Why Can't More Democrats Be Like This?

Something has gone seriously wrong with the Democrat Party over the last 30 years. The party that used to occupy the center-left of American politics has drifted so far into the fringe that it barely resembles what it once was. Positions that would have been laughed out of the room a generation ago are now so mainstream they’re part of a de facto litmus test for the party.

Just ask Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.); he can tell you.

Take the wholesale embrace of transgender ideology, pushed into schools, sports, and medicine with no room for dissent. Or the instinct, whenever a mother strangles her three young children, to search for sympathy for the killer instead of grief for the kids. That's where large parts of the Democrat Party are now, and pretending otherwise doesn't make it less true.

I don't have a problem disagreeing with Democrats on tax policy, foreign policy, or the size of government. Reasonable people argue about those things every day and still respect each other. Watching a major American political party mainstream ideas that have no business anywhere near serious politics is a different animal entirely, and a genuinely dangerous one.

So when a Democrat actually says so out loud, it's worth noticing.

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.), a co-host on The Five, tore into the left’s golden boy Hasan Piker over comments he made defending Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Piker made the comments during an appearance on The Axios Show; Alex Thompson pressed him on whether Iran should be free to build a nuclear weapon.

"I think Iran, much like any other sovereign nation, has a right to defend itself, regardless of its domestic policies," Piker said in the interview. Asked whether the Middle East would be more stable if Iran had the bomb, he went further. "I believe yes, I think that the Middle East would be more stable," he said.

"This guy is so outside of the periphery, again, of the periphery in American politics," Ford said on The Five, adding, "I wish we wouldn't give him the airtime that we give him." He went on, "These views are so outside the periphery of the most extreme views in either political party, in all of politics in America. In fact, in some ways, I'm disappointed we've been giving this nonsense airtime."

Ford said he couldn't think of a single member of Congress, from either party, extreme or otherwise, who would defend Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. "I don't know of anybody in the United States Congress, regardless of where they come from in this country or their political being, who would say I want the Iranians to have a nuclear weapon," he said.

“This guy is so outside of the PERIPHERY OF THE PERIPHERY in American politics.” @HaroldFordJr says Hasan Piker’s views fall far outside the political mainstream and are rejected by Democrats and Republicans alike. Tune in to ‘The Five’ weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on Fox News Channel. https://t.co/ZB0Eh6aEG2
— The Five (@TheFive) September 21, 2026

Ford is a Democrat, and I disagree with him on plenty. But when you think about the other liberal co-host of The Five, Jessica Tarlov, he sounded like a sane liberal willing to say what should be obvious. But the bigger issue is how few Democrats are willing to say what Harold Ford Jr. just said. If more of them found that kind of spine, the Democrat Party might not be quite so scary right now.

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