It was always thus
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‘You’re Next!’: Democrats Discover the Mob has a Mind of its Own
“You’re next!”
This chant, at the victory celebration of the Democratic Socialists this week, was a message not for the oligarchs or the billionaires, but for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and the Democratic establishment. They were threatening that Jeffries would be the next to lose his House seat to a socialist candidate.
It was a scene that has recurred throughout history, as establishment leaders are overtaken by the very mobs they sought to use for their own purposes.
For years, Jeffries has joined other Democrats in fueling the rage on the left in the hopes of becoming the next House Speaker. Whether calling for supporters to “fight in the streets,” denouncing the Supreme Court as “illegitimate” or posting an image of himself brandishing a baseball bat, Jeffries sought to portray himself as a class warrior worthy of the mob’s support.
Other Democratic leaders followed suit — especially Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. It was Schumer who yelled threats at conservative Supreme Court justices in front of the court. A deranged man triggered by such rhetoric in the media later attempted to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Schumer and others portrayed their opponents as Nazis who threaten the very existence of democracy, and they stoked class conflict to inspire resentment for the wealthy.
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In my book Rage and the Republic, I discuss how these Democratic leaders are following the same self-destructive pattern of prior establishment figures in history who thought that they could use mobs against their opponents while hoping that they would be overlooked.
The American and French Revolutions were contemporary movements based on Enlightenment principles. But whereas our Revolution went on to become the world’s oldest and most stable republic, the French Revolution became the blood-soaked Terror. The French Revolution was not some spontaneous uprising of the proletariat or underclass. It was led by relatively affluent figures on the left, from aristocrats to journalists to lawyers. Maximilien Robespierre, who would later declare terror a virtue, was a lawyer who helped organize the revolutionary Jacobins.
These educated and affluent figures turned to working-class radicals as their muscle to terrorize their opponents. And not long after executing aristocrats and clergy, the radicals turned on the Jacobins themselves. “Moderates” were sent to the guillotine by Robespierre and his henchmen as they clung to power. But eventually, the mob came for them, too.
After the Terror, French writer Jacques Mallet du Pan wrote, “Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
After candidates endorsed by socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani easily swept aside the establishment candidates in Jeffries and Schumer’s backyard, politicians and pundits began to panic. They never imagined the mob would turn on them.
