'Sick Joke': Progressives Roundly Reject Idea of Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair

Progressives were left fuming and flummoxed over reporting Friday that Rahm Emanuel is considering running for chair of the Democratic National Committee, with many leftists wondering whether the party has learned anything from its loss of the White House, Senate, and, arguably, the country's working-class voters.

Axiosfirst reported that Emanuel—President Joe Biden's ambassador to Japan and a former congressman, Chicago mayor, and chief of staff to former President Barack Obama—is mulling whether to seek the top DNC post. Current DNC chair Jamie Harrison, who was elected to the post in 2021, is unlikely to seek a new term, which would begin in March.

Emanuel has some powerful backers among the war-and-Wall Street wing that has dominated the Democratic party for decades.

"If they said, 'Well, what should we do? Who should lead the party?' I would take Ambassador Rahm Emanuel, and I would bring him back from Japan, and I would appoint him chairman of the Democratic National Committee," prominent political consultant David Axelrod, who ran both of Obama's successful presidential campaigns, said Wednesday on his podcast.

Axelrod followed up the next day with a post on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, in which he wrote of Emanuel, "Dude knows how to fight and win."

Reaction came fast and furious, with Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the group Progressive Massachusetts, asking on the social network Bluesky, "How is this not a sick joke?"

Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) writing on X that "if you assembled a team of top scientists and told them to come up with a plan to ensure that the Democratic Party continues to lose working-class voters, I doubt they could do better than 'Make Rahm Emanuel head of the DNC.'"

Comedian, author, and podcaster Kate Willett said on X: "If I had to pick one individual who set the stage for what seems like it may be decades of Trumpism, it's Rahm Emanuel. Imagine if Obama had saved peoples' homes in 2008 and put the bankers in jail? Truly fixed healthcare? Rahm worked diligently to make sure that didn't happen."

Miles Kampf-Lassin, the senior editor at the progressive website In These Times, wrote, "I've said it before and can't believe I have to say it again: No amount of rebranding can change the fact that Rahm Emanuel's political career has been an abject failure—neoliberal centrism is exactly the wrong direction for the Democratic Party."

Hafiz Rashid argued Friday in a New Republicarticle that, if he wins the post, Emanuel could be "the worst possible DNC chair."

"The fact that Emanuel has been disconnected from local and state politics for years... seems unlikely to help," Rashid asserted. "Democrats are currently expected to tap someone with expertise at the grassroots level and an understanding of how Democrats are winning elections now—two things Emanuel sorely lacks."

Apparently questioning the strategic wisdom of Vice President Kamala Harris' failed Democratic presidential run, Warren Gunnels, a staff director for Sanders, said on X, "Ruling Elite: Let's get Dick Cheney's endorsement and anoint Rahm Emanuel as DNC Chair."

"One word," he added. "No."