"When people try to call me the establishment, I look at that as a slur, particularly as an African American candidate," said David Crowley during Wisconsin's Democratic primary for governor. Crowley, the centrist candidate backed by Governor Tony Evers, faced progressive Francesca Hong. Despite his remarkable rise from poverty to Milwaukee County Executive at 33, Crowley used identity language to deflect "establishment" labels — a role reversal where centrists now wield identity politics against leftist challengers.

This pattern repeats nationally. When Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to democratic socialist Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, party figures including Letitia James and Mayor Zohran Mamdani framed the race through identity lenses. Chevalier, a Dominican American truck driver's daughter and Columbia Gaza encampment veteran, was portrayed as inauthentic to the working-class district despite her background.

The dynamic reveals identity becoming "both a cudgel and a crutch" — used to paint progressives as out-of-touch white academics while claiming authentic representation for centrist incumbents. As leftists win primaries, establishment Democrats increasingly deploy identity arguments to defend the status quo rather than advance equity.