Far-left insurgents recast constitutional defenders as the enemy within the Democratic Party

A growing insurgency within the American left has turned its attention inward, targeting Democrats who defend existing constitutional structures as "institutionalists," a reproach gaining currency across the party's radical wing. Pennsylvania state representative Chris Rabb, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District and a democratic socialist, drew attention this week by defending streamer Hasan Piker while dismissing critics of Piker as institutionalists focused on the wrong enemies.

On Friday, Rabb posted that establishment Democrats were wrong to distance themselves from Piker, whom law professor Jonathan Turley describes as a virulent antisemite. Rabb asked why critics were targeting Piker rather than White Christian nationalists, the broligarchs, or what he called the AI overlords, describing Piker as someone encouraging young people to use their collective political power for good. Turley documented Piker's past claims that America deserved the September 11 attacks and that American Jews are asking to be attacked by supporting Israel. He also cited Piker's mockery of the murder of figures including Charlie Kirk.

Rabb is no newcomer to this current. He has called the constitutional system "the beast" to be slayed and denounced the Declaration of Independence. He has also claimed the Framers had no concept of policing. Turley notes he is now virtually assured of a congressional seat.

The broader cycle: a term spreading across party and institution

Against the backdrop of the 2026 midterm cycle, the institutionalist label has spread well beyond the Democratic Socialists of America. DSA Steering Committee member Cliff Connolly said on a podcast that the organization is famous for its "hatred of the United States Constitution." Sarada Peri, former senior speechwriter for President Barack Obama, wrote in The Atlantic that institutionalists are "peculiar creatures," older white men with a reflexive distaste for change who draw on inherited credibility to resist it.

The read-through into academia runs in the same direction. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley Law School, published "No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States." Ryan D. Doerfler of Harvard and Samuel Moyn of Yale argued in The New York Times that the nation should "reclaim America from constitutionalism." Corey Brettschneider of Brown University called the Constitution a "dangerous document," while Mary Anne Franks of George Washington law school condemned the "cult of the Constitution" for advancing White male supremacy.

Turley notes that former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom have each framed fealty to constitutional traditions as mere nostalgia. Abdul El-Sayed, a separate figure in the same movement, declared in his campaign that moderates including Democratic Senator John Fetterman should have their heads cut off and put on pikes.