If there is one place to gauge a party’s state of mind and forward strategy, it is at the level of party leadership. And the spectacle on display in the race for Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair demonstrated that it intends to carry on with the same radical agenda and identity politics that were overwhelmingly rejected by the voters. It did not take long to figure that out. The forum for DNC chair candidates conducted in DC last week was hosted by three far-left personalities from MSNBC – Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki, and Jonathan Capehart – which was enough evidence by itself that the party will continue to bow to its most extreme voices.
Before the proceedings even commenced, multiple protesters interrupted with shouts about “climate emergency” and “fossil fuel money.” That was followed by an attempt to unfurl a banner on the stage about some sort of radical cause. Once that display was over and the protesters were escorted from the premises, the forum began with Capehart asking for a show of hands among the candidates on who believes racism and misogyny contributed to Kamala Harris’ defeat. Each candidate raised a hand, to which Capehart replied, “That’s good, you all pass.”
Falling in line like sycophants, all candidates later heaped praise on outgoing party chair Jamie Harrison, who oversaw the Democrats’ electoral disaster. The delegates rejected the candidates who hinted at even modest reform and quickly voted in another insider, Ken Martin, a white progressive who headed the party’s operations in Minnesota. In the midst of it all, there was an embarrassing debacle surrounding the need to meet gender quotas among members of the DNC, during which Harrison could not even explain the rules requiring a prescribed balance of men, women, and transgenders.
‘Self-Reinforcing Echo Chamber’ of Democrats
In an excellent piece in The Wall Street Journal, author Molly Ball called the event “a near-parody of the party’s self-reinforcing echo chamber … captive to leftist activists, obsessed with divisive litmus tests, out of touch with regular people’s concerns and in thrall to a patronizing identity politics that alienates many of the very minorities it is meant to attract.” She quoted one of the few on hand for the forum willing to face the truth, former congressional candidate Adam Frisch, as saying, “Twenty big cities, Aspen and Martha’s Vineyard — that’s what’s left of the Democratic Party.”
Most of the time, the party suffering a stinging presidential defeat sets about regrouping and recalibrating. The GOP has certainly been there. After Mitt Romney suffered a one-sided defeat at the hands of Barack Obama in 2012, the Republican National Committee held a retreat for party bigwigs amid public admissions that it needed a new strategic blueprint. And while the plan it adopted was blown up with the emergence of Donald Trump three years later, they at least admitted the need to reassess and develop new strategies. No such introspection appears to be taking place among Democratic leaders. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) channeled the infamous Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) last week in proclaiming about Trump’s far-reaching agenda, “We're going to fight it in the streets." A senior White House official responded, "Hakeem Jeffries must apologize for this disgraceful call to violence."
Backtracking Monday Morning Quarterbacks
The closest prominent Democrats have come to rethinking their strategy is Monday morning quarterbacking. Many a prominent Democrat engaged in distorted and/or wishful thinking as Election Day approached, only to backtrack into revisionist history once it became clear that Trump had swept to an easy victory. Take James Carville, who last held a significant position in the 20th century but is still somehow considered an unimpeachable source of political wisdom. Days before the election, Carville wrote a column for The New York Times, "Three Reasons I’m Certain Kamala Harris Will Win," in which he stated with cocksureness that Trump would surely be a "repeat electoral loser," while claiming, “On the other side, in just three months Ms. Harris has assembled a unified and electrified coalition. From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Liz and Dick Cheney, it is the broadest we have seen in modern political history … and if the bigger coalition turns out with equal enthusiasm, it will be lights out for Mr. Trump."
But this week, Carville insulted Harris by calling her the Democrats' “7th-string quarterback,” adding that his party needed a candidate who could "actually complete a sentence." Hindsight is indeed 20/20, even when one’s foresight represents little more than blind optimism.
Legacy Media on the Rampage
As Democrats fiddle while Rome burns, some reliably leftist platforms are unleashing blistering attacks on their ideological soulmates. The Atlantic published a piece, “The Democrats Show Why They Lost,” subtitled “[T]he party seemed to be at pains to demonstrate that it learned nothing from its 2024 defeat.” A writer for The New Republic, in a piece headlined “Primary Every Democrat,” complained that “donor-beholden congressional Democrats continue to be too old, too cloistered, and too bumbling to do anything as the government burns.” He even threatened to challenge second-ranking Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin (IL) himself and called on others to do the same to every Democratic incumbent.
The New York Times, the granddaddy of left-wing journalism, spoke with more than 50 Democrats who collectively admitted, per the story title, “We Have No Coherent Message” to counter Trump’s anti-establishment agenda. And Washington’s most famous liberal newspaper weighed in with a piece headlined “Can the Democratic Party Come Back to Life?” and another, “Why the Dem Party Has Become Ballot Box Poison.”
The metrics don’t lie. A recent Wall Street Journal poll indicated that 60% of Americans have a dim view of the Democratic Party, while only 36% say the opposite. It is reflected in the fact that the Dems ceded major ground to Republicans in the 2024 election among every one of the demographic groups on which they have always relied: young, female, low-income, less-educated, and minority voters. If that is not a wake-up call, it is hard to know what it would take for the party to face reality and adopt a new game plan.
