# The Myth of the Progressive Majority: How the Radical Left Hijacked the Democrat Party

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Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/underground-usa-s-corner-of-the-bar-podcast-62195/the-myth-of-the-progressive-majority-how-the-radical-left-hijacked-the-democrat-party.md
Podcast: [Underground USA's Corner of the Bar Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/underground-usa-s-corner-of-the-bar-podcast-62195)
Published: 2026-01-09T19:03:24+00:00
Episode link: https://www.undergroundusa.com/p/the-myth-of-the-progressive-majority
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/183842104/70bb3bc4d9f7474532ccd9f65288d632.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/underground-usa-s-corner-of-the-bar-podcast-62195/episodes/the-myth-of-the-progressive-majority-how-the-radical-left-hijacked-the-democrat-party
Duration seconds: 2495

## Resource

For years, Americans have been told by the media that the Democrat Party’s far-Left drift merely reflects the will of its “base.” We’re told that socialism, identity radicalism, and authoritarian “equity” programs are what Democrat voters truly want—an act of obedience dressed up as journalism. But this narrative is worse than false; it’s a deliberately engineered myth meant to conceal a hostile ideological takeover. The Democrat Party, as it exists today, has not become extreme because most Democrats are Marxists or radicals. It has become extreme because a small but organized faction of Progressive-Marxist ideologues leveraged institutional capture while the great majority of ordinary Democrats remained culturally docile, trusting, and perhaps a bit too patient. Let’s dispense with platitudes and talk numbers. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—the flagship organization of the Marxist-progressive faction—claims barely 100,000 members nationwide. Even if you generously double that number to account for unaffiliated sympathizers who share their ideology but not the label, you’re looking at roughly 200,000 to 250,000 people. Compare that to the 50 million-plus registered Democrats in the United States. That means self-identified Democratic Socialists make up around 0.4–0.5% of the party, maybe one-half of one percent at the outside. Even adding in sympathetic progressive activists and “anti-capitalist” organizers from adjacent groups, perhaps 5–8% of the total Democrat constituency holds genuinely radical ideological commitments based in neo-Marxist or postmodern thought. Yet these individuals dominate the party’s cultural, rhetorical, and policy direction. How? Through the same mechanism that every radical minority throughout history has used when seizing power…

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## Transcript

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