The Atlantic has just crowned Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett as “a Democrat for the Trump Era”. Democrats seem to agree. Earlier this month, the Houston Chronicle declared Crockett a “fundraising juggernaut,” noting that the second-term congresswoman ranks fifth among all House Democrats when it comes to raking in campaign cash.

The contention of Crockett’s Atlantic profile is that she’s particularly suited for the Trump era because no other Democrat has come quite so close to matching the President’s raw hostility towards his enemies. “Crockett is testing out the coarser, insult-comedy-style attacks that the GOP has embraced under Trump, the general idea being that when the Republicans go low, the Democrats should meet them there,” the story posits.

Crockett calls Republicans “motherfuckers” and Trump “Putin’s hoe” (the President has responded by calling her “low IQ”). She described her state’s wheelchair-bound Republican Governor, Greg Abbott, as “Governor Hot Wheels”. Like Trump, Crockett’s iPhone lock screen is also a picture of herself, according to The Atlantic.

Of course, Crockett’s most famous feud is with GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, whom she accused last year of having a “bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body”. She then trademarked the phrase and started selling merchandise featuring it to fundraise for Democrats. (Back in 2016, Trump made headlines when his campaign sold “Hillary for Prison” gear.)

Progressive strategist Max Burns is quoted in the profile as saying: “What establishment Democrats see as undignified, disillusioned Democrats see as a small victory.” This dynamic mirrors Trump’s appeal to his base — and Greene’s to hers. It explains why Republicans in 2016 failed to derail Trump despite attacks on his character and crude rhetoric. It also helps explain why Greene raises 73% of her campaign funds from small-dollar donors — a higher percentage than anyone in Congress, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders; Crockett herself was at 45% in 2024.

And this is where Crockett’s appeal becomes less certain in the long term. Rep. Maxine Dexter told The Atlantic that Crockett has expressed no interest in tussling with party leadership like Ocasio-Cortez, “explaining that she had never wanted to ‘burn it down’ and prefers to be seen as working on behalf of the party”. This doesn’t just put her at odds with AOC, but also with MTG.

Crockett has taken the first step to recovery by admitting the party has a problem. “The base is thirsty. The base right now is not very happy with us,” she told The Atlantic, pitching herself as the answer. But, as Marco Rubio’s failed 2016 presidential campaign showed, it’s not enough to just talk tough. You have to walk the walk too.

When Joe Biden was flailing towards the end of his campaign, Crockett stood firmly by him, even defending him after his debate disaster against Trump. Among Democrats, she falls roughly in the middle of her caucus on GovTrack’s Ideology-Leadership matrix, indicating she’s on the Left but not far Left. Indeed, she remains relatively in line with party bosses when it comes to votes.

This is an interesting recipe for Democrats: attacking the establishment in style, but supporting it in substance. The first part of that equation is at least a start. As Founding Father James Wilson said, the House of Representatives “ought to be the most exact transcript of the whole society”. American society now is perhaps coarser and more precarious than ever before, so it’s no great scandal that desperate voters are interested in electing representatives who match their frustration.

To maintain her credibility with a “thirsty” base, Crockett might actually need to “burn it down” sooner rather than later. This is what Trump forced on the GOP. It’s coming for the Democrats, too.

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Emily Jashinsky is UnHerd‘s Washington correspondent.

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