Dems' Tea Party-like rebellion built by a decade of frustration (axios.com)

Democratic leaders are increasingly alarmed that they're facing their own version of the GOP's Tea Party rebellion 17 years ago — and that they can't stop it. Why it matters: The recent wave of primary victories by Democratic socialists and outsiders over the party's hand-selected candidates has shocked establishment Democrats. But the rage in the party has been building for a decade. It's not just progressives vs. moderates. It's insiders vs. outsiders, with many Democratic voters dissatisfied with their own party. Some Democrats now believe the party is poised for a Trump-esque figure to take it over in 2028 — someone who'll offer an outlet for their anger. Dan Pfeiffer, a former top aide to Barack Obama and now co-host of " Pod Save America ," said this week : "It is very clear that the groups of the left — Justice Democrats, Democratic Socialists of America, Our Revolution — are out-organizing, out-fundraising, out-working, out-maneuvering the traditional party institutions ... That is happening." Zoom in: Democratic voters' growing distrust of their party's leadership — and their embrace of left-wing outsiders and populists — is rooted in Donald Trump's 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton. In the party's primaries that year, Democratic National Committee members and party elites helped ensure that Clinton won the nomination over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive icon. The insiders limited primary debates and had unusual joint fundraising agreements between the DNC and Clinton's campaign. The DNC's internal bias against Sanders was confirmed by a WikiLeaks email dump in 2016. The Democratic establishment rallied around Joe Biden in 2020 to stop Sanders from winning the nomination because Biden was considered more electable. Biden ultimately barely won the election despite Trump's chaotic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Biden's presidency was unpopular and widely viewed as lacking energy. But he did embrace many left-wing policies Sanders and others had pushed for, including tough antitrust enforcement, enormous investments in clean energy and strong support for labor unions. Then, in 2024, Democratic leaders went along with the fallacy that the 81-year-old Biden was capable of serving a second term. Trump's victory in the 2024 election essentially radicalized some Democratic voters who previously had seen his first term as a fluke. Many of those voters lost trust in their party's leadership, setting the stage for a rebellion that the left has stoked. State of play: Against that backdrop, left-wing, outsider, and Democratic socialist candidates have racked up victories in races from coast to coast during Trump's second term. Democratic socialists and progressives followed last year's election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani by beating two incumbent Democratic House members in the city last week. Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won eight races and lost just one for the New York legislature, despit