David Hogg is a big name. He's a big name because he's a loud voice, a "survivor" who has leveraged an awful tragedy into a degree from Harvard--after being rejected by state colleges, for the record--as well as a fair amount of fame.
But now he's trying to leverage that into real political power.
It seems that David Hogg wasn't to become Boss Hogg. Or, more accurately, Vice Chairman Hogg.
David Hogg, gun control activist, March for our Lives co-founder and Parkland school shooting survivor, is running for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, ABC News has learned.
"I think this role is a great way of, for one, bringing newer voices into the Democratic Party," Hogg told ABC News. "I just want to be one of several of those voices to help represent young people and also, more than anything, make sure that we're standing up to the consulting class that increasingly the Democratic Party is representing instead of the working class."
The DNC offers four opportunities to serve in a vice chair capacity -- three general vice chairperson roles and one vice chairperson for civic engagement and voter participation.At 24, Hogg is considerably younger than the declared candidates for DNC chair, notable after Vice President Kamala Harris' pitched herself as a "new generation of leadership" during her presidential bid.
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Hogg believes that Democrats did a poor job of communicating their message in the last election in a way that truly resonated with voters, among several other missteps. He also wants to see the party take more direct accountability -- and says he finds the shrugged-off complacency from others in his party that they "did their best" is "unacceptable."
"We need to realize that we are increasingly the party of sycophants," he said. "We are just surrounding ourselves with people who tell us what we want to hear instead of what instead of what we need to hear, we're increasingly surrounding ourselves with paid political consultants that no[sic] that are letting what donors say to them guide their talking points."
Now, the question is whether the Hoggster has a real shot at this.
After all, he's really only known for advocacy on a single issue. Sure, in recent years, he's posted photographs of him shooting and talks about making friends at the gun range and all of that jazz, which suggests that he might have enough of a brain to understand how outreach really works, but there's also no evidence that he knows how to do anything other than fail at making pillows.
However, I'm also not a Democrat.
Hogg is young. Very young, especially for someone vying for a leadership role for one of the big two political parties. That might actually be a benefit considering just how much ground Trump gained with younger voters. Sure, most tend to vote Democrat, but that wasn't by the massive margin it normally is.
Because of that, it's entirely possible that the DNC will figure that some new blood would be of benefit to the party as a whole.
Then again, most of the DNC is made up of the people Hogg called "sycophants," so I'm not sure that he's laying the best groundwork for his potential election.
Further, while Hogg hasn't just been a one-issue advocate, he doesn't have the best track record himself. His group, Leaders We Deserve, is his attempt at influencing elections more broadly. Yet the 2024 election showed that, for the most part, the group backed losing candidates. It's easy to talk tough when pointing at other people's failures, but he hasn't exactly shown he could do better.
Will Hogg win? I sure can't tell. This is the party that thought Kamala Harris was a great idea, after all, so I can't just assume they'll have the sense to leave him on the sidelines, but I also don't know that anyone is really ready to put a twerp who's barely old enough to shave in a key leadership position, either.
