\n<\/p>\n
To activist and<\/span> organizer David Hogg, the future of the Democratic Party is pretty clear: Establishment candidates and leaders are \u201cgoing to get the message or they\u2019re going to get voted out.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking to WIRED senior politics editor Leah Feiger at The Big Interview<\/a> event in San Francisco on Thursday, Hogg said that he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink the Chuck Schumers of the world understand\u201d how dire things could be for middle-of-the-road, corporate-backed Democrats when 2026 and 2028 roll around.<\/p>\n \u201cThey think that there’s going to be some kind of democratic Tea Party, and it’s going to be a bunch of progressive lefties that are younger and super pissed off, and we\u2019ll vote all these people out, but I don\u2019t actually think that\u2019s the whole picture.\u201d Hogg said.<\/p>\n Boomers, Hogg said, are likely the group most out of touch with their generation in Washington, DC. \u201cYou know why I say that?\u201d Hogg said. \u201cIt’s because the people that are marching by the millions right now in the No Kings Day protests<\/a> are not young people. They are people of Chuck Schumer’s generation that are extremely pissed off with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Hogg\u2019s Schumer slams weren\u2019t the only anti-boomer jabs he threw during his talk, likening the current makeup of Congress to the \u201cend of the Soviet Union\u201d when he said \u201cleaders were dying over and over because they were so old,\u201d and complaining about the establishment leadership in the Democratic National Committee<\/a>, where Hogg was vice chair until a recent shake-up. While Hogg did concede that \u201cthere are plenty of great boomers out there,\u201d he said part of what he\u2019s working on as the cofounder of the group Leaders We Deserve is a shift in elected officials\u2019 age and political focus.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we want to do with Leaders We Deserve is not just elect younger versions of who’s already there,\u201d said Hogg. \u201cWe want to elect younger people that have the chance to actually have integrity, support them with millions of dollars, ensure that they don’t take money from corporations, for example, [and ask] that they support gun safety laws and that they’re able to actually represent their constituents and not special interests.\u201d<\/p>\n Hogg says young people want a candidate that they see as an outsider, which is why they were among the largest backers of New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani<\/a>. Voters, Hogg said, want a Democratic Party where the message isn\u2019t \u201cvote for us because we aren\u2019t as bad as\u201d Republicans, but rather \u201cvote for us because of what we\u2019re here to do for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n