Nearly half of American Muslims now support Hamas, the Iran-backed terror group that carried out mass rape, kidnapping, and slaughter of Israeli civilians, according to a 2026 Pew Research Center survey. That same survey found 66% of American Muslims vote Democrat, a reality now tearing the party apart from the inside.
Rep. Steve Cohen, a Tennessee Democrat who’s served in Congress since 2007, isn’t mincing words about what’s happened to his party. The House Progressive Caucus he once joined has transformed into something unrecognizable.
“It had become more the socialist caucus, and most of the leadership was socialist Democrats,” Cohen told CNN. “I didn’t feel comfortable in it.”
The veteran lawmaker painted a picture of a Democratic Party increasingly captured by its most radical elements, with leadership doing nothing to stop the bleeding.
“I just found it to be not the same caucus I joined in 2007,” Cohen said.
The division runs deep, and Israel sits at the center of it. Where Democrats once stood united in support of America’s closest Middle Eastern ally, members now openly take the side of Islamic terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Iranian regime that funds them.
“There certainly were not people who were so anti-Israel when I started, and there are within the progressive caucus now,” Cohen said.
Another House Democrat, speaking anonymously to CNN, issued a blunt warning about the Democratic Socialists of America infiltrating the party.
“You know the DSA is taking over the Democratic Party, and from my perspective, you know, I’ve been very clear that you’ve got to stop them from hijacking the party, because I don’t believe that socialists are Democrats,” the lawmaker said.
The evidence backs up those concerns. Democratic socialist candidates have campaigned wearing Hamas headbands. Some refused to comment on the deceased Iranian Ayatollah’s death because it would upset Democrat voters. Others have dismissed radical Islamic terrorism as a “conspiracy theory.”
The DSA itself recently released a statement titled “Until Palestinian Liberation,” declaring the organization “stands for the full freedoms and self-determination of the Palestinian people, including the end of Israel’s colonization and occupation of all Arab lands.” The statement affirmed alignment with “Al-Thawabit,” described as the inviolable rights of Palestinians, and called for “the right of all refugees to return to their homes and properties.”
Democrats concerned about the socialist surge within their ranks pointed directly to the movement’s hatred of Israel and overwhelming support for Iran and other Islamic terrorist organizations as driving forces.
Rep. Becca Balint, a Vermont Democrat, acknowledged the party faces a reckoning over how it defines antisemitism.
“If we don’t figure that out for ourselves, then I think we’re going to lose the ability to really engage with our own voters who care deeply about this,” Balint told CNN.
Rep. Greg Landsman, an Ohio Democrat, admitted the obvious.
“This is an issue that is dividing us, which weakens us and that’s a problem for the party,” Landsman said.
Landsman called on party leaders to find common ground, though his vision of unity seems increasingly distant from reality.
“I think it’s going to be incumbent on leaders in the party and people who have strong feelings about Israel, regardless of what side you’re on, to find that common ground and then pivot to those things that unite us, that bring us together, and then all focused on the issues that matter most to most voters,” he said.
For everyday Americans watching the Democratic Party tear itself apart over whether to stand with Israel or with the terror groups sworn to destroy it, the choice couldn’t be clearer. The question now is whether moderate Democrats have the spine to take their party back from the radicals.
