Peter Thiel warns liberal Aspen crowd that democratic socialists will take over their party

Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel warned the audience Tuesday at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival that the Democratic Party is being taken over by the democratic socialists. 

His remarks to the largely liberal crowd follow the recent primary victories in New York by three democratic socialists running for U.S. House seats, and it was also just hours before another one, Melat Kiros, won the Democratic primary in Colorado's 1st Congressional District, defeating the 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette.

Thiel spoke as part of a panel discussion on the direction of humanity. He referred to a cultural, technological and economic "stagnation" in recent years, which he considers to be "very destabilizing" in the long term, according to Fox News. 

Thiel was a primetime speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention and has become a prominent donor to Republicans. He was also a major backer of Vice President JD Vance during his successful run for the U.S. Senate in 2022. 

He ties his prediction back to the stagnation he described, which he said is what is “pushing us to try to find solutions outside this sort of very narrow, very narrow box." 

To the “liberal Democrats” in attendance, Thiel said, what “I ask you to take more seriously, is I think there's going to be a democratic socialist takeover in the Democratic Party. And it's not just a irrational, angry outburst. It is this really, really deep frustration at this stagnation."

He also addressed what he called “the Republican version that manifested with Trump and a repudiation of Bush-neocon consensus."