DNC Vice Chair David Hogg Says Young People Are ‘Losing Faith In Democracy’

Democratic National Committee vice chairman David Hogg, who shocked some Democrats by announcing plans to spend $20 million to challenge elected Democrats and replace them with younger leaders, says young Americans are “losing faith in democracy” and believe that the American dream “is a farce to them.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Symone Sanders Townsend, Hogg said “this is not an issue that we’re taking with age in particular,” pointing to 85-year-old Rep. Nancy Pelosi as an example of an older Democrat who are leading the fight against Donald Trump. “There are ineffective older people and ineffective younger people across our party,” he said.

‘We’re losing our young people’

“The reality is, we know that 27 percent–only 27 percent of our base–is approving of where we are right now as a party,” Hogg said. “And we lost voting shares with every single demographic, except predominantly older voters and highly educated voters. That is a huge problem.”

Hogg said “we have to show our base how we are changing and how we are meeting this moment to fight back, because we’re losing our young people, too.”

“What we have to do to protect our democracy is show our young voters that we are here to use democracy to fight back against the special interests that are killing the American dream and fight back the special interests that have put them through school shootings, that have put them through the climate crisis, the student debt crisis, and so much more,” Hogg said.

“And what we’re trying to do here is not just focus on primaries, where there’s potentially an older incumbent, but, more than anything, an ineffective person in that position, and we replace them with a generational leader to build the future of our party,” he added.

‘They want change so long as it doesn’t potentially endanger their position of power’

Hogg will serve as president of a new organization called Leaders We Deserve, which will bring challenges in solidly Democratic districts–a move he concedes has generated anger in his party. “People say they want change in the Democratic Party, but really they want change so long as it doesn’t potentially endanger their position of power,” he told The New York Times.

Hogg’s effort comes as one of the Democratic Party’s youngest leaders has teamed up with one of its oldest in the form of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders, filling venues across the country with their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, including 26,000 who turned out at Folsom Lake College near Sacramento.

“I feel the need to whisper this. No one tell Donald Trump about the renewed energy on the left,” Sanders Townsend said of the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour. “These are some very deep, deep, deep red districts” where Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders are drawing huge crowds, with 70 town hall events scheduled across 35 states over the last three weeks.

“This is a push that they are going to double down on by focusing on vulnerable Republican districts over this two-week recess. And it follows the outpouring of protests across America, more than 1,400 in recent weeks. The energy is there,” she said.