Irrational Aggression
Among the rashness of this last election that is still haunting and impeding today is the imprudence of Democrats in forgetting that it is voters who pick the president.
In the WSJ, Kimberley Strassel accuses Joe Biden’s inner circle of remaking, haughtily you might even add, the 1989 black comedy, as the claque continues to ignore the verdict by voters.
It mattered that Mr. Biden then anointed a woman who’d never won a single presidential primary vote, who’d become a liability as vice president, and who then ran a policy-free campaign centered on joy, media-avoidance and accusations of fascism.
“Deflection and finger-pointing” now seem to be de rigueur in the Democratic Party.
On whom did Hillary Clinton blame her humiliating election loss? Sabotage by Russia, sexism, Jim Comey, and an insufficiently prostrate press corps.
Blame for Its 2022 midterm House loss? The public’s failure to understand the brilliance of Mr. Biden’s spending and economic agenda.
Ostrichism
Still being ignored by the Democratic Party are those voters who decisively cling to the Democratic progressive agenda. Wouldn’t a real autopsy, as Ms. Strassel ponders, focus almost entirely on the unpopularity of the ideas that animate the political left?
- open borders
- unrestrained spending
- union power
- climate diktats
- police-bashing
- anti-Israel sentiment
- identity politics
Consider what the autopsy exhibits: it’s not just the polls that show this rejection. Additional proof comes in the form of recent, extraordinary demographic shifts that show the left losing its grip on whole categories of once-reliable voter groups.
An honest assessment would focus on the failure of eight years of lawfare (i.e., the Democratic Party’s decision to weaponize government for political gain), continues Ms. Strassel. By refusing to end the Party’s need to weaponize government for political gain, the progressive arm spreads distrust among voters who want stability.
It would question what internal or cultural dysfunction allowed an entire Democratic establishment to salute a misguided leader, and worse, to excoriate those rare individuals (Dean Phillips) with the backbone to warn of a coming trainwreck.
To help themselves, Democrats could finalize and end the legislative filibuster. A good beginning would be to nationalize election laws. “Threatening to pack the Supreme Court or abolish the Electoral College are worthy of the distrust these prospects sow among average voters who want stability.”
Are Democrats capable of questioning what internal or cultural dysfunction allowed an entire Democratic establishment to salute a misguided leader, and worse, to excoriate those rare individuals (Dean Phillips) with the backbone to warn of a coming trainwreck?
The progressive left is but a minority in the liberal movement. Nonetheless, its true believers occupy all the positions of power, including the leadership of the DNC (and most Beltway press jobs). The progressive left won’t criticize its basic world view.
DOA
If change is to come to the Democratic Party—and it will—expect it, to come in the form of a charismatic outsider who shows a new way, argues Ms. Strassel, not via a pro forma autopsy by an insular claque that has no real regrets over the course that … lost them an election.
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