After losing decisively in the 2024 general election, Democrats continue to wander in the political wilderness as they ask themselves WHAT WENT WRONG? Many Americans, some of whom may even be Democrats, think they know the answer. Democrats just got too freaking weird!
WHAT WENT WRONG?!
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The party left its traditional base of blue-collar working-class union workers, minorities, many of whom worked in lower class to middle class jobs and rural southern voters decades ago. Slowly the party drifted toward “educators” and teachers’ unions. The new coalition also included public employee unions, Hollywood and large corporate donors from Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Even college graduates more and more matriculated to the Democrats.
This new coalition professes to feel very strongly about inclusion and thus promotes LGBTQ+, equity (as opposed to equality) and boys competing in girls’ sports. Blue cities feel so strongly about inclusion that their big city mayors want to include people living here illegally and allow them to live here indefinitely. New York City even passed an ordinance in 2021 that allowed illegals to vote in local elections, which the New York Supreme Court just struck down last week. New York City’s Noncitizen Voting Law Struck Down by the State’s Highest Court | FAIRUS.org
Bottom line . . . Democrats have become so inclusive they ended up excluding much of their original base. So, the quadrennial exercise of the losing party wandering in the wilderness and searching for purpose has begun. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) and Rep. Sandra Ocasio Cortez think they have found the party’s purpose.
“We must fight the oligarchy,” they say. They ask us to forget about their past and join the fight against the billionaire’s club. You see, Sanders has a net worth of only a few million, so he qualifies to lead this charge. How Senator Bernie Sanders Made His Millions | Nasdaq
Between the two years of the run-up and post-election filings the Biden/Harris and then Harris/Walz campaign outraised the Trump/Vance campaign by a better than two to one margin. (See here HARRIS FOR PRESIDENT - committee overview | FEC and here NEVER SURRENDER, INC. - committee overview | FEC)
Of course, candidate Donald Trump had his share of wealthy corporate doners including The Formerly Cool Elon Musk whom the left now reviles as a traitor to the cause and a newly ensconced member of the oligarchy. Full disclosure: as someone who used to rub shoulders with the other side, he wasn’t a member of the oligarchy then, because the Progressives (not to be confused with the car insurance company) have no oligarchs.
The Progressives have no oligarchs, only wealthy and influential supporters with great political connections. Just good folks like former New York Mayor and financier Michael Bloomberg worth over $100 billion. Then there is that humble innkeeper John Pritzker of the Hyatt Hotel fortune worth $2.7 billion. A list like this wouldn’t be complete without Hollywood mogul Stephen Spielberg worth almost $5 billion among a list of 22 other billionaires who contributed a million dollars or more to the Harris campaign. Here’s Every Billionaire Who’s Given $1 Million Or More To Help Kamala Harris Get Elected I suppose if you donate a million dollars or more to The Cause it entitles you to become an honorary member of the proletariat.
For this and other reasons, the Sanders/Cortez Fighting Oligarchy tour rings hollow. For a great read on the hypocrisy of it all read this Phil Boas’ op/ed in the Arizona Republic. Where AOC, Sanders' 'Fighting Oligarchy Tour' should go next | Opinion But let me just get this out there. Sanders and Cortez have done us all a great service, because without hypocrisy politics wouldn’t be nearly this fun!
Don’t use the wrong pronoun or you could end up here!
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Democrats need to just get over the oligarchy thing. They also need to get over the “if Trump is for it, then we must be against it,” strategy unless they want to keep losing. Most Americans don’t want boys competing in girls’ sports, they don’t like blue city mayors harboring people here unlawfully or the unsettling feeling you get when a person uses the wrong pronoun which could send them to some political re-education gulag. (his, him).
If President Donald Trump said he loved apple pie, then the current Democrat regime would have to oppose it. New York Attorney General Letitia James could decry apple pie as a racist remnant of our colonial past; i.e., “too male, too pale and too stale.”
A racist remnant from our colonial past
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If Democrats want to succeed, they should get back to a winning formula of years gone by . . . otherwise they can continue to be too freaking weird and keep wandering in the political wilderness.
Maybe a new third-party will evolve out of this far left vs far right mess.