The problem for the Democratic Party is not Democrats. It's progressives.
Progressives have a fascinating mind-set. One dimension is that winning is not that important to them. It's nice, of course, but of more importance is the warm inner glow they get from being morally "right" and superior to others.
Another part of that mind-set is the data showing that progressives are 4 times (not a typo) more in favor of dumping a family member who disagrees with you than conservatives are. My way or the highway thinking.
Another fascinating piece is that despite MOUNDS of evidence that the public doesn't like progressive views and they are costing Democrats is that in not a single publication or comment board have we ever seen a progressive say: "Maybe I am wrong."
Finally, progressives slam white people, males, boomers, police, financially successful (not rich, but just comfortable) people all of the time. And then, oddly, expect to win people over to their side.
Progressives spend too much of their time in progressive circles. They don't get out and see the real world, and find out that many Trump voters have valid and legitimate concerns and worries. Instead, they write Trump voters off as being "low information voters."
We know a LOT of Trump voters. They are nice, good people, and good Americans. Get out of your bubble, progressives, and learn something about the world.
Agree with all of it, but will point something out. Yes, "progressives" are the problem, but the ground-level reality is that they dominate the Democratic Party. There are moderate Democrats but they have no voice within the party, which means that for all practical purposes, the Democratic Party is the "progressive" party. They are one in the same. It's tragic, but sometimes reality is tragic.
How did this happen? Well, one big reason is that, unlike more moderate Democrats whose lives don't revolve around politics, "progressives" are much more personally wrapped up in politics, and as a result they are more likely to show up at the caucuses and party meetings. The power of showing up is commonly underrated.
Once they dominate a sub-group of Democrats, "progressives" have a way of turning vicious toward anyone who's not part of their in-group. This further reduces moderate input, because moderates see "progressive" behavior and are repelled enough to not participate in the infighting. Yet they don't want to become Republicans, so it takes them a long time to change their voting behavior. Meanwhile, the "progressives" have hijacked the organizational levers, and exclude anyone who dissents from their orthodoxies.
This is where the Democratic Party is now. I really don't think this will change in time for the Democrats to be dealt some truly catastrophic defeats, starting next fall. I think the only thing that can save them in '28 is a weak economy that spring. Economic strength (or weakness) in the spring of a presidential election year (as measured by the direction of the headline "U-3" unemployment rate) has been a phenomenally accurate predictor of the winner in November ever since 1948.
I see no reason for that to change, so the only real hope for the Democratic Party is a bad economy. Hell of a note, isn't it? If U-3 is higher in June '28 than March '28 and Vance wins anyway, that will be a vivid sign of how badly the Democrats have burned their bridges with the American voter. I can't see it happening, but you never know.
What you just said can also be applied to the GOP. Conservatives took over the GOP the same way. After the Conservatives were slaughtered in 1964, they began working to take over the party. By 1980, they were able to get Reagan the nom and then into office. However, the Conservative takeover didn't reach its fulfillment until the 1990's.
So, what happened to the moderate or even liberal Republicans that were displaced? Many became Democrats. Who were those people? Upper income professionals. Yes, the people the author is complaining about are these very moderate former Republicans!
What is occurring is a natural. It has happened every 40 to 60 years in this country. People change and therefore so do parties.
Ultimately, history teaches that people don't change. So, any expectations that these former Democrats who have left the party will return is silly. It won't happen because the country will not tolerate two GOPs or two Democratic Parties. If the GOP continues to push ill advised, doomed to fail economic policies (and they are failing, trust me), then those voters whose focus in on economic policies, balanced budgets, etc., will need a home. They will become Democrats.
Not sure the Goldwater comparison works. His '64 nomination was a last gasp of the anti-New Deal types who failed when Eisenhower prevailed over Taft for the '52 nomination and then ran a center-right administration. It was more of a one-off, while the "progressives" have been digging the Democratic Party's grave for a decade.
I think the rich liberal phenomenon really got going not in '64 but in the late '80s and into the '90s and beyond. The biggest long-term question in my mind is whether the Democratic Party will even last until 2040 or whether it'll go the way of the Whigs. If I had to make the bet, it would be on survival but I wouldn't bet the ranch.
The next three years look like they could be truly pivotal. If the economy hangs in there in '26 and '28, the Democratic Party is in for a historic ass kicking. The numbers won't be on the order of McGovern's loss to Nixon or the earthquake of the 1894 off-year, but the effect will be that big if the Rs gain 15 or 20 seats next year, and Vance-Newsom is a 10-point margin like Eisenhower-Stevenson in 1952. What could come after 2030 should freeze every Democrat's guts cold solid. It's not too far off. As I push 70 years of age, I take a different view of the passage of time. Years go by faster.
The multi-generational New Deal coalition is really fragile, and the legacy media complex that has supported it for the last half century is crumbling as we yammer here. The "progressives" are like third-generation wealth in the "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves" taxonomy. Things happen gradually and then suddenly. I reiterate that for this to play out in a dramatic way in the next three years is going to require the economy to keep a-going. We shall see.
“Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could look at these data and trends and not think the Democratic forecast for party renewal remains cloudy at best”. Agree my only conclusion is there is little to no rational decision making going on that a normal person can see. That the Democratic leadership is following a cult like religious determination set of beliefs that will walk them off a cliff. I read an interview yesterday where the person interviewed said a lot of what is covered here and the interviewer said something like “ but how can we compromise in what we believe is moral and right”. That told me everything I needed to know
Yes the ‘moral and right’ with no middle ground, which is usually where the best answer lies. And they do not or cannot see the unintended consequences, which are not moral and right. IE trans rights moral and right, jeopardizing children and women’s safety not moral and right. Solution - trans women will have to accommodate in certain circumstances, they cannot go into women’s safe spaces as it opens the door for any man to do so. Protecting a truly trans kid moral and right but jumping the gun with medicalisation when that may not be the kids problem, not moral and right. Solution .. wouldn’t it be better to examine every possibility and give the child time and space to hopefully become comfortable with themselves as they are?
Yes! This is truly why it is so hard to abandon these positions. Having claimed righteousness of belief, it takes conversion to walk it back. You can’t just say “well that didn’t work”.
You can't help a person or party that thinks the current Democratic platform is inherently moral and right. Even if they compromise and enact policies that are popular and win a few elections, as soon as they feel strong enough, they will begin to pursue policies that they believe are moral and right.
In fact that has been the fate of Democrats since the 60s. They show their true self and get nearly drubbed out relevance. Then a silver tongued Democrat comes along who is smart enough to hide the party's worst attributes. The party begins winning and then the true believers think that is a mandate to go back to what they believe is moral and right. And the the party gets drubbed again.
I think this is on point - although I think there are some good ideas coming from the Dems. You are onto something though. Perhaps people feel that a D “move to the center” is at best temporary and at worst a ploy. The pull to the left is very strong. I think the GOP has a strong pull to the right too, but of late they are more coherent - and people clearly trust them more. I know that drives Dems crazy given Trumps erratic chaos-agent nature. But it is so.
Liberal Patriot is just about the only group of Democrats who make sense to me. I was a Dem for 40 years. My mantra was: "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not stupid about it." Well, now the idiots are running that show, and have been for more than a decade. They only get worse. Another mantra, more recent: "You can always tell a 'progressive,' but you can never tell a 'progressive' anything."
The insularity of the Democratic Party astounds me. I realize that a party has to hold together, and part of that is to reject some things and embrace others. It's why parties exist. Still, the utter arrogance, hostility, and even hatred coming from the Democrats is amazing.
I've written this before and will write it again: What passes for a Democratic Party brain trust badly needs to study American political history between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the 64 years between 1869 and 1933. The Republicans ran the show. Only 16 years of Dem presidents, with one (Cleveland) being very conservative and undistinguished. Only 10 years of Democratic Congresses. Only 10 years of Democratic "trifectas" -- control of Congress and the White House.
The "progressives" who run the Democratic Party are upset about a 6-3 Supreme Court? Just wait until Vance is elected in '28 (the economy will have to cooperate) and it goes to 8-1 during his time in office, which will be greatly bolstered by the '30 census and reapportionment. The one left will be Katanji Brown Jackson, an intellectual weakling and an embarrassment. Yikes!
I am no longer a Democrat, but I very much want the Democrats to survive. We need the voice. If not, then maybe they collapse like the Whigs did, and get replaced. One way or another, they are not sustainable.
p.s.: Maybe it's my idiosyncrasy, but I wish the Dems would quit putting it in terms of their "brand" and their "messaging." Does it get any shallower and more trivial than that?
That period you mentioned was the Gilded Age that saw rapid flooding of the labor market with immigrants, concentrated wealth, large fortunes amassed, and labor union organizers shot. We also had three major depressions.
But hey, at least the GOP didn't support trans rights, so that's a win.
Nice strawman of yours, making me F. Scott Fitzgerald, the tribune of the Gilded Age. Hah! Thanks. I'm honored. But I'm not endorsing all that, although you do seem to have skipped over the Industrial Revolution that not only created the rich but also the beginnings of a middle class. In any case, I wasn't trying to give a critique or an economic history, but only to recall the political history. I think this is what can happen to the Democrats.
Will it be the same? Of course not. Who was it who said that history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes? Will the Democrats collapse to the degree that they did after 1860, and will their impotence mirror 1869-1933? I'm not predicting that, but only pointing to the period as being an example of what I think is a real possibility.
The "progressives" don't even have a clue, and I doubt too many moderate Dems do either. That period I examined tends to get less attention than the rest of American history, even in the best programs. It was a formative time, and by and large it was a Republican period, Woodrow Wilson notwithstanding.
Now that I'm on the topic, something else. Recall the most popular movie ever in its cultural impact, "The Wizard of Oz," the screen adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 book and 1902 hit play. Cast as a children's story, but actually an examination of the politics of the Gilded Age.
Oz? Ounce. The yellow brick road? The gold standard. In the book and play, Dorothy (the stock literary everyman vehicle, the narrator) wore silver slippers, denoting the biggest political issue of the post-Civil War era. The emerald city? New York. The tornado? Populism. The munchkins? The average folks.
The tin man? The heartless industrialists. The scarecrow? The dumb farmer. The cowardly lion? William Jennings Bryan, the 1896 Democratic presidential candidate. The wizard? William McKinley, the Republican presidential candidate and empty suit, hand selected by four robber barons, one of whom (John D. "Standard Oil" Rockefeller) edited his convention speech.
The wicked witch of the West, the land and railroad barons of California. The flying monkeys? Indians, easily manipulated. Baum always denied that it was a political story even though at the time it was obvious, especially to the audiences of the hit play that he took on the road after Broadway. But to say so would have greatly reduced the sales of his "Oz" series. Cancel culture is hardly new.
I think there's a big chance that the Republicans will gain control in much the way that FDR did after 1933. Is it a foregone conclusion? Nope. I think it will need a rout in the '26 off-year, and another one in '28 to get rolling. Both will depend critically on the state of the economy. If the sun shines, the pebbles we now see rolling down the hill will become a landslide.
New Gilded Age? Excuse me, but we're already there. Both parties. Imagine: the Republican Party, led by a bombastic billionaire a-hole from New York City, is becoming the voice of the working middle class. Do the "progressives" who have seized the Democratic Party EVER stop to ask themselves just how badly they had to play the hand that Obama gave them for that to have happened?
Nah. You can always tell a "progressive," but you can never tell a "progressive" anything. Beware the complete idiot who thinks he's smart. And now comes Mandami, the undertaker. I can hardly wait for them city-owned grocery stores.
For many years there has been a revolving door between democratic held positions in government and when Dems lose--Dems have decamped to universities or NGOs. This pattern had little public focus until recently with DOGE. Recognition of this by the wider public after DOGE has discouraged rank and file Dems. It underscored the affluence of top Dems and their insulation from the economic winds that affect the base.
Keep beating the drum Ruy. :) I’ve said often that a split is necessary. The progressive left hates the right but it hates moderate Ds even more I think (It’s hard to say - it hates a lot of things).
It's human nature to hate heretics more than nonbelievers. But it's worth unpacking "hating the right." People on the right are basically ordinary Clinton voters but a bit more suspicious of the administrative state. They are patriotic people who believe in God, family, and hard work. For those values to be deserving of hatred you have to:
* Option A: genuinely believe in far-left principles like gender ideology and critical theory (which holds that structural racism exists and "hard work" is a slimy way to justify an oppressive status quo).
* Option B: become manipulated by the Orwellian two minutes of hate, which now seem to last 24 hours a day
I don't see how it's possible to be a "moderate" Democrat and hate the right. Trump, sure. The right in general? Not possible.
Yes, I never really got the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus stated: "You have heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I always took it like this: "there's Jesus once again showing how radical our love should be, very nice, very lovely, wonderful ideal." But I've come to learn that it is just as much about caring for your own heart. If you hate your enemies, your hatred will consume and destroy your own heart. That's what we're seeing on the left, particularly after Charlie Kirk.
Rereading my Evans trilogy again, and this fits hand in glove with the thesis in the books about how the KPD (Communist) and SPD (Social Democrats) were utterly unable to cooperate, even in the face of an actual Hitler.
To be fair, Moscow under Stalin had something to do with this, but still...
I think I've read every article referenced here, so I'm familiar with the basic material. And I'm still a Democrat, if a skeptical one. I guess the greatest obstacle is that the message isn't getting through, not even to these well intentioned groups. Many people know things are headed south for the party, and everyone wants to make a break from what doesn't work, and everyone wants a part of that working class vote, but no one, not any of these groups, wants to stick their necks out and earn the ire of the scolds. Even the issues questions are careful with wording and which questions make the cut to even get mention.
The flip side is that the left isn't really that far left, economically. Currently government is closed down, ostensibly for health care, and now food stamps. Who loses out? People not covered for sure but the big losers are health insurance companies losing a huge subsidy, and hospital groups losing subsidies for the ER. Why 18 years after we voted for health care are we still are relying on some convoluted insurance subsidy? Why in the richest nation on earth are 10% of people getting food stamps and probably twice that number eligible. Why not pay those of us who aren't lazy and do work?
This week there was an editorial in the Times by a woman who has written for all the high brow media. She qualifies for food stamps and was complaining about not being able to go to her local farmers market and spend food stamps because of the shut down. I have to ask myself why a woman who writes books and is published in all the right places, why she can't work at Walmart with the rest of us proles.
Thanks for writing Ruy and thanks for writing in TLP.
Interesting about the woman… and I would think shopping at the farmers market is also more expensive.. at least it is where I live.
My stepson has this mentality you describe. He likes socialism bc he would want to be paid to write songs all day. But that would mean someone else has to make money to fund this. But to his credit, he does work managing restaurants and that is hard work. So he is doing what he needs to do
I also didn’t realize we still had all of these ACA subsidies? I really do not want the government in charge of health care, im for as small a govt as possible. However, I can understand the appeal of single payer which gets rid of the profit portion thus reducing costs. However, we trade that for a big government bureaucracy that if history proves correct just continues to grow. And to keep that solvent, care will have to be rationed.. ie elective surgeries etc will take much longer to get. It’s depressing.. medicine is a victim of its own success. People live longer which is great, but it drives up the healthcare costs.
I think the healthcare debacle is also the victim of horrendous management , and the attitude of many, someone else should pick up their healthcare tab.
Happy to help those with real need, but the WSJ just ran a piece on a couple that retired in their 50's, with combined pensions of $130K a year. They also have other retirement savings. They are now 60 and 61. They were complaining if the ACA subsidies are not restored, one of them will have to go back to work part time, due to the rise in their health insurance costs. Seriously?
Neither was sick or physically challenged, in any way. They were not downsized out of a job, and seeking another, without success. Even the French consider retirement at 60, let alone during someone's 50's, early retirement. Now they are whining other Americans will not pay part of their health insurance costs, until they turn 65? Cry me a river.
with health care the goal is low cost good health for everyone. If the goal is profit then costs are as high as possible, and if people are in bad health it's more profit to be made. Many things are best done not as a business.
There are really just two choices, capitalism and socialism, the freedom to voluntary exchange and the use of force to direct exchange. There are Republican and Democrats on each side; t’s just a matter of degree. A little capitalism seems to just lead to more personal freedom. A little socialism seems to lead to just more socialism. And “Eventually you run out of others peoples money.” Margaret Thatcher.
Under Thatcher GDP and median incomes increased, and the number of people living below the poverty line also increased. Thatcher made a lot of working class people in England more poor.
Crushed the unions, closed the mines putting 3 million people onto unemployment, deindustrialized northern England. Tax cuts for the rich, VAT tax for everyone shifted the tax from the rich to the middle and the poor. (Sounds like Saint Ronald) One thing she did do is goose the Gini coefficient increasing inequality 25%. Still plenty of Republicans here that love that stuff, mostly though they are leaving to become Democrats.
Estimates of Pure Party SwitchesPure switches (e.g., registered Dem → GOP) are harder to isolate but estimated via state data and surveys:
Democrats to Republicans: ~430,000 in key states (2021-2022, prefiguring 2024 trends); scaled nationally, potentially 1-2 million+ from 2020-2024. Anecdotes on X highlight frustration with Dem policies (e.g., inflation, immigration) driving switches among Latinos, youth, and working-class voters.
Republicans to Democrats: 240,000 in key states (2021-2022); nationally, lower (100,000-500,000 estimated 2020-2024).
Overall, 13% of partisans switched affiliations (to opposite or independent) in recent years, but direction favors GOP.
Do you have any statistics on the number of Republicans switching to the Democrat party, and the number of Democrats switching to the Republican party?
It takes hitting rock bottom to force true and necessary change for many. It is scary that the Dems haven’t hit rock bottom and I wonder how bad that has to be for them to change.
Agreed. And yet, I think they're a very long way from rock bottom. It might take a decade or more.
It's the total lack of awareness that makes me think it will be a long time:
*They claim to be "saving democracy," but lied about Biden's health, squelched competition against him in the primaries, and then anointed Harris.
*They claim to be the party of women's rights, but push for (or legislate) allowing men in women's sports and women's spaces.
*They claim to be the party of the working class, yet insult working class people to such an extent that working class voters are deserting them in droves.
*They claim the moral high ground while stomping all over anyone who disagrees with them. From ordinary people sacked or hounded out of jobs for not following DEI or trans ideology diktats to US Senator Al Franken, their self-righteous fury knows no bounds.
*They claim to want peace in the middle east, and now that's there's an ultra-fragile peace deal, they side with Hamas --- the ones who are breaking the ceasefire and its rules. Because ... anything Trump does must be opposed.
What happened to the party that wanted to lift us all up? Democrats today seem to be hell-bent on dragging us all into a pit of quicksand with them.
You're correct about rock bottom, but unlike in the 1980s when the Democrats had room to recover after three straight Republican presidential victories, they won't have the slack. Back then, they controlled at least the House and more often both chambers. This time it will be different, especially if NYC has a communist mayor endorsed by the Democratic Party.
Additionally, the Democratic Party is now controlled by its "progressives," whom are insular, arrogant, and hostile to anyone who doesn't toe the line. I would love to be wrong, but it sure looks like a brittle last stand to me.
Ruy, you just keep hitting the ball, out of the park. Next week will be interesting because conventional wisdom has Mikey Sherrill winning in NJ, and she seems to be a very flawed "moderate" candidate. I can find little to no daylight between her voting record and AOCs. Sherrill, the Mother of daughters, refuses to keep girl's school facilities, exclusively female, babbling communities should decide, while sprinting away from the question. Likewise, she mumbles about immigration, only finding any concern, 3 years after ignoring Biden's Open border.
All, after she arrived at the House, and magically morphed into Warren Buffett, producing a miraculous $7 million dollar stock trading windfall. Mikey explained her new found trading skills, with all the articulation of my chubby Golden Retriever, caught in the pantry with his head in a bag of Cheetos. Nothing to see here.
To add insult to injury, Ms Sherrill's daughters, coincidently, both received Naval Academy appointments this year, a feat that is nearly unknown. A NA seat is nearly impossible to land. Applications require a Letter of Recommendation from a member of Congress, and over the top academic and athletic skills. Maybe 1 , but 2? And in an election year? Ms Sherrill evidently believes her nepotism is not just acceptable, but should be celebrated by families who cannot pull strings for their kids.
Still Sherrill is up in both polls and the betting markets. Should Mikey happen to lose, Dems might suddenly be more open to your advice.
I don't see Sherrill winning with the polls i'm seeing. This is New Jersey. The poll results have to be something like +6 D to feel safe. They are not.
NJ polls have been poor since I was working with an editor of the Asbury Park Press generating number lists in the early 90s. He would get pretty on the money. The Star-Ledger and the national outfits were always +3-+6 D, and yet people get surprised cycle after cycle.
I think the big problem was always forecasting the composition of the electorate. Lots of room for creeping bias there. Back in those days, something as prosaic as rain on Election Day would have a significant impact.
Hope you are right . Not a NJ resident , but everything I read seems to indicate Sherrill is corrupt to her core, and so entitled she doesn't even feel the need to attempt to hide her corruption or nepotism.
Clearly Democrats and Republicans prioritize some elements of morality more than the others. In addition they may seem to disregard the more important values of the other party. As Americans are lining up behind the party of their choice, the numbers are more lopsided than at any other time in my lifetime.
Could it be that Democrats want to use government to the exclusion of other social institutions? Government creates and maintains the guard rails of society. Its rules are enforced upon the population with force. Best to use that institution with great wariness. It is not a cure-all.
Oh no! You've summoned my hobby horse with this. I love Haidt's work, but believe his moral foundations work has major flaws:
"What Haidt found is that both conservatives and liberals recognize the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity values. Liberal-minded people, however, tend to reject the three remaining foundational values—Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation—while conservatives accept them. "
I submit that this is simply untrue. Instead these questionnaires use right-coded terms. If you used left-coded terms the left would score much higher on them.
* Sanctity/degregation. I think everyone is familiar with the case of the Portland teens who were arrested for leaving skid marks with their scooters on pride crosswalks? Lime then went and disabled the ability to apply gas to scooters on pride crosswalks. Liberals care just as much about sanctity, you just have to switch American flags for pride flags.
* Authority/subversion. Liberals would likely score *higher* here, but their authority figures are credentialed experts, not parents, pastors, CEOs and military generals.
* Loyalty/betrayal. This is astonishing, because a good summary of the past 15 years is that we're living in a giant Ashe Conformity experiment in which anyone who slightly departs from leftist orthodoxy faces the might of a fully armed and operational cancel culture. See also: JK Rowling.
The Ashe conformity experiment is a group experiment where the subjects are presented with a line and asked to find another line that matches it the best. But unknown to the subject, the other subjects are actually stooges, and deliberately pick a line that is clearly the wrong length. Under social pressure, most subjects go against their best judgment and agree with the group's consensus. However, a single confederate on their side is enough to allow the subject to defy group consensus. That's why heretics are punished so severely. If one person can break group consensus and get away with it, everyone else will follow.
The Democrats’ other major problem is that the areas where they have complete control of government simply don’t work for normal people. There’s the chaos of out of control homelessness and the unwillingness to prosecute crime. The obscene expenses piled on by excessive regulation. Everyone keeps pointing to the impending loss of Electoral College votes and House seats caused by the out migration from blue states to red ones, doesn’t seem to recognize what a clear and absolute rejection of Democratic run government it represents.
Put us in control of the Federal Government, because people are fleeing the states where we have full control of state government isn’t exactly a winning argument.
Wow, Ruy. You do lay it out. Expect a blizzard of attacks.
Let me just support your comments with a few more (as I always provide) voter registration numbers which are NOT abating:
NC now Ds have an astonishingly small 6,000 lead in a state where just four years ago they led by 175,000. However, among active voters, Rs lead by 100,000. NC wasn't even a swing state in 2016. It's miles away from one now.
NM which is the most Hispanic state in the Union, Rs gained 5,000 net since Oct. 1. That's nearly unimaginable for a state so small. NM's D lead is now much smaller than when NV was a tossup in 2020. (I can't recall off the top of my head, but I think NM is D+47,000, while NV was D+88,000 when it was tied.
FL (we really don't even need to include this, as it's getting ridiculous, but it is now R+1.4 million when Ds had a LEAD in 2021. If the Amazing Zohran gets elected NYC mayor, look for FL's red advantage to grow by another half million.
AZ Rs continue to gain, not +360,000. I don't think AZ will have a D governor by Nov. 2026.
One bright spot, kinda, is PA, where Ds gained back a net of 2,000, all from Philly, all due to a primary there. The outlying counties that flipped hard to Rs have not shown any erosion at all. I'm guessing both NC and PA are +R by 2026.
When you pile on top of that the structural stuff I've been harping on---deportations, voter roll purges, redistricting, and the Supreme Court's likely end of racial districting---Rs will likely gain 10-20 seats in 2026 (they are already at net +8 after TX, MO, NC, KS redistricting with OH [+2[, FL [+2], IN [+1] and CA [D+5[ on deck for a net shift of an additional 10 Rs waiting in the wings. I do think CA redistricting will pass.
There will be a silght euphoria over the VA gov race (D+2), but NJ is literally a tossup. NYC will be Zohran, which is think is horrible news for Ds because . . .
HE WILL LIKELY BE THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, no matter what the Constitution says. You heard it here first!
Other than a few smart-alecks, even the craziest, wokest Democrats won't vote in the primaries for someone who is constitutionally barred from serving as President. SCOTUS would vote 9-0 (yes, even the nutty Justice Jackson) to uphold what is a clear prohibition against foreign-born citizens becoming President. That prohibition should be changed via the amendment process, but it is clear as day what it forbids right now.
What are you predicting? That Mandami will be the D nominee in '28 or that Trump will be the R nominee? I don't think either of those will happen, and I'd be happy to put money on it.
In any case, I wish that "Captain K" would stick to his knitting and get back to focusing on voter registration. The rest of his stuff? Meh.
No, Trump won't be the nominee. He's saying stuff to tweak Ds.
Mamdani will run. I believe he will win the D primary. I think neither the courts nor the Rs will have the cajones to stop him. He will lose huge to J.D. Vance.
The Democrats are stuck on stupid, but not that stupid. If I'm wrong and they do that, it'd be the biggest election loss in American history and the Democratic Party would dissolve. I don't think that'll happen. As for Trump running in '28, yep, we agree that he's trolling.
Trump is Groucho Marx and the Dems are Margaret Dumont. I've never been much of a Trump fan, but he does make me laugh. And the Democrats fall for it every time. It's a vaudeville act, and they are the hapless straight man. LOL
James Carville was much criticized earlier this year (in January) when he said that the best strategy for Democrats is to play possum, to let Trump "punch himself out" as the negative consequences of his actions became clear to the public, thus lowering his standing in opinion polls. Carville thought that Trump would ruin himself within six weeks of inauguration, a forecast that was way too optimistic for Democrats.
In the long run, though, letting Trump ruin himself has an excellent chance of bringing Democrats back to power in 2028. If there is a serious economic downturn occurring in 2028, JD Vance will be hard-pressed to win even with all the crazy wokeness that controls the Democratic base. As the graphs above show, Democrats are in the deep negative for almost all of the most salient issues, especially the cultural issues. But if the economy gets bad enough, almost any Democratic candidate could win the White House. Trump and his sycophantic Congressional Republicans have no desire to control the nearly $2 trillion annual deficits, and the inflation rate hangs stubbornly around 3%. Trump is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower both short-term and long-term rates by 3%. The bottom line is that doing that would ignite inflation to far above 3% to Biden-era levels - thereby crushing the GOP in 2028.
Yes, the Democrats are crazy and they won't change an iota on their wokeness because their primary voters won't allow them to do so. But they can still win in 2028 if Trump's reckless economic ideas come to fruition.
Relying on the failure of another is not a winning strategy. If you can’t win on your policies, you don’t deserve to be in charge and will just fail again. And the independents, those who now determine who gets elected, have learned this lesson well. It is the attitude of perpetual losers.
I am neither predicting nor hoping that inflation rises to the Biden-era level. And I have stated many times that neither party is serious about solving the deficit and debt issues. They keep giving Americans what a large majority of Americans wants: lots of federal government goodies that are paid for via the national credit card - not via the increased taxes on the middle and upper classes that would actually lower the annual deficits.
Eventually the music will stop and the party in power - whichever that is - will be blamed for the ensuing economic hardship. That's the danger for Trump, Vance, and any future Democratic President.
I agree about the economy. I've talked about here many times. It especially drives the presidential elections. The proxy to use is the headline "U-3" unemployment rate. If it goes up in the spring quarter, the incumbent party's candidate loses. If it declines, the incumbent party's candidate wins.
This has been the case all the way back to 1948, except in 1956 when U-3 rose by 0.1% in 2Q, but Eisenhower was re-elected anyway. If U-3 is flat, the incumbent will usually lose a very close election.
So do the Dems just close up shop and pray for rain? Ain't a gonna happen. By the way, the U-3 trend doesn't predict the victory margin, only the winner of the popular vote. The campaigns are about the margin, and campaigns are now constant. I look at the Democrats and think that if Newsom-Beshear beats Vance-Rubio, it won't be by much unless there's an outright depression.
By the way, I don't think Trump's economic ideas are reckless.
Yes and no. The issues are there, but the Dems are 100% full-throttle behind the 20% on them. Examples: DEI, gender affirming care, men in women's sports, immigration. In their eyes, the 80% are on the wrong side of history and must be opposed.
Men in women's sports is fair. Our brand of racism is virtuous. It's mind-boggling.
The Democrats have two fundamental problems to overcome.
First while Trump and his actions are unpopular, the general policies he’s pursuing (secure borders, fair trade, keeping males out of spaces specifically set up for females, safe cities and a general lack of chaos) are popular. Some overwhelmingly so. When the Democrats fight Trump tooth and nail insisting the polar opposite of every policy he supports is the only acceptable path, they allow Trump to completely own the popular policy and therefore e the clear lesser evil. The smartest move Bill Clinton made was after getting smacked back by the Republican revolution of 94: He took the ideas they won on, met them halfway, and made them his own. This is what the Democrats should be doing now. Deporting criminal illegal aliens is an 80/20 issue. Democrats should get on board with requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE especially honoring detention requests in order to receive federal funding. As part of the same bill add on a path to citizenship for the so called dreamers.
This is already past TLDR length. I’ll start a second post for the other major problem.
They, the Democrats, need a sane individual, for their nomination. So far, with the exception of Rahm Emanuel, have not seen or heard one that isn't selling blue sky. And I don't mean the internet site.
Thanks (I guess) Rui:
The problem for the Democratic Party is not Democrats. It's progressives.
Progressives have a fascinating mind-set. One dimension is that winning is not that important to them. It's nice, of course, but of more importance is the warm inner glow they get from being morally "right" and superior to others.
Another part of that mind-set is the data showing that progressives are 4 times (not a typo) more in favor of dumping a family member who disagrees with you than conservatives are. My way or the highway thinking.
Another fascinating piece is that despite MOUNDS of evidence that the public doesn't like progressive views and they are costing Democrats is that in not a single publication or comment board have we ever seen a progressive say: "Maybe I am wrong."
Finally, progressives slam white people, males, boomers, police, financially successful (not rich, but just comfortable) people all of the time. And then, oddly, expect to win people over to their side.
Progressives spend too much of their time in progressive circles. They don't get out and see the real world, and find out that many Trump voters have valid and legitimate concerns and worries. Instead, they write Trump voters off as being "low information voters."
We know a LOT of Trump voters. They are nice, good people, and good Americans. Get out of your bubble, progressives, and learn something about the world.
Agree with all of it, but will point something out. Yes, "progressives" are the problem, but the ground-level reality is that they dominate the Democratic Party. There are moderate Democrats but they have no voice within the party, which means that for all practical purposes, the Democratic Party is the "progressive" party. They are one in the same. It's tragic, but sometimes reality is tragic.
How did this happen? Well, one big reason is that, unlike more moderate Democrats whose lives don't revolve around politics, "progressives" are much more personally wrapped up in politics, and as a result they are more likely to show up at the caucuses and party meetings. The power of showing up is commonly underrated.
Once they dominate a sub-group of Democrats, "progressives" have a way of turning vicious toward anyone who's not part of their in-group. This further reduces moderate input, because moderates see "progressive" behavior and are repelled enough to not participate in the infighting. Yet they don't want to become Republicans, so it takes them a long time to change their voting behavior. Meanwhile, the "progressives" have hijacked the organizational levers, and exclude anyone who dissents from their orthodoxies.
This is where the Democratic Party is now. I really don't think this will change in time for the Democrats to be dealt some truly catastrophic defeats, starting next fall. I think the only thing that can save them in '28 is a weak economy that spring. Economic strength (or weakness) in the spring of a presidential election year (as measured by the direction of the headline "U-3" unemployment rate) has been a phenomenally accurate predictor of the winner in November ever since 1948.
I see no reason for that to change, so the only real hope for the Democratic Party is a bad economy. Hell of a note, isn't it? If U-3 is higher in June '28 than March '28 and Vance wins anyway, that will be a vivid sign of how badly the Democrats have burned their bridges with the American voter. I can't see it happening, but you never know.
Many many good points. Thank you.
What you just said can also be applied to the GOP. Conservatives took over the GOP the same way. After the Conservatives were slaughtered in 1964, they began working to take over the party. By 1980, they were able to get Reagan the nom and then into office. However, the Conservative takeover didn't reach its fulfillment until the 1990's.
So, what happened to the moderate or even liberal Republicans that were displaced? Many became Democrats. Who were those people? Upper income professionals. Yes, the people the author is complaining about are these very moderate former Republicans!
What is occurring is a natural. It has happened every 40 to 60 years in this country. People change and therefore so do parties.
Ultimately, history teaches that people don't change. So, any expectations that these former Democrats who have left the party will return is silly. It won't happen because the country will not tolerate two GOPs or two Democratic Parties. If the GOP continues to push ill advised, doomed to fail economic policies (and they are failing, trust me), then those voters whose focus in on economic policies, balanced budgets, etc., will need a home. They will become Democrats.
Not sure the Goldwater comparison works. His '64 nomination was a last gasp of the anti-New Deal types who failed when Eisenhower prevailed over Taft for the '52 nomination and then ran a center-right administration. It was more of a one-off, while the "progressives" have been digging the Democratic Party's grave for a decade.
I think the rich liberal phenomenon really got going not in '64 but in the late '80s and into the '90s and beyond. The biggest long-term question in my mind is whether the Democratic Party will even last until 2040 or whether it'll go the way of the Whigs. If I had to make the bet, it would be on survival but I wouldn't bet the ranch.
The next three years look like they could be truly pivotal. If the economy hangs in there in '26 and '28, the Democratic Party is in for a historic ass kicking. The numbers won't be on the order of McGovern's loss to Nixon or the earthquake of the 1894 off-year, but the effect will be that big if the Rs gain 15 or 20 seats next year, and Vance-Newsom is a 10-point margin like Eisenhower-Stevenson in 1952. What could come after 2030 should freeze every Democrat's guts cold solid. It's not too far off. As I push 70 years of age, I take a different view of the passage of time. Years go by faster.
The multi-generational New Deal coalition is really fragile, and the legacy media complex that has supported it for the last half century is crumbling as we yammer here. The "progressives" are like third-generation wealth in the "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves" taxonomy. Things happen gradually and then suddenly. I reiterate that for this to play out in a dramatic way in the next three years is going to require the economy to keep a-going. We shall see.
Really well said.
“Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could look at these data and trends and not think the Democratic forecast for party renewal remains cloudy at best”. Agree my only conclusion is there is little to no rational decision making going on that a normal person can see. That the Democratic leadership is following a cult like religious determination set of beliefs that will walk them off a cliff. I read an interview yesterday where the person interviewed said a lot of what is covered here and the interviewer said something like “ but how can we compromise in what we believe is moral and right”. That told me everything I needed to know
Yes the ‘moral and right’ with no middle ground, which is usually where the best answer lies. And they do not or cannot see the unintended consequences, which are not moral and right. IE trans rights moral and right, jeopardizing children and women’s safety not moral and right. Solution - trans women will have to accommodate in certain circumstances, they cannot go into women’s safe spaces as it opens the door for any man to do so. Protecting a truly trans kid moral and right but jumping the gun with medicalisation when that may not be the kids problem, not moral and right. Solution .. wouldn’t it be better to examine every possibility and give the child time and space to hopefully become comfortable with themselves as they are?
I could go on and on.
Yes! This is truly why it is so hard to abandon these positions. Having claimed righteousness of belief, it takes conversion to walk it back. You can’t just say “well that didn’t work”.
You can't help a person or party that thinks the current Democratic platform is inherently moral and right. Even if they compromise and enact policies that are popular and win a few elections, as soon as they feel strong enough, they will begin to pursue policies that they believe are moral and right.
In fact that has been the fate of Democrats since the 60s. They show their true self and get nearly drubbed out relevance. Then a silver tongued Democrat comes along who is smart enough to hide the party's worst attributes. The party begins winning and then the true believers think that is a mandate to go back to what they believe is moral and right. And the the party gets drubbed again.
I think this is on point - although I think there are some good ideas coming from the Dems. You are onto something though. Perhaps people feel that a D “move to the center” is at best temporary and at worst a ploy. The pull to the left is very strong. I think the GOP has a strong pull to the right too, but of late they are more coherent - and people clearly trust them more. I know that drives Dems crazy given Trumps erratic chaos-agent nature. But it is so.
Liberal Patriot is just about the only group of Democrats who make sense to me. I was a Dem for 40 years. My mantra was: "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not stupid about it." Well, now the idiots are running that show, and have been for more than a decade. They only get worse. Another mantra, more recent: "You can always tell a 'progressive,' but you can never tell a 'progressive' anything."
The insularity of the Democratic Party astounds me. I realize that a party has to hold together, and part of that is to reject some things and embrace others. It's why parties exist. Still, the utter arrogance, hostility, and even hatred coming from the Democrats is amazing.
I've written this before and will write it again: What passes for a Democratic Party brain trust badly needs to study American political history between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the 64 years between 1869 and 1933. The Republicans ran the show. Only 16 years of Dem presidents, with one (Cleveland) being very conservative and undistinguished. Only 10 years of Democratic Congresses. Only 10 years of Democratic "trifectas" -- control of Congress and the White House.
The "progressives" who run the Democratic Party are upset about a 6-3 Supreme Court? Just wait until Vance is elected in '28 (the economy will have to cooperate) and it goes to 8-1 during his time in office, which will be greatly bolstered by the '30 census and reapportionment. The one left will be Katanji Brown Jackson, an intellectual weakling and an embarrassment. Yikes!
I am no longer a Democrat, but I very much want the Democrats to survive. We need the voice. If not, then maybe they collapse like the Whigs did, and get replaced. One way or another, they are not sustainable.
p.s.: Maybe it's my idiosyncrasy, but I wish the Dems would quit putting it in terms of their "brand" and their "messaging." Does it get any shallower and more trivial than that?
That period you mentioned was the Gilded Age that saw rapid flooding of the labor market with immigrants, concentrated wealth, large fortunes amassed, and labor union organizers shot. We also had three major depressions.
But hey, at least the GOP didn't support trans rights, so that's a win.
GMAFB.
Nice strawman of yours, making me F. Scott Fitzgerald, the tribune of the Gilded Age. Hah! Thanks. I'm honored. But I'm not endorsing all that, although you do seem to have skipped over the Industrial Revolution that not only created the rich but also the beginnings of a middle class. In any case, I wasn't trying to give a critique or an economic history, but only to recall the political history. I think this is what can happen to the Democrats.
Will it be the same? Of course not. Who was it who said that history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes? Will the Democrats collapse to the degree that they did after 1860, and will their impotence mirror 1869-1933? I'm not predicting that, but only pointing to the period as being an example of what I think is a real possibility.
The "progressives" don't even have a clue, and I doubt too many moderate Dems do either. That period I examined tends to get less attention than the rest of American history, even in the best programs. It was a formative time, and by and large it was a Republican period, Woodrow Wilson notwithstanding.
Now that I'm on the topic, something else. Recall the most popular movie ever in its cultural impact, "The Wizard of Oz," the screen adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 book and 1902 hit play. Cast as a children's story, but actually an examination of the politics of the Gilded Age.
Oz? Ounce. The yellow brick road? The gold standard. In the book and play, Dorothy (the stock literary everyman vehicle, the narrator) wore silver slippers, denoting the biggest political issue of the post-Civil War era. The emerald city? New York. The tornado? Populism. The munchkins? The average folks.
The tin man? The heartless industrialists. The scarecrow? The dumb farmer. The cowardly lion? William Jennings Bryan, the 1896 Democratic presidential candidate. The wizard? William McKinley, the Republican presidential candidate and empty suit, hand selected by four robber barons, one of whom (John D. "Standard Oil" Rockefeller) edited his convention speech.
The wicked witch of the West, the land and railroad barons of California. The flying monkeys? Indians, easily manipulated. Baum always denied that it was a political story even though at the time it was obvious, especially to the audiences of the hit play that he took on the road after Broadway. But to say so would have greatly reduced the sales of his "Oz" series. Cancel culture is hardly new.
I think there's a big chance that the Republicans will gain control in much the way that FDR did after 1933. Is it a foregone conclusion? Nope. I think it will need a rout in the '26 off-year, and another one in '28 to get rolling. Both will depend critically on the state of the economy. If the sun shines, the pebbles we now see rolling down the hill will become a landslide.
New Gilded Age? Excuse me, but we're already there. Both parties. Imagine: the Republican Party, led by a bombastic billionaire a-hole from New York City, is becoming the voice of the working middle class. Do the "progressives" who have seized the Democratic Party EVER stop to ask themselves just how badly they had to play the hand that Obama gave them for that to have happened?
Nah. You can always tell a "progressive," but you can never tell a "progressive" anything. Beware the complete idiot who thinks he's smart. And now comes Mandami, the undertaker. I can hardly wait for them city-owned grocery stores.
For many years there has been a revolving door between democratic held positions in government and when Dems lose--Dems have decamped to universities or NGOs. This pattern had little public focus until recently with DOGE. Recognition of this by the wider public after DOGE has discouraged rank and file Dems. It underscored the affluence of top Dems and their insulation from the economic winds that affect the base.
Remember the Penn-Biden Center where Antony Blinken (and others) hung out?
https://nypost.com/2023/01/11/biden-admin-officials-worked-at-biden-center-where-classified-papers-found-report/
Just folks helping folks: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2021/06/17/inside-the-10-million-fortune-of-antony-blinken-bidens-secretary-of-state/
Keep beating the drum Ruy. :) I’ve said often that a split is necessary. The progressive left hates the right but it hates moderate Ds even more I think (It’s hard to say - it hates a lot of things).
It's human nature to hate heretics more than nonbelievers. But it's worth unpacking "hating the right." People on the right are basically ordinary Clinton voters but a bit more suspicious of the administrative state. They are patriotic people who believe in God, family, and hard work. For those values to be deserving of hatred you have to:
* Option A: genuinely believe in far-left principles like gender ideology and critical theory (which holds that structural racism exists and "hard work" is a slimy way to justify an oppressive status quo).
* Option B: become manipulated by the Orwellian two minutes of hate, which now seem to last 24 hours a day
I don't see how it's possible to be a "moderate" Democrat and hate the right. Trump, sure. The right in general? Not possible.
I’m with you. in fact, hate is a self-defeating approach in general, regardless of whether someone is deserving of hate.
Yes, I never really got the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus stated: "You have heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I always took it like this: "there's Jesus once again showing how radical our love should be, very nice, very lovely, wonderful ideal." But I've come to learn that it is just as much about caring for your own heart. If you hate your enemies, your hatred will consume and destroy your own heart. That's what we're seeing on the left, particularly after Charlie Kirk.
https://www.tiktok.com/@chattin01/video/7560712250714000695
Yes! Hate is a boomerang.
Rereading my Evans trilogy again, and this fits hand in glove with the thesis in the books about how the KPD (Communist) and SPD (Social Democrats) were utterly unable to cooperate, even in the face of an actual Hitler.
To be fair, Moscow under Stalin had something to do with this, but still...
I think I've read every article referenced here, so I'm familiar with the basic material. And I'm still a Democrat, if a skeptical one. I guess the greatest obstacle is that the message isn't getting through, not even to these well intentioned groups. Many people know things are headed south for the party, and everyone wants to make a break from what doesn't work, and everyone wants a part of that working class vote, but no one, not any of these groups, wants to stick their necks out and earn the ire of the scolds. Even the issues questions are careful with wording and which questions make the cut to even get mention.
The flip side is that the left isn't really that far left, economically. Currently government is closed down, ostensibly for health care, and now food stamps. Who loses out? People not covered for sure but the big losers are health insurance companies losing a huge subsidy, and hospital groups losing subsidies for the ER. Why 18 years after we voted for health care are we still are relying on some convoluted insurance subsidy? Why in the richest nation on earth are 10% of people getting food stamps and probably twice that number eligible. Why not pay those of us who aren't lazy and do work?
This week there was an editorial in the Times by a woman who has written for all the high brow media. She qualifies for food stamps and was complaining about not being able to go to her local farmers market and spend food stamps because of the shut down. I have to ask myself why a woman who writes books and is published in all the right places, why she can't work at Walmart with the rest of us proles.
Thanks for writing Ruy and thanks for writing in TLP.
Interesting about the woman… and I would think shopping at the farmers market is also more expensive.. at least it is where I live.
My stepson has this mentality you describe. He likes socialism bc he would want to be paid to write songs all day. But that would mean someone else has to make money to fund this. But to his credit, he does work managing restaurants and that is hard work. So he is doing what he needs to do
I also didn’t realize we still had all of these ACA subsidies? I really do not want the government in charge of health care, im for as small a govt as possible. However, I can understand the appeal of single payer which gets rid of the profit portion thus reducing costs. However, we trade that for a big government bureaucracy that if history proves correct just continues to grow. And to keep that solvent, care will have to be rationed.. ie elective surgeries etc will take much longer to get. It’s depressing.. medicine is a victim of its own success. People live longer which is great, but it drives up the healthcare costs.
These are interesting times
I think the healthcare debacle is also the victim of horrendous management , and the attitude of many, someone else should pick up their healthcare tab.
Happy to help those with real need, but the WSJ just ran a piece on a couple that retired in their 50's, with combined pensions of $130K a year. They also have other retirement savings. They are now 60 and 61. They were complaining if the ACA subsidies are not restored, one of them will have to go back to work part time, due to the rise in their health insurance costs. Seriously?
Neither was sick or physically challenged, in any way. They were not downsized out of a job, and seeking another, without success. Even the French consider retirement at 60, let alone during someone's 50's, early retirement. Now they are whining other Americans will not pay part of their health insurance costs, until they turn 65? Cry me a river.
Yes, that article was so tone deaf.
Not sure of any benefit eliminating the profit portion, but I know it eliminates the customer service portion, as every monopoly does.
with health care the goal is low cost good health for everyone. If the goal is profit then costs are as high as possible, and if people are in bad health it's more profit to be made. Many things are best done not as a business.
There are really just two choices, capitalism and socialism, the freedom to voluntary exchange and the use of force to direct exchange. There are Republican and Democrats on each side; t’s just a matter of degree. A little capitalism seems to just lead to more personal freedom. A little socialism seems to lead to just more socialism. And “Eventually you run out of others peoples money.” Margaret Thatcher.
Under Thatcher GDP and median incomes increased, and the number of people living below the poverty line also increased. Thatcher made a lot of working class people in England more poor.
How did Margaret Thatcher make people more poor? Specifically.
Crushed the unions, closed the mines putting 3 million people onto unemployment, deindustrialized northern England. Tax cuts for the rich, VAT tax for everyone shifted the tax from the rich to the middle and the poor. (Sounds like Saint Ronald) One thing she did do is goose the Gini coefficient increasing inequality 25%. Still plenty of Republicans here that love that stuff, mostly though they are leaving to become Democrats.
To find information simply search.
I read a bit on the union busting. Brutal.
Estimates of Pure Party SwitchesPure switches (e.g., registered Dem → GOP) are harder to isolate but estimated via state data and surveys:
Democrats to Republicans: ~430,000 in key states (2021-2022, prefiguring 2024 trends); scaled nationally, potentially 1-2 million+ from 2020-2024. Anecdotes on X highlight frustration with Dem policies (e.g., inflation, immigration) driving switches among Latinos, youth, and working-class voters.
Republicans to Democrats: 240,000 in key states (2021-2022); nationally, lower (100,000-500,000 estimated 2020-2024).
Overall, 13% of partisans switched affiliations (to opposite or independent) in recent years, but direction favors GOP.
Ah tax cuts for the rich. The standard trope.
Do you have any statistics on the number of Republicans switching to the Democrat party, and the number of Democrats switching to the Republican party?
It takes hitting rock bottom to force true and necessary change for many. It is scary that the Dems haven’t hit rock bottom and I wonder how bad that has to be for them to change.
Agreed. And yet, I think they're a very long way from rock bottom. It might take a decade or more.
It's the total lack of awareness that makes me think it will be a long time:
*They claim to be "saving democracy," but lied about Biden's health, squelched competition against him in the primaries, and then anointed Harris.
*They claim to be the party of women's rights, but push for (or legislate) allowing men in women's sports and women's spaces.
*They claim to be the party of the working class, yet insult working class people to such an extent that working class voters are deserting them in droves.
*They claim the moral high ground while stomping all over anyone who disagrees with them. From ordinary people sacked or hounded out of jobs for not following DEI or trans ideology diktats to US Senator Al Franken, their self-righteous fury knows no bounds.
*They claim to want peace in the middle east, and now that's there's an ultra-fragile peace deal, they side with Hamas --- the ones who are breaking the ceasefire and its rules. Because ... anything Trump does must be opposed.
What happened to the party that wanted to lift us all up? Democrats today seem to be hell-bent on dragging us all into a pit of quicksand with them.
You're correct about rock bottom, but unlike in the 1980s when the Democrats had room to recover after three straight Republican presidential victories, they won't have the slack. Back then, they controlled at least the House and more often both chambers. This time it will be different, especially if NYC has a communist mayor endorsed by the Democratic Party.
Additionally, the Democratic Party is now controlled by its "progressives," whom are insular, arrogant, and hostile to anyone who doesn't toe the line. I would love to be wrong, but it sure looks like a brittle last stand to me.
Ruy, you just keep hitting the ball, out of the park. Next week will be interesting because conventional wisdom has Mikey Sherrill winning in NJ, and she seems to be a very flawed "moderate" candidate. I can find little to no daylight between her voting record and AOCs. Sherrill, the Mother of daughters, refuses to keep girl's school facilities, exclusively female, babbling communities should decide, while sprinting away from the question. Likewise, she mumbles about immigration, only finding any concern, 3 years after ignoring Biden's Open border.
All, after she arrived at the House, and magically morphed into Warren Buffett, producing a miraculous $7 million dollar stock trading windfall. Mikey explained her new found trading skills, with all the articulation of my chubby Golden Retriever, caught in the pantry with his head in a bag of Cheetos. Nothing to see here.
To add insult to injury, Ms Sherrill's daughters, coincidently, both received Naval Academy appointments this year, a feat that is nearly unknown. A NA seat is nearly impossible to land. Applications require a Letter of Recommendation from a member of Congress, and over the top academic and athletic skills. Maybe 1 , but 2? And in an election year? Ms Sherrill evidently believes her nepotism is not just acceptable, but should be celebrated by families who cannot pull strings for their kids.
Still Sherrill is up in both polls and the betting markets. Should Mikey happen to lose, Dems might suddenly be more open to your advice.
I don't see Sherrill winning with the polls i'm seeing. This is New Jersey. The poll results have to be something like +6 D to feel safe. They are not.
NJ polls have been poor since I was working with an editor of the Asbury Park Press generating number lists in the early 90s. He would get pretty on the money. The Star-Ledger and the national outfits were always +3-+6 D, and yet people get surprised cycle after cycle.
I think the big problem was always forecasting the composition of the electorate. Lots of room for creeping bias there. Back in those days, something as prosaic as rain on Election Day would have a significant impact.
Hope you are right . Not a NJ resident , but everything I read seems to indicate Sherrill is corrupt to her core, and so entitled she doesn't even feel the need to attempt to hide her corruption or nepotism.
Ciattarelli feels like he is running a winning campaign. I'm also pretty positive that Sherrill's internal polls are telling her the truth.
Clearly Democrats and Republicans prioritize some elements of morality more than the others. In addition they may seem to disregard the more important values of the other party. As Americans are lining up behind the party of their choice, the numbers are more lopsided than at any other time in my lifetime.
WHY CONSERVATIVES CAN’T UNDERSTAND LIBERALS (AND VICE VERSA)
https://fee.org/articles/why-conservatives-cant-understand-liberals-and-vice-versa/
Could it be that Democrats want to use government to the exclusion of other social institutions? Government creates and maintains the guard rails of society. Its rules are enforced upon the population with force. Best to use that institution with great wariness. It is not a cure-all.
Oh no! You've summoned my hobby horse with this. I love Haidt's work, but believe his moral foundations work has major flaws:
"What Haidt found is that both conservatives and liberals recognize the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity values. Liberal-minded people, however, tend to reject the three remaining foundational values—Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation—while conservatives accept them. "
I submit that this is simply untrue. Instead these questionnaires use right-coded terms. If you used left-coded terms the left would score much higher on them.
* Sanctity/degregation. I think everyone is familiar with the case of the Portland teens who were arrested for leaving skid marks with their scooters on pride crosswalks? Lime then went and disabled the ability to apply gas to scooters on pride crosswalks. Liberals care just as much about sanctity, you just have to switch American flags for pride flags.
* Authority/subversion. Liberals would likely score *higher* here, but their authority figures are credentialed experts, not parents, pastors, CEOs and military generals.
* Loyalty/betrayal. This is astonishing, because a good summary of the past 15 years is that we're living in a giant Ashe Conformity experiment in which anyone who slightly departs from leftist orthodoxy faces the might of a fully armed and operational cancel culture. See also: JK Rowling.
The Ashe conformity experiment is a group experiment where the subjects are presented with a line and asked to find another line that matches it the best. But unknown to the subject, the other subjects are actually stooges, and deliberately pick a line that is clearly the wrong length. Under social pressure, most subjects go against their best judgment and agree with the group's consensus. However, a single confederate on their side is enough to allow the subject to defy group consensus. That's why heretics are punished so severely. If one person can break group consensus and get away with it, everyone else will follow.
The Democrats’ other major problem is that the areas where they have complete control of government simply don’t work for normal people. There’s the chaos of out of control homelessness and the unwillingness to prosecute crime. The obscene expenses piled on by excessive regulation. Everyone keeps pointing to the impending loss of Electoral College votes and House seats caused by the out migration from blue states to red ones, doesn’t seem to recognize what a clear and absolute rejection of Democratic run government it represents.
Put us in control of the Federal Government, because people are fleeing the states where we have full control of state government isn’t exactly a winning argument.
Wow, Ruy. You do lay it out. Expect a blizzard of attacks.
Let me just support your comments with a few more (as I always provide) voter registration numbers which are NOT abating:
NC now Ds have an astonishingly small 6,000 lead in a state where just four years ago they led by 175,000. However, among active voters, Rs lead by 100,000. NC wasn't even a swing state in 2016. It's miles away from one now.
NM which is the most Hispanic state in the Union, Rs gained 5,000 net since Oct. 1. That's nearly unimaginable for a state so small. NM's D lead is now much smaller than when NV was a tossup in 2020. (I can't recall off the top of my head, but I think NM is D+47,000, while NV was D+88,000 when it was tied.
FL (we really don't even need to include this, as it's getting ridiculous, but it is now R+1.4 million when Ds had a LEAD in 2021. If the Amazing Zohran gets elected NYC mayor, look for FL's red advantage to grow by another half million.
AZ Rs continue to gain, not +360,000. I don't think AZ will have a D governor by Nov. 2026.
One bright spot, kinda, is PA, where Ds gained back a net of 2,000, all from Philly, all due to a primary there. The outlying counties that flipped hard to Rs have not shown any erosion at all. I'm guessing both NC and PA are +R by 2026.
When you pile on top of that the structural stuff I've been harping on---deportations, voter roll purges, redistricting, and the Supreme Court's likely end of racial districting---Rs will likely gain 10-20 seats in 2026 (they are already at net +8 after TX, MO, NC, KS redistricting with OH [+2[, FL [+2], IN [+1] and CA [D+5[ on deck for a net shift of an additional 10 Rs waiting in the wings. I do think CA redistricting will pass.
There will be a silght euphoria over the VA gov race (D+2), but NJ is literally a tossup. NYC will be Zohran, which is think is horrible news for Ds because . . .
HE WILL LIKELY BE THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, no matter what the Constitution says. You heard it here first!
Other than a few smart-alecks, even the craziest, wokest Democrats won't vote in the primaries for someone who is constitutionally barred from serving as President. SCOTUS would vote 9-0 (yes, even the nutty Justice Jackson) to uphold what is a clear prohibition against foreign-born citizens becoming President. That prohibition should be changed via the amendment process, but it is clear as day what it forbids right now.
I would have thought that 10 years ago
Today I stick with that prediction. (In 2019 I correctly predicted Kanye would run).
What are you predicting? That Mandami will be the D nominee in '28 or that Trump will be the R nominee? I don't think either of those will happen, and I'd be happy to put money on it.
In any case, I wish that "Captain K" would stick to his knitting and get back to focusing on voter registration. The rest of his stuff? Meh.
No, Trump won't be the nominee. He's saying stuff to tweak Ds.
Mamdani will run. I believe he will win the D primary. I think neither the courts nor the Rs will have the cajones to stop him. He will lose huge to J.D. Vance.
The Democrats are stuck on stupid, but not that stupid. If I'm wrong and they do that, it'd be the biggest election loss in American history and the Democratic Party would dissolve. I don't think that'll happen. As for Trump running in '28, yep, we agree that he's trolling.
Trump is Groucho Marx and the Dems are Margaret Dumont. I've never been much of a Trump fan, but he does make me laugh. And the Democrats fall for it every time. It's a vaudeville act, and they are the hapless straight man. LOL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlb4KhEjH-k
And there's the Democratic platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHash5takWU
p.s.: I didn't remember that Mamdani is a furriner. Won't even run.
1. I'm waiting for Trump wo wear the gold Korean crown he was given.
2. We'll see on Amazing Zohran. Maybe a burger bet as time draws nigh.
James Carville was much criticized earlier this year (in January) when he said that the best strategy for Democrats is to play possum, to let Trump "punch himself out" as the negative consequences of his actions became clear to the public, thus lowering his standing in opinion polls. Carville thought that Trump would ruin himself within six weeks of inauguration, a forecast that was way too optimistic for Democrats.
In the long run, though, letting Trump ruin himself has an excellent chance of bringing Democrats back to power in 2028. If there is a serious economic downturn occurring in 2028, JD Vance will be hard-pressed to win even with all the crazy wokeness that controls the Democratic base. As the graphs above show, Democrats are in the deep negative for almost all of the most salient issues, especially the cultural issues. But if the economy gets bad enough, almost any Democratic candidate could win the White House. Trump and his sycophantic Congressional Republicans have no desire to control the nearly $2 trillion annual deficits, and the inflation rate hangs stubbornly around 3%. Trump is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower both short-term and long-term rates by 3%. The bottom line is that doing that would ignite inflation to far above 3% to Biden-era levels - thereby crushing the GOP in 2028.
Yes, the Democrats are crazy and they won't change an iota on their wokeness because their primary voters won't allow them to do so. But they can still win in 2028 if Trump's reckless economic ideas come to fruition.
Relying on the failure of another is not a winning strategy. If you can’t win on your policies, you don’t deserve to be in charge and will just fail again. And the independents, those who now determine who gets elected, have learned this lesson well. It is the attitude of perpetual losers.
You're predicting (hoping) inflation will rise to the Biden 17% level? And that's what the Dems are banking on?
If you're honest, neither party wants to seriously tackle the debt/deficits, hardly fair to blame Republicans.
I am neither predicting nor hoping that inflation rises to the Biden-era level. And I have stated many times that neither party is serious about solving the deficit and debt issues. They keep giving Americans what a large majority of Americans wants: lots of federal government goodies that are paid for via the national credit card - not via the increased taxes on the middle and upper classes that would actually lower the annual deficits.
Eventually the music will stop and the party in power - whichever that is - will be blamed for the ensuing economic hardship. That's the danger for Trump, Vance, and any future Democratic President.
I agree about the economy. I've talked about here many times. It especially drives the presidential elections. The proxy to use is the headline "U-3" unemployment rate. If it goes up in the spring quarter, the incumbent party's candidate loses. If it declines, the incumbent party's candidate wins.
This has been the case all the way back to 1948, except in 1956 when U-3 rose by 0.1% in 2Q, but Eisenhower was re-elected anyway. If U-3 is flat, the incumbent will usually lose a very close election.
So do the Dems just close up shop and pray for rain? Ain't a gonna happen. By the way, the U-3 trend doesn't predict the victory margin, only the winner of the popular vote. The campaigns are about the margin, and campaigns are now constant. I look at the Democrats and think that if Newsom-Beshear beats Vance-Rubio, it won't be by much unless there's an outright depression.
By the way, I don't think Trump's economic ideas are reckless.
Aren’t there any 80/20 issues, which 80% of the voter support, that the Democrats can run upon?
Yes and no. The issues are there, but the Dems are 100% full-throttle behind the 20% on them. Examples: DEI, gender affirming care, men in women's sports, immigration. In their eyes, the 80% are on the wrong side of history and must be opposed.
Men in women's sports is fair. Our brand of racism is virtuous. It's mind-boggling.
The Democrats have two fundamental problems to overcome.
First while Trump and his actions are unpopular, the general policies he’s pursuing (secure borders, fair trade, keeping males out of spaces specifically set up for females, safe cities and a general lack of chaos) are popular. Some overwhelmingly so. When the Democrats fight Trump tooth and nail insisting the polar opposite of every policy he supports is the only acceptable path, they allow Trump to completely own the popular policy and therefore e the clear lesser evil. The smartest move Bill Clinton made was after getting smacked back by the Republican revolution of 94: He took the ideas they won on, met them halfway, and made them his own. This is what the Democrats should be doing now. Deporting criminal illegal aliens is an 80/20 issue. Democrats should get on board with requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE especially honoring detention requests in order to receive federal funding. As part of the same bill add on a path to citizenship for the so called dreamers.
This is already past TLDR length. I’ll start a second post for the other major problem.
They, the Democrats, need a sane individual, for their nomination. So far, with the exception of Rahm Emanuel, have not seen or heard one that isn't selling blue sky. And I don't mean the internet site.
" ...their party image." Or its "brand." It seems that is just about as deep as the Democrats get these days.
Great comment and great sources to click on - thank you!