Van Jones warned that the Democratic Party was on track to become the new “Blockbuster” as progressive candidates continued to find success in 2026, likening the latter group to “Netflix.”
The CNN political commentator weighed in on the shift on the left during Tuesday’s coverage of primaries taking place in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Virginia and Washington. Specifically, as progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed secured an early lead over Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate Primary.
“This is the whole ball of wax,” Jones said when asked about the rise of progressive candidates on the left. “I’m from Jackson, Tennessee, there was a guy named Gil Scott-Heron, who had a great poem that was called, ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.’ Gil Scott-Heron is wrong. The revolution is being televised and podcast and streamed and elected tonight. Why is that?”
He continued: “It’s because there is a credibility gap that’s opened up between the Democratic Party establishment and this insurgency. People are looking at people and they’re saying, ‘You’ve been telling us the same thing for a long time and our lives aren’t even better. We’ve got Donald Trump twice.”
As Jones went on, he claimed there was an “innovation gap,” adding, “Why can you spend $60 million and get whooped like this?”
“Because the old model was, you get the donors, you get the consultants to buy a bunch of ads and you win. That’s how you get attention,” he said. “This movement said, ‘I don’t need donors, ads. I don’t need consultants. I’m going right to the people with TikTok and grassroots.’ And they’ve disintermediated the entire donor class. Disintermediated the consulting class. This is a revolution.”
Van Jones: Why can you spend $60 million and get whooped like this? The Democratic party is now Blockbuster. These kids are Netflix. pic.twitter.com/mbFAFEYYtu
— Acyn (@Acyn) August 5, 2026
Jones then bluntly compared the Democratic Party to the defunct home video rental brand, noting, “And so, this is going to happen again and again. The Democratic party is now Blockbuster. These kids are Netflix. We are selling CDs out the trunk, this is Napster becoming Spotify. And it’s happening tonight.”
Watch Jones’ commentary above.
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