Potential US presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel has accused the party of trading middle class credibility for woke activism

Barack Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has torn into his own party for embracing race and gender activism over “middle class values.” Can the Democrats row back the worst excesses of the woke era? And could Emanuel lead the party in 2028?

”We lost the plot,” Emanuel said on ‘The Fifth Column’ podcast this week. “We as Democrats nationally, from ‘Latinx,’ to defunding the police, to ‘police organizations are all racist,’ to bringing a set of cultural wars to our schools. We are on the losing side of those cultural wars. Full stop.”

“Nobody seems to be calling the whistle on this,” he continued. “You are worried about bathroom access and locker room access, why don’t you focus on classroom excellence?”

“We went from acceptance to advocacy. I remember fighting for Title IX,” he said, referring to the anti-discrimination law that mandated equal athletic opportunities in schools and colleges for women. “Why would you undercut the premise of Title IX with the ability of trans men [to play] in women’s sports?”

Rahm Emanuel on how and why the Democrats have "lost the plot."

Our members-only episode with Rahm Emanuel is available now on Substack. pic.twitter.com/5HALlSCBEj

— The Fifth Column