David Hogg is Getting Fired Because He Sucks And No Other Reason
It's notable how trivial it is.
In case his 15 minutes of fame are already over: David Hogg is the Vice Chair of the DNC. But he might not be for much longer. He’s repeatedly butted heads with party leadership over his public statements, such as his announcement he will primary challenge Democrats who David Hogg finds insufficiently progressive. A DNC officer primarying DNC candidates is too stupid even for that brain trust, so Hogg is on the outs. The DNC’s “Credentials Committee” is trying to remove him based on an arcane procedural violation related to a gender parity rule. That sounds like satire but satire would never be so on-the-nose, it’s all true.
But when you hear something that absurd, it’s probably kayfabe. Things in DC usually happen for reasons other than the ones stated in public. In Hogg’s case, I think his removal has nothing to do with gender parity. Rather it comes down to the petty high school politics of catty DCites. In short, Hogg is out because Hogg sucks. Why does he suck? Because he is unpopular in a town where reputation is everything. Why is he unpopular? Because he is untalented and bad at politics.
He is Untalented.
That may sound unfair, but consider that Hogg is a 25-year-old who became famous for reasons completely unrelated to his attributes. That’s pretty unusual in politics. People will get an opportunity and take it, but usually, that opportunity is the result of something they did; win an election, or start a company, or write a book, or whatever.
Hogg was merely a senior at a school that happened to be the site of an unusually high-profile shooting. Besides ineffectual gun control protests, he was best known for organizing a boycott of Laura Ingraham’s show that actually increased her ratings and founding a Liberal equivalent of MyPillow that folded in less than two months. He did graduate Harvard, just like 97% of people who go to Harvard. Maybe he got in on merit.
There are thousands of David Hoggs in DC. These David Hoggs are the executive assistants at environmental justice nonprofits, the policy associates at liberal think tanks, and the social media drones at education trade associations. You do not know them, because they did not survive a school shooting. They did not have the opportunity to parley tragedy into a career. Perhaps someday some of these 25-year-olds will be people worth knowing, but for now, they are just disposable labor to keep the content mills flowing.
So it’s not really David Hogg’s fault he’s incompetent. Other than that one Congresswoman from New York, there are no 20-somethings in DC worth knowing about.1 The smartest ones realize this, and the rest lack the skill.
I don’t think Hogg is completely worthless to his party. He has media savvy and name recognition, and after 10 years in the trenches, he might be a half-decent Congresscritter (or a Congresscritter’s Comms Director). Basically, Hogg is the liberal Madison Cawthorn.
So why do we care about him again? Ah right, he is still - at the time of this writing - Vice Chair of the DNC. And yet…
He is Bad at Politics
During the 2024 election, Hogg ran a PAC that raised 11 million for a Wisconsin House primary. All of it went to one candidate, Katrina Shankland, who lost. Based on this, and no other bona fides, Hogg ran for and won DNC Vice Chair.
This is not because of how awesome Hogg is. It’s because of what a lowly, inconsequential job “Vice Chair of the DNC” is. It is not an elite role. The elites do not work for the DNC, they donate to it. Elites can be found leading nonprofits, think tanks, DC-area universities, and government contractors.
They rarely work directly in politics, for much the same reason that kings do not unclog their own toilets. And most campaigners never become candidates, for the same reason why you can’t start as the king’s toilet cleaner and work your way up to king.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect campaign work. It’s a dirty job that reduces humans to numbers and rewards. They’re the dung beetles of DC, but dung beetles contribute to their ecosystem. When you live waist-deep in shit, you develop great admiration for the people who shovel it. Campaigners work long hours for little money, and they are usually true believers in the party, or the candidate, or the cause. But unless they’re super-talented, campaigners are not candidate material.
No, the Vice Chair is a mid-level position for someone who isn’t expected to rise much higher. To get there at age 25 is impressive. But I’d say Hogg’s bona fides (to recap: school shooting survivor, failed activist, Harvard grad, modestly successful fundraiser) are qualification aplenty for the job.
In other words, Hogg is a nobody who acted like a Somebody. Sometimes this works, but only if you can convince people you are a Somebody in the process. But Hogg had no friends to stick up for him. The most high-profile endorsement he’s gotten is from a fucking Republican.
Hogg could have kept his head down and earned credibility within the establishment. But instead, he picked fights. Liberals are of course not a fan of a 25-year-old who thinks he knows more than a don like James Carville or his own boss. Hogg could have courted moderates at a moment when the center is reasserting itself. But he made no effort to do this, and he already established himself as a progressive through the last 6 years of Twitter use. That just leaves the progressives, Hogg’s nominal base. But no matter what he ever said, they would still sacrifice him on an altar the instant it became convenient. Sorry David! Maybe your sister has a better shot.
The real question is, which is better? The reality they show on TV, where alleged violations of labyrinthine gender parity rules can lead to the removal of party leadership? Or the reality at the DNC HQ water cooler, where our overlords (or some of their apparatchiks) act like a bunch of catty teen girls?
She’s over 30 now, but there is exactly one 20-something in the House, and he’s… also a March for our Lives alumnus. Huh.