Parkland shooting survivor and gun control activist David Hogg is running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Hogg, 24, is hoping to inject some of his youthful, progressive energy into a party still licking its wounds and pointing fingers after a devastating election night loss in November.
“I think this role is a great way of, for one, bringing newer voices into the Democratic Party,” the Gen Zer told ABC News. “I just want to be one of several of those voices to help represent young people and also, more than anything, make sure that we’re standing up to the consulting class that increasingly the Democratic Party is representing instead of the working class.”
Hogg also took particular aim at what he sees as complacency and a lack of accountability from party leadership, many of whom were quick to defend the Harris campaign while blaming others for their loss. Black men, leftists, and trans people have all been scapegoated. Hogg called this out.
“What really bothers me is, we say to people all the time, ‘Who’s to blame for this election?’ It’s young people, it’s X minority group … but really, who’s to blame for this? It’s us. It’s us. Ultimately, we failed to communicate, and we failed to have a broader strategy within the party to make sure that we were telling the president what he needed to hear, rather than what he wanted to hear, which was that he needed to drop out.”
There are four elected vice chair slots up for grabs within the DNC, with three general vice chairperson roles and one vice chairperson for civic engagement and voter participation. Hogg is younger than anyone else who’s thrown their name in, and his victory would be a generational shift in the party.
“We need to realize that we are increasingly the party of sycophants,” Hogg said. “We are just surrounding ourselves with people who tell us what we want to hear instead of what we need to hear; we’re increasingly surrounding ourselves with paid political consultants that … are letting what donors say to them guide their talking points.”
Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is sounding the alarm over … stars?
A recent spate of drone sightings over New Jersey have sparked widespread confusion and some panic among lawmakers, now including Hogan, who took to X Friday to call on federal officials to do something about the lights he saw floating in the sky.
“Last night, beginning at around 9:45 pm, I personally witnessed (and videoed) what appeared to be dozens of large drones in the sky above my residence in Davidsonville, Maryland (25 miles from our nation’s capital). I observed the activity for approximately 45 minutes,” Hogan wrote in a post.
The former Republican governor included a two-minute video of the night sky, in which a few small lights can be seen, and it’s unclear whether the lights are static or in motion.
“Like many who have observed these drones, I do not know if this increasing activity over our skies is a threat to public safety or national security. But the public is growing increasingly concerned and frustrated with the complete lack of transparency and the dismissive attitude of the federal government,” Hogan wrote.
“The government has the ability to track these from their point of origin but has mounted a negligent response. People are rightfully clamoring for answers, but aren’t getting any,” Hogan continued, and he expressed frustration at not knowing the origin of the lights or whether they were dangerous.
“That response is entirely unacceptable. I join with the growing bipartisan chorus of leaders demanding that the federal government immediately address this issue,” Hogan wrote. “The American people deserve answers and action now.”
While Hogan may have been speaking to the legitimate concern of citizens of the Eastern seaboard, it’s not clear that what he was able to film were drones at all.
Matthew Cappucci, a meteorologist, replied to Hogan’s post with what feels like an important fact-check.
“With immense respect, Mr. governor, this is the constellation ‘Orion,’” Cappucci wrote in a post on X. He included an image of the lights in the video labeled as the stars Bellatrix, Bettleguese, Mintaka, Alnilam, and Alnitak.
“It’s made up of stars between 244 and 1,344 light years away. The stars will be in a similar place tomorrow,” Cappucci added.
Last week, right-wing fear hustler Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was quick to use the drones to suggest that the federal government was failing to keep Americans safe. Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump, clearly intent on taking the safety of his constituents seriously, used the drones to mock former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Donald Trump hasn’t yet begun his second term, but his allies are already setting the stage for a third administrative run under the president-elect.
Speaking at the New York Young Republican Club on Sunday, War Room podcast host and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon suggested that conservatives should rally to keep the MAGA leader in power via a supposed loophole in the U.S. Constitution.
“Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on the King James Bible and take the oath of office, his third victory and his second term,” Bannon said at the club’s annual gala.
“And the viceroy Mike Davis tells me, since it doesn’t actually say consecutive, that, I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28?” Bannon continued, referring to one of Trump’s former attorney general hopefuls. “Are you guys down for that? Trump ’28?”
It’s not even the first time this year that conservative figureheads have argued in favor of violating the Constitution to upgrade Trump’s authoritarian power.
The Twenty-Second Amendment, which was ratified in 1951, states that “no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.” Congress pushed for the term limit after President Franklin D. Roosevelt served three terms through World War II, fearing future abuses of power.
Only one clear exception exists for a person to serve more than two terms: a vice president who claims the Oval Office through succession after........