money. Now I don’t agree with socialists on basically anything. I’ve read enough history to know how that story ends. But I’ll tell you what, when a mom of four hears a Washington bureaucrat announce a $15 million campaign to “reshape the debate” inside their own party, and then hears the socialist fire back with actual fighting words, I know which one sounds like they believe something and which one sounds like a management consultant.

The progressive wing has been racking up wins, by the way. It’s not just Michigan. A socialist just got elected mayor of Washington, D.C. Another one unseated Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado after nearly 30 years in Congress. State Rep. Donavan McKinney took out Representative Shri Thanedar in Michigan. These aren’t flukes. This is a movement. And the establishment is panicking because they can feel the ground moving under their feet.

Third Way says this isn’t about any one candidate. They say it’s about “reshaping the debate” before 2028. Reshaping the debate. That’s consultant talk for “we need to make sure the voters don’t pick the wrong person again.” Because in Washington, the voters picking wrong is the only thing that’s ever considered a crisis.

Fifteen million dollars. Do you know what fifteen million dollars would do for the schools in my district? Do you know how many lunches that buys? But sure, let’s spend it on polling and social media programs to make sure Democratic activists think the right thoughts. That’s clearly the priority.

The next big test is Wisconsin, where a socialist named Francesca Hong is running for governor. And I guarantee you Third Way is already burning through that money like a teenager with a new credit card. Here’s my question for the manager: if your ideas are so good and your candidates are so strong, why do you need $15 million to convince your own party? Shouldn’t the results speak for themselves?

They don’t. And they know it. And now they’re spending like they know it too.

Sources