Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) has seen his national profile soar since his November 2025 “Seditious Six” viral video stunt in which he and five Democrat congressional colleagues captured themselves on film urging US military members to disobey “illegal” orders issued by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump harshly rebuked Kelly and his cohorts for their irresponsible action. Which, in Democrat circles, can mean only one thing: instant acclaim for all involved.
Kelly had been subtly mulling a 2028 presidential run for months before the video drop. The newfound attention lavished on him provided fresh impetus to those ambitions, but what does it say about a Democratic Party that mouthed earnest vows to learn lessons from its crushing defeat in 2024 but has done absolutely nothing to change its Hate All Trump All the Time course in the year-plus since?
It’s a curious fact that media figures who embody the Swamp political establishment have been front and center in pushing the Kelly 2028 storyline. Former NBC News Meet the Press host Chuck Todd jumped on the subject in a Jan. 6 X post commenting on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s announcement that he would seek to reduce Kelly’s military pension as a result of his disobey video.
“Trying to understand why Trump and Hegseth want to elevate Mark Kelly as a top-tier Democrat for 2028,” Todd wrote. “Because all they are doing with this silly threat to Kelly is making him a much more sympathetic figure to the left without him having to adopt overly progressive positions. Kelly could not have asked for a better intro into the 2028 sweepstakes.”
CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere, who has thrived since 2015 serving up “news reporting” Trump bashings, echoed Todd’s sentiments in a Jan. 21 article that harped on Kelly’s newly accorded victimhood status.
“The Arizona senator and retired Navy captain has done a lot of things very few others have. He’s gone to space four times, cared for a wife who survived an assassination attempt, flipped a US Senate seat long controlled by Republicans,” Dovere gushed. “He never expected to see the secretary of defense [sic, and note lack of capitalization of the outdated term Defense] accusing him of sedition or the president suggesting he should face the death penalty – all from a few minutes of a recording that he didn’t think would be such a big deal.”
Yes, CNN still calls this journalism.
Dovere highlighted a recent interview with Kelly in which his hero resorts to foul language meant to embody tough-guy bravado.
“I’m a f—ing US senator,” Kelly told Dovere. “I have, in theory – in theory – supercharged First Amendment speech rights under the speech and debate clause, and they’re trampling on that … If they can go after me, they can go after anyone.”
It gets even more ludicrous.
“Kelly has a well-earned reputation for being stiff and dry, more at home digging into minutiae on the Senate Armed Services Committee or talking about immigration in his border state,” the Dovere hagiography continued. “Now, he’s gaining hundreds of thousands of new followers on social media and receiving standing ovations in restaurants. People at airports are urging him to run for president.”
Dovere quoted “Jesse Goolsby, a 36-year-old delivery driver who came to hear Kelly speak.” “When the king tries to touch you, then everybody knows your name,” Goolsby said. Oh my.
There is a trap in all this, but a worn-out political establishment still terminally stuck in the full throes of Trump Derangement Syndrome is too blind to see it. If Trump doesn’t like you, you automatically get elevated in today’s Democratic Party regardless of any other factors, such as whether or not you have anything else to bring to the table, or if you have anything to offer that might appeal to those Main Street USA voters Democrats admit they completely lost touch with in 2024.
Politico laid out the Kelly phenomenon in a Jan. 23 article titled “Mark Kelly’s Money Bomb.” “In an effort to help flip the House and Senate in 2026, Kelly has strategically used his star turn as President Donald Trump and Defense [sic again, but at least they capitalized it] Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Public Enemy No. 1 to ramp up his giving and fundraising to competitive candidates, party committees and state parties to the tune of nearly $5 million last year, according to figures shared” with Politico, the publication reported.
Mark Kelly is a player!
Interestingly, and unlike the icon-crafting Dovere, Politico can see the danger this may pose for Democrats.
“Kelly’s chits make it clear that attention from Trump can be a major boon for a potential 2028 presidential candidate. But more than anything, Kelly’s rising national profile, much like that of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s last year, shows Trump has a unique ability to elevate foils,” the outlet noted. “Trump has a great deal of power to pare the Democratic field.”
Whether you like him or not, Trump has a proven political gift for picking his fights and destroying his opponents. He’s done it repeatedly since the earliest days of the 2016 Republican presidential primary. Yet Democrats still cannot resist the urge to stage a mud-flinging contest with him instead of focusing on all those lost average American voters.
Republicans are more than happy to allow them to proceed.
“Newsom is a perfect foil because his record is so horrendous,” New Hampshire GOP political consultant Dave Carney told Politico. “He will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear.” Carney added, “Kelly’s a press thing. He’s not a real thing.”
On Jan. 21, the official Democratic Party X account posted a macho picture of Kelly in his astronaut suit in front of an American flag backdrop, accompanied by the text “We stand with Mark Kelly.” It is the caricature of a toy action figure ready to slay the evil Donald Trump monster.
Meanwhile, that Main Street voter drifts further and further away.
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