When Even CNN’s Van Jones Says Your Party’s Gone Too Far Left

There’s a reason I refuse to call them progressives. The word itself is a con job, plain and simple. It suggests forward movement, improvement, some kind of evolution toward something better. But you can’t claim to be moving forward when you’re sprinting toward ideas that have failed everywhere they’ve been tried. The Democratic Party isn’t progressive. It’s regressive, and now even their own people are finally saying it out loud.

Van Jones figured it out this week. Yes, that Van Jones. The CNN commentator who spent years carrying water for the Democratic establishment, the former Obama administration official who could typically be counted on to defend whatever the party line happened to be that day. Even he’s had enough. Jones warned that the Democratic Socialists of America crowd is dragging the party off a cliff, and he’s not wrong. Their hostility toward police, their open contempt for Israel, their embrace of socialism as if it’s some kind of brave new frontier instead of a tired old failure. It’s scaring away the centrist voters Democrats desperately need.

But Jones isn’t the only one sounding the alarm. Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee quietly walked away from the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year, and he just went public about why. Cohen told reporters this week that the caucus he joined years ago isn’t the same organization anymore. Translation? It’s been hijacked by the far left, and he wanted no part of it.

Think about what it takes for a sitting Democrat to make that move. Cohen represents Memphis, a solidly blue district where he could probably coast to reelection without breaking a sweat. He didn’t have to do this. He could’ve kept his head down, stayed in the caucus, and avoided any awkward conversations. But he chose to draw a line, and that tells you something about how bad things have gotten inside that party.

The Democratic Party’s problem isn’t just about bad policy anymore. It’s about identity. They’ve let the loudest voices in the room define who they are, and those voices are coming from a place that most Americans don’t recognize and frankly don’t trust. When your party’s direction is being set by people who think socialism is the answer and Israel is the enemy, you’ve lost the plot.

This isn’t some conservative fever dream or partisan exaggeration. This is Democrats themselves admitting what we’ve been watching happen in real time. The party has been captured by an ideology that’s fundamentally at odds with American values. Individual liberty? They want collective control. Limited government? They want expansion of federal power into every corner of your life. Free markets? They’d rather have bureaucrats making decisions that should belong to entrepreneurs and consumers.

And the antisemitism isn’t some fringe problem they can ignore anymore. It’s become mainstream enough that Jewish Democrats are starting to feel uncomfortable in their own party. When you’ve got members of Congress who can barely bring themselves to condemn Hamas without adding seventeen caveats, you’ve got a serious moral problem.

Cohen’s departure from the Progressive Caucus matters because it shows the internal fracture that’s been building. There are still Democrats who remember what their party used to stand for, who aren’t interested in burning down institutions or embracing revolutionary rhetoric. But they’re being drowned out, and they know it.

The question now is whether this becomes a trend or just an isolated moment of clarity. Will more Democrats find the courage to push back against the socialist takeover of their party, or will they keep quiet and hope the problem solves itself? My guess is most will choose silence. It’s easier that way, safer politically. But that silence is exactly how parties lose their way.

Related: Nebraska Democrat Candidate Paid Daughter Linked to Explicit Online Platform