There’s another reason Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) decided not to seek re-election. Yes, the new district drawn and approved by the Republican state legislature played a role, but Cohen also knew his party was changing. He saw the rise of antisemitism spreading through the rank-and-file, and he even left the Progressive Caucus because it became inundated with radical socialists. This is all in CNN’s piece about the Democrats’ civil war over the Israel issue, though, of course, they buried this part.
Rep. Steven Cohen (D-TN), a progressive Democrat, tells CNN that he left the Congressional Progressive Caucus because "most of the leadership was socialist Democrats."https://t.co/pIuTw5PoF6
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) July 19, 2026
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee said he has watched his party shift away from him on Israel and is warning his colleagues not to ignore it.
“There certainly were not people who were so anti-Israel when I started, and there are within the progressive caucus now,” Cohen said.
When Cohen came to Congress in 2007, he was among the first to align himself with J street, a progressive Jewish organization that rivaled the pro-Israel lobby and supported a two-state solution.
But through his tenure in Congress, he said, his party’s shift has lurched beyond even his left-leaning politics. It’s in part why he decided, at 77, not to run for re-election in a district complicated by his state’s redistricting.
“I foresaw it getting really nasty and antisemitism getting into it,” Cohen told CNN about how the topic of Israel would have been handled if he ran for re-election.
He even left the progressive caucus last year.
“I just found it to be not the same caucus I joined in 2007. It had become more the socialist caucus, and most of the leadership was socialist Democrats,” Cohen said. “I didn’t feel comfortable in it.”
Democrats are about to enter a new era, and I’m not sure the national leadership understands it because they’re so eager to impeach Donald Trump. It won’t happen, and they will be left with a party that’s even more irrelevant as it is consumed by antisemitic, anti-American, and totally unhinged leftists who will make the party even less electable.