Over the past eight years the Democrats have increasingly turned to the strategy of running dozens of former intelligence, special forces unit members, and former Hillary Clinton State Department operatives.
The “national security” strategy allowed the party to get cozier with the military-industrial complex, as well as Democrats using their “national security” credentials to pose as defenders of the country against the enemy within (in this case Trump and his MAGA supporters).
Anne Applebaum is big fan of such a strategy and has penned fawning pieces of such Democrats, but the thinking politically is best summed up by WaPo neocon columnist and torture enthusiast Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in support of two of the Democrats’ most promoted spook-turned-politicians: Abigail Spanberger and Elissa Slotkin.
“At a time when deep tribalism pervades politics and the Republican Party has descended into reactionary nationalism, these are the sort of politicians … who can appeal to Democrats, independents and the kind of normal Republicans [who the] defeated and indicted former president Donald Trump alienated.”
Despite Rubin’s claims, most of such candidates the Democrats have put forward have lost. Who would believe that in a country exhausted by forever wars and desperate for housing and health care that spooks and counterrorism “experts” don’t have wide appeal?
Nevertheless, the party, running like a well-oiled machine for the donor class, continues with such a strategy as it works to elevate the “national security” Democrats. And a few have broken through. On November 4, Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia and Mikie Sherrill governor of New Jersey. Here’s a deeper dive into their results showing how they outperformed Kamala Harris 2024 in their respective states—lthough there’s little daylight between them on policy. It could have simply been voters are frustrated by the economy, masked ICE agents roaming the streets, and especially in Virginia, federal government cuts.
Let’s first take a brief look at those from military and spook backgrounds who did manage to make it into office. We’ll then turn to what they’ve done in power, paying particular attention to the “rising stars” from this group—the two recently elected governors of their states and a third being prepped for higher office.
The following is a non-exhaustive list of recent Democrats (there are plenty more on the GOP side) elected to office from backgrounds in intelligence, military, or the State Department. I’m sure I’ve probably missed some, so please add in comments.
Jason Crow. Represents Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, which covers southeast Denver. He led a paratrooper platoon during the invasion of Iraq and then was part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan.
Chrissy Houlahan.Represents Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District. A former US Air Force captain.
Sara Jacobs. First elected in 2020, she represents California’s 51st Congressional District, which covers suburban San Diego. She was a Hillary campaign aid after working under her at State on terrorism and conflict zones in East and West Africa. Jacobs, the granddaughter of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, has enjoyed major cash advantages in her races. While recently admitting that Israel “might” have committed genocide, Jacobs hedged.
“But I am not a lawyer, and that is a legal determination,” she told an angry town hall audience. “I think we’ve clearly seen serious atrocities. I think we’ve likely seen war crimes, and we’ve definitely seen forced displacement that could amount to ethnic cleansing.”
Despite all that, she wants the U.S. to continue arming Israel and help pay for its Iron Dome missile defense system.
Andrew Kim. U.S. Senator from New Jersey. Kim was a strategic adviser to generals David Petraeus and John Allen while they commanded US forces in Afghanistan. He then transitioned to Obama’s director for Iraq for two years.
Amy McGrath. Not currently in Congress, but the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps and the first woman to pilot the F/A-18 in a combat mission is running yet again. She spent more than $90 million in 2020 to lose to McConnell by over 400,000 votes. She previously lost a 2018 race for Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District. It’s worth noting this upcoming race because it shows Democrats doubling down on their strategy. Other Democrats who have announced for the Senate seat are former Secret Service agent Logan Forsythe and former CIA officer Joel Willett.
Patrick Ryan. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer serving as the U.S. representative for New York’s 18th congressional district since 2023.
Mikie Sherrill. Governor-elect of New Jersey. Elected to the House in 2018 representing New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. She was a career Navy helicopter pilot, with ten years’ active service in Europe and the Middle East, who then went on to become a federal prosecutor.
She’s still playing the Russiagate card, saying that “after three hard-fought years, President Trump is siding with Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin — and turning his back on Ukraine.”
Sherrill favors sending weapons and money until the last Ukrainian. In West Asia, she is all on board with Israel.
According to the New Jersey Globe, “Sherrill’s ideas for health care revolve around transparency – making health care pricing more transparent and requiring disclosures from health care companies justifying premium increases…”
She reported assets of $11.3 million in an August financial disclosure, up from the between $733,000 and $4.3 million range she listed when she first took office in 2019, and has been accused of using her position in Congress to place well-timed investments.
Abigail Spanberger. Governor-elect of Virginia. A three-time House Democratic Representative from Virginia’s 7th Congressional District. She worked for the CIA from 2006 to 2014, reportedly focusing on counterterrorism and nuclear proliferation, although we know very little about what she actually did due to classification.
During her time in Congress she has been on the House Intelligence Committee, overseeing the same agency in which she worked for 12 years. She has been a consistent backer of Project Ukraine.
She frequently references her former CIA work in her public messaging and committee work, such as this statement in support of Israel:
“As a former CIA case officer and current member of the House Intelligence Committee, I know that the United States must continue to stand by our ally and provide Israel with the intelligence, defense, and humanitarian assistance it needs to secure its borders and neutralize the Hamas terrorists.”
For what it’s worth, Gov Track places Spanberger on the far right of the Democrat ideological spectrum—further to the right than even a few Republicans.
When the Twitter Files and whistleblower testimonies shed light on the federal government’s influence over social media censorship and the official narrative, Spanberger showed little concern.
Meanwhile she sponsored the Internet Freedom and Operations (INFO) Act, which funded Internet Freedom NGOs through USAID and the U.S. Agency for Global Media in countries targeted for regime change like Russia and Belarus.
Elissa Slotkin. Senator from Michigan. Slotkin helped conduct war crimes by both Republican and Democratic administrations. She was a CIA operative in Iraq and then moved to the National Security Council under Bush the Younger. She stayed on for the Obama administration before a promotion to the Department of Defense.
Along the way, she—like Spanberger and others—developed quite the fundraising network. In their races, they have been able to rely on big money from Wall Street and the military-industrial complex as they outspend their opponents by wide margins.
Slotkin who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, has absolutely no problem with slapping terrorist labels on suspicious foreigners and blowing them to mist, but she does want to be getting all the juicy details ahead of time:
“I was a CIA officer and helped with targeting. I have no problem with going after these cartels,” she added. “I have no problem designating terrorist organizations in general. But we’ve never had an instance where there’s a secret list of what I understand to be dozens of new terrorist organizations that the American public and certainly the oversight committees don’t get to know.”
This is the woman the Democrat leadership has tried to elevate every step of the way and chose to deliver the response to Trump’s most recent State of the Union address. Her position represents a pretty accurate summary of the state of the Democrats: Let’s not violate any of our hallowed norms as we commit war crimes.
Prior to the November 4 elections, former President Obama hit the campaign trail for Sherrill and Spanberger. That was fitting.
Obama’s effective pardon for all the war crimes of the Bush administration helped lead directly to the rise of the CIA Democrats. Their positions are now commonplace in the Obama-Clinton-Cheney party, which has shifted even further to the right and strengthened ties with military-intelligence, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley.
Even those politicians from both parties without spook backgrounds are rarely willing to go against the deranged national security establishment.
The Democratic party is equally owned by Mossad and CIA. The Republicans are Mossad and FBI https://t.co/coEeuCuuxy
— Alon Mizrahi (@alon_mizrahi) November 6, 2025
The Democrat-national security alliance really took off with Russiagate and the ensuing efforts to torpedo MAGA. All seemed to be going according to plan with the election of Biden and with Kamala waiting in the wings, but popular backlash against the ongoing economic decline for the working class, as well as plutocrat dissatisfaction with minor attempts (largely at the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division) to rein in their rapaciousness, saw a resurgent MAGA and a return to Trump. Notably Sherrill and NatSec Dems played roles in nudging Biden aside. While the Trump administration tries to go after some of most egregious operatives that targeted his first presidency and ensuing campaigns, what does all the infighting really mean for Americans outside the beltway? Not much, and at the end of the day it is two parties in a two-party system supporting genocide in West Asia, war crimes in the Caribbean, and police state serfdom at home.
And the NatSec Dems are helping to speed up the ratchet effect with their embrace of all forms of foreign violence and looting at home—or as they call it, pragmatism.
Spanberger and Sherrill in their campaigns pitched “common sense solutions”, “reaching across the aisle”, and “access” to healthcare. As the New York Times reported over the weekend, Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona, pitched the “pragmatic” post-shutdown messaging that the party will use in the coming years, represented by the likes of Sherrill, Spanberger, and Slotkin:
“The last thing that we need to be seeing,” he continued, “is people playing the poor against the less-poor, only for the rich to win at the end. Because that is exactly what happened. So we’re going to continue to make sure that we fight to make sure that people have access to affordable health care.”
Mr. Gallego was test driving what Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists say will be the party’s core message for the 2026 midterm elections, centered around placing the blame for massive increases in health care premiums and looming cuts to Medicaid squarely at Republicans’ feet.
One year from now, the hopeful thinking goes, voters will not focus on the Democrats’ surrender in the shutdown fight, but instead on their anger at Republicans for refusing to extend the health care subsidies.
So at best Americans are maybe looking at a return of subsidies for awful private insurance in 2029 under a Slotkin-Spanberger administration? Until then, good luck!
And whether we get a return to the “centrist” Cheney-Obama party rule or a Trump third term in 2028, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the whole military-industrial complex, well, they win either way, don’t they?
Spanberger and Sherrill—who reportedly dine together in DC off of gold-rimmed wedding china— recently focused on the cost-of-living crisis during their campaigns, yet during all their time in the office they did precious little on this front, not so much as co-sponsoring a bill intended to help the beaten down working class.
Spanberger has even in the past gone so far as to criticize Democrats who do suggest the party should do more for the working class and cut down on all the killing abroad. Following her narrow victory in 2020, she blamed Democrats like Rashida Tlaib from Michigan for the party’s losses and argued a more pro-capitalist platform was the path forward.
Fast forward to 2025, and Spanberger and Sherrill are going to go to bat for the working class, according to the Obamamometer. From Politico:
Former President Barack Obama, who campaigned this weekend for Sherrill and Spanberger, said during his New Jersey stop that people voted for Trump and Republicans “because they were, understandably, frustrated with inflation and high gas prices and the difficulty of affording a home, and they were worried about their children’s futures.”
“Now, nine months later, you’ve got to ask yourself, has any of that gotten better?” Obama asked.
Will any of it get better with CIA Democrats’ victories? There is no indication from their past actions, the money they accept, and the company they keep that they will so much as raise a finger against oligarchs bleeding Americans dry.
It is evidence that Spanberger and Sherrill chose a good time to run, seeing as Democrats are not in power and dissatisfaction with Trump and the GOP is running high. And we’ll likely be treated to their future campaigns for higher office once they get “executive experience” in the governor’s office, as they are now being crowned the “Democrats’ faces for 2028.”
Does that mean they’ll actually have to do something in their states over the next few years aside from cheerlead for more war? We’ll see. Perhaps Trump and the GOP will be bad enough for Americans that they’ll once again be angry enough to turn to more of the same.
