President John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address, may have said it best: “In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” 

It was a warning to those who tolerate the rise of authoritarian communism that they will inevitably end up next on the dinner menu. 

Michigan Democrats, in nominating Abdul El-Sayed for Senate on Tuesday, seem to be riding the back of that tiger. 

But not me. I’m climbing off the beast. 

After decades of giving my all for Democratic House and Senate candidates, this fall I will support — and contribute to — Mike Rogers, Michigan’s GOP Senate nominee, instead.

And I’ll do everything I can to make sure other Democrats follow.

With the exception of Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, my party’s leaders have sought to appease the dangerous faction rising in our midst. 

Weak, timid figures like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are spouting empty clichés — “We are a big-tent party” — while abdicating their moral and political responsibilities.

Democrats aren’t coddling Scandinavian-style socialists; they’re getting into bed with a nihilistic, deconstructionist brand of third-worldism. 

It’s an ideology that seeks the elimination of prisons, policing, borders, the Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court and democratic free markets.  

A worldview that aligns with genocidal jihadist movements like Hamas.

A generation ago, the left would’ve recognized this cadre as Trojan horse doing the bidding of our adversaries.

But not today. 

And as working-class voters flee an increasingly toxic Democratic brand, the party’s newfound embrace of anti-American extremists is likely to produce big losses nationally — and a civil war within.

In Michigan in particular, Rogers will frame a devastating portrait of El-Sayed that will further damage the party’s deteriorating image.

El-Sayed parrots Sen. Bernie Sanders’ delusion that attaches no importance to generating wealth — and only cares about redistributing it. 

He expresses sympathy for Mideastern terrorist movements that masquerade as liberation efforts, giving cover to terror attacks on Jewish synagogues in the US (“hurt people hurt people”) and going to absurd lengths to avoid offending supporters of Iran’s slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

He doesn’t believe the planet’s only Jewish state has a right to exist.   

Hasan Piker, his principal campaign surrogate, blames the US for 9/11 and professes his love for China’s madman dictator Mao Zedong, who slaughtered millions of his own people. 

Piker praised Hamas after the Oct. 7 massacre and cites every oppressive tyrant from Fidel Castro to Nicolas Maduro as his guiding lights.

Democrats can’t run from this lunacy in November. 

The “we are a big tent” evasion will sound like what it is: a craven concession to extremism in hopes of rebuilding a political party that’s fallen into decadence.   

The enraged exuberance exhibited at El-Sayed’s Keffiyeh-laden watch party Tuesday night blinds the asylum’s inmates to post-election reality. 

After all, El-Sayed received support just 12.5% of Michigan’s registered voters — mostly from the radical professional class of white college graduates — while underperforming in black, brown and working-class districts. 

This summer’s third-wordlist wave is the tiger Kennedy warned of. 

It’s a recipe for moral decay — and for political suicide. 

Democrats lost in 2024 because they were too far to the left of the median American voter. 

Now they’re racing even further in that disastrous direction.

Kennedy’s adage suggests the only way to address extremism is to defeat it.  

Fetterman, and a few other Dems like New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer and consultant James Carville, seem to get that — and they’re warning of a coming intraparty civil war. 

Some in Michigan are hinting at mass party defections in November. 

And El-Sayed’s new prominence means the bleeding won’t stop.  

Democrats in many districts will be forced on the campaign trail to distance themselves from El-Sayed or denounce him — and every one of their comments will write another permission slip for party defections come fall.  

To arrest this freefall, Democratic leaders must do more than just tell the extremists to find another party; they must also admit that post-modern liberalism is failing.

The more we spend on the welfare state, it seems, the worse the outcomes. 

We spend over $40,000 per student in New York City public schools, and few can read or do math. 

The politics of identity grievance gives no one greater agency or know-how to succeed; it’s black-pilling an entire generation with a victim mindset that will only hold them back.

Perversely, the Democratic Socialists argue we need more of what’s failing.

But America’s future depends on teaching our people how to build, not how to take from others or peddle whining complaints.   

Until Democrats understand that, the defections will keep on coming.

Julian Epstein is the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Democrats and the former staff director of the House Oversight Committee.