https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-inauguration-democratic-party-2024-election Lost in the Funhouse Democrats need to find a way out of their house of mirrors. Martin Gurri On Inauguration Day, January 20, all eyes will be fixed on the once and future president, Donald Trump, and the new faces that will populate his administration. That is proper. Trump has traversed an almost cinematic journey back to the White House, and he is associated with policies and personalities that, once in office, are certain to be fiercely controversial and magnificently entertaining The deep question in American politics today, however, concerns the fate of the Democratic Party. For Republicans, the future will look and sound like Trump and his band of young buccaneers, about to take Washington by storm. They may succeed or fail in arriving at their destination, but the direction is set. It is otherwise with the Democrats: the 2024 election shattered the party, and it isn’t clear how—or if—the pieces will come together again. Democrats’ first step forward must be to acknowledge the scale of their repudiation by the voters. They failed to do this in 2016. Back then, they blamed Trump’s election on Facebook and fake news and the manipulations of that dark wizard, Vladimir Putin. The losers of 2016 absolved themselves from any responsibility for their defeat. Ever since, the Democrats have stumbled inside a house of mirrors, where wish is confused with reality and fatal errors appear as a mere failure to communicate. In that place of illusion, they embrace a mythology that elevates them into wondrous spirits—representatives of science, perpetual guardians of “our democracy,” saviors of a dying earth, adjudicators of perfect justice. By definition, only satanic forces could oppose such a chosen people. To abandon this mythology will be traumatic and identity-crushing. For change to be possible, party leaders must exert pressure—yet the Democrats are currently bereft of leaders. Joe Biden was a hollow figurehead, his performance in office hovering between comical and terrifying. Kamala Harris parachuted into that sock-puppet slot, and then spent $1 billion for the privilege of dancing with Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin. Tim Walz proved an embarrassment. There are no heirs apparent, and the elder statesmen have served their cause badly. One might think that Bill Clinton would have something to say about triangulation and the forging of “New Democrats,” but his voice has grown quiet from disuse. Since 2016, the dominant Clinton has been Hillary—possibly the Platonic ideal of an out-of-touch elite. Nancy Pelosi is a brilliant tactician, but she resembles a spider at the center of its web: she cut the heart out of Biden’s candidacy to reduce the party’s loss by a few percentage points. As for Barack Obama, he has wanted to have it both ways: ascend to the Hall of Fame reserved for former two-term presidents, while remaining the biggest star still playing the game. He failed at both roles, appearing too self-interested for a wise statesman and too remote to be an effective campaigner. After the strange episode in which he scolded his black “brothers” for their insufficient loyalty, he has emerged from the election a diminished figure. Renewal will not arrive from this quarter, and the temptation has grown to grasp for easy answers. Democratic politicians and Hollywood stars are addicted to one another: one side craves glamor, the other gravitas. But where can one find the Democratic equivalent of Elon Musk? Or of podcaster Joe Rogan? Or even of a popular culture icon like Trump himself? Such questions, which assume that the election could have been won by swapping out celebrities, are a sign of intellectual blindness, of an inability to discern cause and effect. After all, Musk, Rogan, and Trump were all once Democrats, left behind by the party’s haphazard flight to the funhouse. In the absence of real reflection, then, the mythology reasserts itself. Trump must again be viewed as the second coming of Hitler. The Democrats, to their own bleary eyes, resemble the French maquisards, carrying out a noble, if forlorn, “resistance.” Democratic governors are organizing to do battle—yet again—against such “threats to our democracy” as “fast-moving disinformation campaigns.” “Sanctuary” states will—yet again—seek to defy federal efforts to deport illegal migrants. Warned Illinois governor J. B. Pritzker portentously: “You come for my people, you come through me.” This is like the dreadful sequel to a movie that itself bombed. The Democrats were just defeated on exactly the positions that Pritzker and others—like California’s Gavin Newsom and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy—are swearing to defend to the death. On issue after issue, they have ceded the strategic heights to Trump. They must somehow account for this if they wish to resist him. Rather than advocate censorship, they should invite diversity of opinion. Rather than promote illegality, they should propose generous but sensible immigration policies. There’s a middle ground to be reconquered, where most of the public can be found. Instead, Democrats have chosen to stray ever deeper into delusions. Democrats have lost control of every branch of the federal government, but they still command most of the great institutions that buttress and bind American society. On the whole, this has been a tremendous source of strength. Every whisper from a Biden or an Obama became a thunderous conformist chorus of assent. Every partisan scheme, like the shadow-banning of critics on social media, was put into action without question. Solidarity with institutional elites is the raft that keeps the Democrats afloat when, like now, they are out of favor and out of power. But such coddling distorts the field of vision. Amid the standing ovations and endless smiles, the Democrats often cannot see the frowns on the faces of the American public. They enjoy total access to institutional reality but lack windows into a world in which ordinary people suffer from inflation and fear the ravages of crime. There’s rich irony in the Democrats’ self-image as heroic protectors of truth against disinformation, because they go looking for truth in all the wrong places. The New York Times isn’t truth, but that’s where Democrats get their information. The CDC isn’t truth, but Democrats mistake it for infallible science. Hollywood isn’t within shouting distance of truth, but Democrats watch anti-Trump movies like Don’t Look Up and The Apprenticeand come away believing that their opinions are universally shared. The institutions are the warped reflective surfaces of the Democratic Party’s house of mirrors. They dazzle, but lie. To regain a foothold on reality, the Democrats, led by their chieftains, must relearn the difference between hope and fact, no matter how painful the process might be. The alternative is to stagger on for years through glittering chambers that lead nowhere, locked away from the American mainstream, chasing the mirage of their own propaganda. Martin Gurri is a former CIA analyst and the author of The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium.
There ain’t nothing better than watching president Trump dancing with the slightly fatter version of the Village People live. Woke Dems in here are so jealous. We will make America wealthy, healthy, safe and great again.
Trump Leaves Democrats Dazed and on the Defensive Locked out of power in Washington, the party is struggling to agree on a unified message of opposition. Some of its lawmakers are even telling Republicans they want to work together. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/24/us/politics/trump-democrats-republicans.html
Democrats hurt party by taking too long to admit Biden couldn’t win: ex-Obama advisers https://nypost.com/2025/01/24/us-ne...to-admit-biden-couldnt-win-ex-obama-advisers/ excerpt: The three co-hosts and former Obama administration staffers, Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer, pointed to the party’s coddling of President Biden and his ambitions to run for re-election despite his age and poor polling, as one of the reasons for Democrats being in such disarray. “I think one thing, though, that harmed the Democrats over the last couple of years was a lack of candor and not being honest with ourselves that there were a lot of voters who felt like Joe Biden was too old to get another four years,” Vietor told the ABC daytime talk show hosts. more at the link
The new DNC chair needs to act more like Donald Trump https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5103438-democrats-average-american-disconnect/
@basso @Salvy @No Worries @Nook @CrixusTheUndefeatedGaul @El_Conquistador New York Times : Numbers don’t lie
Don’t worry, dipshit moron and his buddies have a plan to turn this around, just insult people and calling them dipshit morons and they will stay put in shithole blue states and vote Democratic. Lol
this is YUGE . . . Mr. Animal Rights is leaving the Democratic Party Why I left the Democratic Party after voting for Kamala Harris — and why others will follow https://nypost.com/2025/01/29/opini...for-kamala-harris-and-why-others-will-follow/
more evidence that quite a few people probably didn't vote for Trump so much as they voted against the Democratic Party Democrats’ unfavorability rating reaches new, 16-year high as party keeps licking wounds following disastrous 2024: poll https://nypost.com/2025/01/29/us-news/democrats-unfavorability-rating-reaches-new-high-poll/ excerpt: Americans may not like the GOP, but they really don’t like the Democratic Party, a new poll has found. The party of Jefferson, Jackson, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama and Biden holds a 57% unfavorable rating among voters, according to the Quinnipiac University survey released Wednesday, while just 31% of voters say they have a favorable view. The Republican Party, meanwhile, has a 43% favorability rating among voters and a 45% unfavorability rating, per the poll. The Democrats’ unfavorability rating is the highest since Quinnipiac pollsters began asking the question in November 2008. Similarly, the percentage of voters viewing the GOP favorably is the highest over the same period. The brutal rating for Democrats comes as the party is licking its wounds from the 2024 election cycle, which saw all 50 states move to the right. more at the link
in the 2020 election, the Dems put the spot light on campaign promises that Trump 1.0 failed to deliver southern border wall inability to even come up with a plan to replace ObamaCare to legislate an infrastructure bill the Dem challenger then went on to beat the GOP incumbent easily, beating Trump by more than 7 million For the 2026 midterm, Strategist James Carville Urges Democrats To Focus On ‘No. 1 Promise’ Trump 2.0 Is Failing To Deliver “Trump's No. 1 thing was he was going to do something about high grocery prices.” “So far, You’ve got nothing done, and they’ve gone up since he has taken taken office.” Carville added that Dems shouldn’t get distracted by whatever insane stuff (Greenland, Panama, Canada, Gulf of America) he says
look, I know you love your kitchen-magnet-word-game style of posting, but I just can't follow what you're trying to communicate here. Plain English version?
The Washington Post has picked up on the same story Democrats’ brutal poll problem Two recent polls show the party is more unpopular than it has been in nearly two decades. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/29/democrats-brutal-poll-problem/ excerpt: It has been evident for some time that the Democratic Party isn’t in a great place. It’s somewhat normal for that to be the case for a party after a disappointing election. But the scale of Democrats’ problems is beginning to come into focus. And it’s both stark and sobering for the blue team. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday had this stunning finding: While Americans were about evenly split in their views of the Republican Party (43 percent favorable to 45 percent unfavorable), negative views of the Democratic Party outpaced positive ones by 26 points — 31 percent favorable to 57 percent unfavorable. That’s not only a huge imbalance but also an unprecedented one. In fact, Democrats’ 57 percent unfavorable rating is their highest ever in Quinnipiac’s polling, dating back to 2008, while the GOP’s 43 percent favorable rating is its highest ever. And while this is just one poll, it builds on evidence from other polls. Tracking polling from YouGov, for instance, shows the Democratic Party more unpopular than at any point since January 2017. Similarly, a CNN poll released last week showed that a record-low 33 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the party. That’s four points lower than in any CNN poll since 2006. And if you expand the dataset to earlier CNN, USA Today and Gallup polls, it’s the party’s worst since at least 1992. more at the link
