The State Of The Democratic Party

Democrats have widely acknowledged that their party is in shambles. There is disbelief, anger, and frustration going on inside the party of the people. Many can’t understand why Kamala lost. Their echo chamber tells them that any reasonable person should realize that the Democrats, as the party of “smart” people, should rule. How could the stupid Republicans win?

Two factors are in play here: The Democrats always forget that 40% of the country has a different belief system than they do, and the Democrats are dreamers in search of the ultimate ideology. The left dwells on its own ideology and never seeks an understanding of how the right thinks. Often, the left tries to be the right to show they are genuine. An example of this is the video of Tim Walz fixing his car. See, folks, he is a down-to-earth midwestern guy who puts tampons in boy’s bathrooms.

For 120 years, the left embraced socialism until they realized it didn’t work. Lately, they have embraced a globalist/neoliberal belief system, resulting from their embrace of Silicon Valley values.

The reasons for the Democratic Party’s fall from power are pretty straightforward.

The party is split between the radical left and more conventional Democrats. The House Progressive Caucus is now the largest bloc in that chamber. They won’t disappear overnight, even if some imagine that the traditional Democrats will rise from the ashes of Kamala and take control.

With the progressive caucus, you get the pursuit of a radical social agenda, which is rejected by the majority of the American people. That same agenda advocates for the destruction of American traditions and values.

Silicon Valley elites have replaced the Democrat’s traditional working-class constituency. They support a free trade globalist foreign policy, which has crippled the working class. Those working-class constituents evolved into MAGA because they had no one else to represent them.

While the ideologues in the Democratic Party are working on a theory of governance, the rest of the party has to tread water and focus on their opposition to Trump 100% from sunrise to sunset. There are at least two problems with this approach. The labeling of Trump as Hitler and the labeling of all white people as racist has gotten old. The lapdog traditional media types have used up their credibility by hiding Biden’s dementia from the American people. That behavior is over and above the efforts of their politicians to destroy Trump through two impeachments, six phony crime accusations, and two assassination attempts.

The second problem with their approach is the position they place themselves in when they oppose everything Trump. For example, they have stoutly defended an MS-13 member who was accidentally deported, even though he is an illegal alien, and judges have twice recommended that he be expelled. All House Democrats voted against the Save Act, which prohibits non-citizens from voting.

In the voting for the Save Women’s Sports Act, 203 Democrats voted against the bill, which prevents Trans-women from competing in women’s sports (70% of Americans supported the bill). A total of 211 Democrats voted against the Border Security bill. These positions represent extreme cultural and economic views, which most Americans do not support.

What new Democratic Party strategies have emerged since the election?

First, there is the treading water strategy, which is to use the courts to stifle Trump’s agenda. That may slow down the pace of change, but not stop Trump. Included in that plan is the use of sanctuary cities to block efforts to expel illegal immigrants.

Meanwhile, AOC and Bernie Sanders are touring the country, railing against the oligarchs and touting Democrat populism. How does that work when the Democratic Party has as many oligarchs as the Republican Party, and their major constituency is white middle and upper-class women? Bernie has to be the perfect analog of Don Quixote.

AOC and Bernie are trying to infuse energy into the Democrat’s moribund ideology, but their enthusiastic crowds appear inconsequential when one notices that the party’s poll numbers sit at all-time lows. Populism is dead on the left because it has no constituency other than unions.

There is also talk of a new ideological component. Ezra Klein and others are touting “Abundance Liberalism.” Since our country is suffering from an affordability crisis, they want to fix that problem to improve the party’s image. They suggest that the scarcity of housing can be fixed by building more houses. By their telling, scarcity is partly the result of progressives inadvertently working against their own objectives. For example, too many rules must be followed to build a house (permits, environmental studies, zoning restrictions, etc.). If they can pour an enormous amount of money into housing, the problem will be fixed. Modifying the governing behavior of the left will be a problem others will have to solve.

The ideological changes Democrats need to make will be difficult to achieve. For example, they need to turn the Silicon Valley crowd from globalists to nation-state advocates. Likewise, they need to ditch their multiple-gender ideology. While they’re at it, they should get rid of their fossilized leadership.

Impractical ideologies take a long time to die in American politics. After Carter, it took the Democrats 12 years to regain the presidency. Will it take 12 years this time? No one knows. Republicans never have to change their ideology because it has been the same for 200 years. They just have to figure out how to market it.

Two things need to happen before the Democrats recover their mojo: they have to move to the ideological center, and the Republicans have to fumble their opportunity to show the American people they can govern. In the past, both parties have been down and counted out, only to quickly recover.

America needs a strong Democratic Party that can operate near the ideological center. Since the American people are split ideologically, it will take two parties seeking consensus to make the federal government functional again. A strong Democratic Party is important to keep the Republicans in line and put a brake on the right’s excesses.

At the end of the day, American politics is one billionaire class against the other: neoliberals against the nation-state people.

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