The candidates for DNC Chairman appeared at a debate early this year. When journo Jonathan Capehart asked them, "How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat?", all of them raised their hands. Capehart told them, "That's good, you all passed." Consider what this tells the voters: That the Democrats consider most of them morally defective. Next, consider what it tells the Democrats: That it is the voters who need to improve instead of the Democratic Party.
One of the odd things about this exchange is Capehart's belief that his job as moderator wasn't just to ask the candidates questions but to voice his approval or disapproval of their answers: "That's good, you all passed." Passed what?
The meeting of the Public Safety Committee of Portland, Oregon's city council on July 9, 2025 offers a vivid case study of the very dynamic Justin Vassallo warns against in his critique of the Democratic Party: the dominance of sectarian identity politics over broad-based, majoritarian strategy.
The meeting, convened to address the city’s sanctuary status and recent ICE enforcement actions, was intended as a listening session but quickly became a display of hardline progressive ideology.
While the official purpose was to gather input on the city’s response to federal immigration arrests—most notably at the local ICE facility where several asylum seekers had recently been detained—the meeting was dominated by radical activist rhetoric that equated immigration enforcement with fascism, white supremacy, and genocide.
Speakers invoked Holocaust imagery repeatedly, likening ICE activity to Nazi roundups and detention facilities to “concentration camps” and “Alligator Auschwitz.” Many insisted that “no one is illegal on stolen land,” declaring U.S. immigration law inherently illegitimate. Several speakers claimed that the U.S. is waging genocide against indigenous and Latino populations through deportations. The prevailing position was absolutist: federal agents were likened to death squads, all forms of resistance were considered justified, and any defense of legal process or public safety was dismissed as complicity with fascism.
This sectarian framing left little room for dissent. A small number of attendees voiced concerns about lawlessness, neighborhood disruption, and the dangers of escalating confrontation with federal authorities. They emphasized the need to protect both immigrants and the local community through peaceful and legal means. These speakers were frequently booed or shouted down, their calls for nuance or civic restraint met with contempt. One dissenting speaker, for instance, called for police to protect residents from ongoing protests, only to be derided as a reactionary and accused of siding with ICE.
City councilors offered a range of responses—none fully distancing themselves from the dominant narrative. One councilor voiced support for protestors but urged them to consider the impact on neighborhood residents, asking that resistance be balanced with the right to live in peace. This moderate appeal was met with jeers and accusations of betrayal. Another councilor gave a fiery denunciation of ICE and its collaborators, calling them “the great cowards of our time” and warning that the federal government would continue “to do whatever they want.” A third councilor went further, warning that the assault on immigrants was a prelude to political executions under a second Trump term, declaring the U.S. to be in a state of authoritarian collapse.
This session illustrates the problem Justin Vassallo identifies in his critique of the Democratic Party’s trajectory: a deepening reliance on symbolic identity politics and moral absolutism that leaves little room for coalition-building or pragmatic governance. Rather than confronting the ideological overreach on display, city leaders largely echoed or indulged it. Public discourse has become dominated by a framework that sacralizes protest, treats law as violence, and places ideological purity above democratic persuasion.
Opposing views were not only unwelcome—they were treated as illegitimate. This signals not a healthy deliberative process but an activist-driven struggle session, in which expressions of concern for legal norms or civic order are cast as reactionary. The party’s unwillingness to disentangle itself from this kind of maximalist, identity-first politics continues to shrink its appeal to working-class, moderate, and immigrant voters who want fairness and order—not revolution by metaphor.
The elephant in the room is that the Democratic Party is dominated by angry women. Cancel culture meant that there is limited pushback and it is still largely verboten to discuss.
What it means electorally is that the Democratic Party is openly hostile to the second-biggest demographic bucket in the US - and since more females than males identify as LGBTQ, you could argue it is the biggest.
Gen X men put up with it because they had families to support. Millennial men internalized the messaging and tried to please. The younger generation wants no part of it.
Exactly this! The Democrats are now the party of open borders, defunding the police, racial quotas, trans lunacy, and a host of other pathologies embraced by their activist class. Add to that an all-consuming arrogance and contempt for those who disagree with them or vote for candidates outside the party. It’s a toxic mixture that they’ve spent decades building up to and they are now reluctant to abandon it because hating the unenlightened masses just feels so good. Some of the most irrational, hate-filled people I know are older, educated Democrats.
I’m “pro-war” when it comes to siding with Israel against Islamist radicals and with Ukraine against Putin’s Russia. Those are reasonable wars to support as they further the cause of democracy and Western values. The Democrats seek to denigrate and undermine Israel, while expressing support for a corrupt UN and the Palestinian barbarians that they enable. Under Biden, Ukraine received just enough military aid to lose the war slowly. Trump’s recent flip to strong support for Ukraine’s military is very encouraging and removes a major doubt among those of his supporters who wished for more and better weapons to be given to that country. Russia understands force and only force and the US under Trump can ensure that’s what they meet in Ukraine.
I agree with you about Israel, but I strongly disagree with you about Ukraine. Mere discussion of bringing Ukraine into NATO did not constitute aggression and was certainly no justification for sending tanks and troops into Ukraine (which was real aggression). Putin is a murderer and a war criminal who should be brought to justice, not supported by those who fail to see who he clearly is.
People who want that are fighting to the last Ukrainian or alternatively advocating for nuclear war. When German reunification happened the US promised the then Soviet Union that NATO would not move one inch further east. Been about 1000 kilometers. Trump unfortunately doesn't seem to be cutting Ukraine or the lunatic Euros loose.
My political affinities lie with the former Democratic party defined by FDR and Clinton. For some inexplicable reason I want to reform the current party to mirror that successful coalition and so here I am. But lately I have been wondering whether or not this is simply wasted emotional energy pining away for politics which have been lost to history. Perhaps I associate being a Democrat with a sense of being on the righteous side of history and an optimistic view of what an amazing country we have and what it can become. And just maybe that's because I felt this way when I was young and everything was novel and full of promise. I look at the current Democratic party and I can't see the optimism or feel the promise, only anger and hostility over immutable physical characteristics and victimhood. So here is a challenge for our talented writers - please tell me why I should continue to give a damn.
Regarding to your last sentence, I often ask myself the same question. There are times when I feel like trying to reform the Democratic Party from within is doomed. What leads me to keep trying, and to keep seeking out others who want to save the Democrats, is this: the Republicans are even worse. Even if Trump is gone after 2028 (no sure thing), I have no faith in Vance or any other Trump acolyte to save America.
Democrats remain focused on dividing the country into neat demographic subgroups, then seeking to capture enough of these artificial and disparate entities to win power. It’s a fool’s exercise because these defined groups don’t exist so neatly in the real world, and it’s impossible to message coherently. Witness Hispanic Americans voting for border control, 25% of African Americans voting for a “racist” Donald Trump and, my favorite, “White Dudes for Harris”.
It’s not about branding people like cattle and expecting them to vote in lockstep. It’s about policies. Leftist progressives hijacked Democrats’ talking points, centering on issues like transgender surgeries for minors, an open border, and men being welcomed into women’s sports. Until the party decides who’s in charge and what they stand for that American voters actually want, Republicans will continue to have the upper hand. A keffiyeh-wearing Donkey is not a winning look.
“ the first and biggest obstacle to a new era of reform will be inside the Democratic Party itself.”. Well said. A question, what is a synonym for “ commonality politics”? Would it be common sense?
One thought of a way forward would be to highlight annd encourage current elected Democrats to enforce the law. For example in the recent ICE raid on the California marijuana farm; why hasn’t California's OSHA already been there to be sure that the employer is following safe workplace practices? Where is Californias Department of Labor ensuring that the hundreds of employees are being paid the property wages? Where is the CA Dept of Human Services to rescue the minor children and find their parents? And where is CA Environmental Protection Department to be sure only legal chemicals are used on the crop and hazardous material are disposed of according to the law.? IT IS UNBELIEVABLE! Why does blue state California allow a workplace straight out of 19th century Charles Dickens? It is way past time for the blue states to do the job they already have. Or else why would voters want more Democrats in office?
Here's a hint: "Recent reports indicate that Graham Farrar, co-founder and president of Glass House Farms, a large cannabis farm in California, has made donations to California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic candidates."
This was very well written and researched, but in some ways, it seems to miss the forest for the trees. Dems lost the election, to one of the most divisive candidates in US history, for 3 reasons, inflation, immigration and child social engineering. Yet it is easier to find a live unicorn in DC , than a Dem that will admit the obvious. Nor can they even manage, to soften the edges of their policies.
For example recently, an ICE raid yesterday found 300 people working illegally and a dozen unaccompanied migrant children, seemingly trafficked into forced labor, on a legal CA Pot farm, alongside a convicted rapist and pedophile.
Perhaps I just missed it , but it seems not 1 Dem mustered the strength to call a Press Conference and thank ICE for freeing child slaves, on US soil. Not one had the courage to say, while they do not agree with Trump methods, thank God these children were freed. How do we find more of them? Surely Dems realize, these will not be the last migrant child slaves ICE finds. I cannot decide if Dems are that afraid of their far Left, or if Party leaders now really believe, 300K children in bondage, on US soil, is an acceptable price for a borderless America.
Likewise for child sex changes. We are nation that does not allow the tattooing of children, due to the permanence of the choice. The idea of allowing 12 year olds to remove healthy body parts or purposefully end their adult fertility, sometimes before it begins, was once unthinkable. Yet CA will now go to war with DC, attempting to ensure child sex change surgeries continue. Dems could have simply proposed separate locker rooms and athletic categories for trans athletes, while advocating irreversible treatments occur after age 18, but Dems, near uniformly, refuse to seek middle ground.
Dems consumed with identity politics do themselves no favors, but until there is a Come to Jesus moment, regarding the border and child social engineering, other issues are background noise.
The Dems really don't care about slave children, illegal labor practices, environmental violations, or anything else unless enforcement against these things can be used to harass business owners who are not supporters, or other people they deem disposable.
This is a logical, plain fact column that (from my perspective, thankfully) will be ignored by the elites.
By my purpose is only to remind everyone this DID NOT END WITH THE ELECTION. The party/partisan shifts are still going on and almost universally moving bigly in the R direction. Just the latest, CA Rs, having gained 230,000 net on Democrats in the state since November, added another 23,000 nets in June. Don't be fooled by a "primary halo" in NJ, either. We saw in PA that as soon as the primary was over, the voter registration advantage moved back to Rs there.
But there are two other big structural problems that are going to wipe out about 10 EVs or House seats. First, Texas (and likely Ohio) are going to redistrict. Seth Keshel, who stays up on the county shifts, says this could add EVs. Second, I mentioned above the party SHIFT in registrations in CA, but there is another much larger dynamic going on, which is that a Judicial Watch lawsuit force CA counties to do a voter roll purge. So far, in only half the counties reporting, over 2.1 million have been taken off the rolls. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to say that probably 60% of those are Democrats. By the time LA and other counties report, it will be close to 3.5 million removed, or approx 2 million Democrats---while on the other end Rs have flipped 270,000. Not parity, but certainly a clusterbomb on Democrat seats there.
This constant diagnosis is such a waste of time. The majority of Americans don't trust the Democrat Party. They opened the border and allowed in 12 to 20 million illegal migrants, of whom were 500,000 criminals, and did nothing about it. They ignored inflation while it was ravaging the lower and middle classes. And now the Democrat Party won't condemn the violence going on against ICE. It's obvious that they want Trump to send in more Marines and national guard so they can say Trump is a dictator and a fascist and whatever name they can think of. The majority of Americans want illegals deported!!! Trump is doing just that despite all the judicial headwinds. AMERICANS DON'T TRUST DEMOCRATS. I am an unaffiliated voter who voted for Obama twice because I didn't trust the neocon Republicans who brought us into war and wanted to police the world. Democrats need to face facts and embrace what Trump and the Republicans are doing because that is what the majority of Americans want. Right now, they are heading to a dead end. Trump is bad. Trump is bad. Trump is bad. The Democrat message is crap.
Majority Democrats sounds like just the latest performative flavor of the month designed not to reform the party's conspicuous political misdirection, but rather to disguise it.
When the so-called political "Big Tent" fails to discriminate against lawbreakers, illegal aliens (actually one in the same) and elitist authoritarian Leftists then it is only buying time, not rebuilding.
The essential problem for Democrsts is that their party has been hijacked by a radical Left so completely out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, including many if not most pre-progressive, pre-woke Democrats.
In a final act of irony, perhaps the Democratic Party will yet be saved by DJT's most egregious political misstep to date; promising yet failing to deliver on release of the infamous Epstein pedophilia client list.
When MAGA Republicans start abandoning him, you know both parties are facing strong political headwinds ahead.
Democrats are perpetually damaged by the adoption of a matriarchal worldview replacing the patriarchal worldview.
The matriarchal worldview is one that says your actual fat butt looks sexy in those jeans, and that you are a talented artist or athlete when you are neither. The matriarchal worldview is collective hugging, collaboration and cooperation but with individual retribution and covert agendas to destroy other's reputations. The matriarch lives in a stew of difficult emotional regulation and everyone in the hive demands soothing words to help prevent hysteria.
Conversely, the patriarchal worldview is one where we can say your actual butt looks fat and unattractive in those jeans... that you need to stop eating carbs and work out, and that if you are not good at art or sports, the honest truth will be delivered but also with an encouragement that with hard work you will always get better. The patriarchy is individual achievement and demonstrated merit that may or may not include collaboration with others depending on the actual goal. The patriarchy seeks pragmatic truth and seeks honest words to help optimize choice and decision-making.
Democrats are mother's-child people... and the media mothers them into feeling good about themselves while their behavior and choices remain crappy.
Republicans are father's-child people... and they are at constant conflict blasting themselves and everyone else with the truth... demanding responsibility and accountability.
Democrats ignore tradeoff analysis seek the short-term feel-good fix. Democrats are more risk-averse and have a scarcity mindset.
Republicans consider tradeoffs and more likely seek the long-term game. Republicans are more risk-taking and have an abundance mindset.
You can see this play out in all the places that Democrats and Republicans dominate state and local government. Democrats make irrational policy decisions that ignore tradeoffs and thus are suboptimized and cause problems. Democrats also cannot make easy decisions unless they dominate with a controlling majority (where they tend toward collective consensus), but their decision-dragging fear of a political mistake is only mitigated by their expectation that the media will mother-cover for them.
We are into a couple of decade social and political experiment that has never happened before in the human race... a move to a female-dominated worldview and system... that has taken root in the Democrat party. At this point it is clear that it not going well at all... especially for the Democrat party.
"Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall" Prov 16:18 NKJ To me, the theme of the comments and somewhat in the article centers around arrogance. No doubt, this will seem ironic to those who aren't exactly Trump fans, and that's a fair point. But the Lord hates 'haughty eyes', which I believe is strong in the progressive left and is apparent on the right too.
I want Trump to admit more often when he's wrong (I believe any aspiring politician would do well in understanding how powerful humility is), I want the radio cheerleaders to be more humble and I want Trump supporters like myself, to always be acutely aware of how deceivingly evil pride is.
I know, in my soul, gender affirming care for minors, men in women's sports/spaces, color over character, and a lawless border are wrong, to name a few, but I don't believe that's arrogance, I believe that's the gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit. Without question, the typical progressive would say the opposite with the same conviction. The difference, IMO, is I'm trying to be led by the Word, not man's wisdom, God bless
I've given up on Democrats. They are like old Goldwater conservatives. -- true believers that are going to sink the ship. The woke treat their beliefs like a religion -- maybe the Calvinists or the Puritans?? If they could get lightning to smote the unbelievers, they would. And they would feel so virtuous.
This is an updated version of the "hyphenated American" vs. the melting pot, a dichotomy that was a prominent feature of politics at the turn of the 20th century. The melting pot prevailed while ancestry wasn't totally subsumed. The Democrats have swung very hard toward a neo-hyphenated perspective, and will not even listen to anyone who speaks up for the melting pot, which is and always has been far more popular.
The candidates for DNC Chairman appeared at a debate early this year. When journo Jonathan Capehart asked them, "How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat?", all of them raised their hands. Capehart told them, "That's good, you all passed." Consider what this tells the voters: That the Democrats consider most of them morally defective. Next, consider what it tells the Democrats: That it is the voters who need to improve instead of the Democratic Party.
One of the odd things about this exchange is Capehart's belief that his job as moderator wasn't just to ask the candidates questions but to voice his approval or disapproval of their answers: "That's good, you all passed." Passed what?
Was he being sarcastic, perhaps?
The meeting of the Public Safety Committee of Portland, Oregon's city council on July 9, 2025 offers a vivid case study of the very dynamic Justin Vassallo warns against in his critique of the Democratic Party: the dominance of sectarian identity politics over broad-based, majoritarian strategy.
The meeting, convened to address the city’s sanctuary status and recent ICE enforcement actions, was intended as a listening session but quickly became a display of hardline progressive ideology.
While the official purpose was to gather input on the city’s response to federal immigration arrests—most notably at the local ICE facility where several asylum seekers had recently been detained—the meeting was dominated by radical activist rhetoric that equated immigration enforcement with fascism, white supremacy, and genocide.
Speakers invoked Holocaust imagery repeatedly, likening ICE activity to Nazi roundups and detention facilities to “concentration camps” and “Alligator Auschwitz.” Many insisted that “no one is illegal on stolen land,” declaring U.S. immigration law inherently illegitimate. Several speakers claimed that the U.S. is waging genocide against indigenous and Latino populations through deportations. The prevailing position was absolutist: federal agents were likened to death squads, all forms of resistance were considered justified, and any defense of legal process or public safety was dismissed as complicity with fascism.
This sectarian framing left little room for dissent. A small number of attendees voiced concerns about lawlessness, neighborhood disruption, and the dangers of escalating confrontation with federal authorities. They emphasized the need to protect both immigrants and the local community through peaceful and legal means. These speakers were frequently booed or shouted down, their calls for nuance or civic restraint met with contempt. One dissenting speaker, for instance, called for police to protect residents from ongoing protests, only to be derided as a reactionary and accused of siding with ICE.
City councilors offered a range of responses—none fully distancing themselves from the dominant narrative. One councilor voiced support for protestors but urged them to consider the impact on neighborhood residents, asking that resistance be balanced with the right to live in peace. This moderate appeal was met with jeers and accusations of betrayal. Another councilor gave a fiery denunciation of ICE and its collaborators, calling them “the great cowards of our time” and warning that the federal government would continue “to do whatever they want.” A third councilor went further, warning that the assault on immigrants was a prelude to political executions under a second Trump term, declaring the U.S. to be in a state of authoritarian collapse.
This session illustrates the problem Justin Vassallo identifies in his critique of the Democratic Party’s trajectory: a deepening reliance on symbolic identity politics and moral absolutism that leaves little room for coalition-building or pragmatic governance. Rather than confronting the ideological overreach on display, city leaders largely echoed or indulged it. Public discourse has become dominated by a framework that sacralizes protest, treats law as violence, and places ideological purity above democratic persuasion.
Opposing views were not only unwelcome—they were treated as illegitimate. This signals not a healthy deliberative process but an activist-driven struggle session, in which expressions of concern for legal norms or civic order are cast as reactionary. The party’s unwillingness to disentangle itself from this kind of maximalist, identity-first politics continues to shrink its appeal to working-class, moderate, and immigrant voters who want fairness and order—not revolution by metaphor.
You can learn the details in the July 13 Substack piece "The Sanctuary Cities 'Conversation' " by Max Steele here: https://recalibrateportland.substack.com/p/the-sanctuary-cities-conversation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2855266&post_id=167916257&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=8bzqv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I just visited my son who lives in Eugene, Oregon. Oregon is just so beautiful and Eugene seems fine. But I sure hope he doesn’t move to Portland.
The elephant in the room is that the Democratic Party is dominated by angry women. Cancel culture meant that there is limited pushback and it is still largely verboten to discuss.
What it means electorally is that the Democratic Party is openly hostile to the second-biggest demographic bucket in the US - and since more females than males identify as LGBTQ, you could argue it is the biggest.
Gen X men put up with it because they had families to support. Millennial men internalized the messaging and tried to please. The younger generation wants no part of it.
Exactly this! The Democrats are now the party of open borders, defunding the police, racial quotas, trans lunacy, and a host of other pathologies embraced by their activist class. Add to that an all-consuming arrogance and contempt for those who disagree with them or vote for candidates outside the party. It’s a toxic mixture that they’ve spent decades building up to and they are now reluctant to abandon it because hating the unenlightened masses just feels so good. Some of the most irrational, hate-filled people I know are older, educated Democrats.
They are also the pro-war party
I’m “pro-war” when it comes to siding with Israel against Islamist radicals and with Ukraine against Putin’s Russia. Those are reasonable wars to support as they further the cause of democracy and Western values. The Democrats seek to denigrate and undermine Israel, while expressing support for a corrupt UN and the Palestinian barbarians that they enable. Under Biden, Ukraine received just enough military aid to lose the war slowly. Trump’s recent flip to strong support for Ukraine’s military is very encouraging and removes a major doubt among those of his supporters who wished for more and better weapons to be given to that country. Russia understands force and only force and the US under Trump can ensure that’s what they meet in Ukraine.
Israel was responding to aggression . Russia was the victim of aggression by NATO.
I agree with you about Israel, but I strongly disagree with you about Ukraine. Mere discussion of bringing Ukraine into NATO did not constitute aggression and was certainly no justification for sending tanks and troops into Ukraine (which was real aggression). Putin is a murderer and a war criminal who should be brought to justice, not supported by those who fail to see who he clearly is.
People who want that are fighting to the last Ukrainian or alternatively advocating for nuclear war. When German reunification happened the US promised the then Soviet Union that NATO would not move one inch further east. Been about 1000 kilometers. Trump unfortunately doesn't seem to be cutting Ukraine or the lunatic Euros loose.
The Soviet Union no longer exists. We have no such agreement with the current government in Russia that I’m aware of.
My political affinities lie with the former Democratic party defined by FDR and Clinton. For some inexplicable reason I want to reform the current party to mirror that successful coalition and so here I am. But lately I have been wondering whether or not this is simply wasted emotional energy pining away for politics which have been lost to history. Perhaps I associate being a Democrat with a sense of being on the righteous side of history and an optimistic view of what an amazing country we have and what it can become. And just maybe that's because I felt this way when I was young and everything was novel and full of promise. I look at the current Democratic party and I can't see the optimism or feel the promise, only anger and hostility over immutable physical characteristics and victimhood. So here is a challenge for our talented writers - please tell me why I should continue to give a damn.
Regarding to your last sentence, I often ask myself the same question. There are times when I feel like trying to reform the Democratic Party from within is doomed. What leads me to keep trying, and to keep seeking out others who want to save the Democrats, is this: the Republicans are even worse. Even if Trump is gone after 2028 (no sure thing), I have no faith in Vance or any other Trump acolyte to save America.
Just curious, what policies would you like to see to "save America"? That means different things to different people, what does it mean to you?
Democrats remain focused on dividing the country into neat demographic subgroups, then seeking to capture enough of these artificial and disparate entities to win power. It’s a fool’s exercise because these defined groups don’t exist so neatly in the real world, and it’s impossible to message coherently. Witness Hispanic Americans voting for border control, 25% of African Americans voting for a “racist” Donald Trump and, my favorite, “White Dudes for Harris”.
It’s not about branding people like cattle and expecting them to vote in lockstep. It’s about policies. Leftist progressives hijacked Democrats’ talking points, centering on issues like transgender surgeries for minors, an open border, and men being welcomed into women’s sports. Until the party decides who’s in charge and what they stand for that American voters actually want, Republicans will continue to have the upper hand. A keffiyeh-wearing Donkey is not a winning look.
“ the first and biggest obstacle to a new era of reform will be inside the Democratic Party itself.”. Well said. A question, what is a synonym for “ commonality politics”? Would it be common sense?
One thought of a way forward would be to highlight annd encourage current elected Democrats to enforce the law. For example in the recent ICE raid on the California marijuana farm; why hasn’t California's OSHA already been there to be sure that the employer is following safe workplace practices? Where is Californias Department of Labor ensuring that the hundreds of employees are being paid the property wages? Where is the CA Dept of Human Services to rescue the minor children and find their parents? And where is CA Environmental Protection Department to be sure only legal chemicals are used on the crop and hazardous material are disposed of according to the law.? IT IS UNBELIEVABLE! Why does blue state California allow a workplace straight out of 19th century Charles Dickens? It is way past time for the blue states to do the job they already have. Or else why would voters want more Democrats in office?
Here's a hint: "Recent reports indicate that Graham Farrar, co-founder and president of Glass House Farms, a large cannabis farm in California, has made donations to California Governor Gavin Newsom and other Democratic candidates."
This was very well written and researched, but in some ways, it seems to miss the forest for the trees. Dems lost the election, to one of the most divisive candidates in US history, for 3 reasons, inflation, immigration and child social engineering. Yet it is easier to find a live unicorn in DC , than a Dem that will admit the obvious. Nor can they even manage, to soften the edges of their policies.
For example recently, an ICE raid yesterday found 300 people working illegally and a dozen unaccompanied migrant children, seemingly trafficked into forced labor, on a legal CA Pot farm, alongside a convicted rapist and pedophile.
Perhaps I just missed it , but it seems not 1 Dem mustered the strength to call a Press Conference and thank ICE for freeing child slaves, on US soil. Not one had the courage to say, while they do not agree with Trump methods, thank God these children were freed. How do we find more of them? Surely Dems realize, these will not be the last migrant child slaves ICE finds. I cannot decide if Dems are that afraid of their far Left, or if Party leaders now really believe, 300K children in bondage, on US soil, is an acceptable price for a borderless America.
Likewise for child sex changes. We are nation that does not allow the tattooing of children, due to the permanence of the choice. The idea of allowing 12 year olds to remove healthy body parts or purposefully end their adult fertility, sometimes before it begins, was once unthinkable. Yet CA will now go to war with DC, attempting to ensure child sex change surgeries continue. Dems could have simply proposed separate locker rooms and athletic categories for trans athletes, while advocating irreversible treatments occur after age 18, but Dems, near uniformly, refuse to seek middle ground.
Dems consumed with identity politics do themselves no favors, but until there is a Come to Jesus moment, regarding the border and child social engineering, other issues are background noise.
The Dems really don't care about slave children, illegal labor practices, environmental violations, or anything else unless enforcement against these things can be used to harass business owners who are not supporters, or other people they deem disposable.
This is a logical, plain fact column that (from my perspective, thankfully) will be ignored by the elites.
By my purpose is only to remind everyone this DID NOT END WITH THE ELECTION. The party/partisan shifts are still going on and almost universally moving bigly in the R direction. Just the latest, CA Rs, having gained 230,000 net on Democrats in the state since November, added another 23,000 nets in June. Don't be fooled by a "primary halo" in NJ, either. We saw in PA that as soon as the primary was over, the voter registration advantage moved back to Rs there.
But there are two other big structural problems that are going to wipe out about 10 EVs or House seats. First, Texas (and likely Ohio) are going to redistrict. Seth Keshel, who stays up on the county shifts, says this could add EVs. Second, I mentioned above the party SHIFT in registrations in CA, but there is another much larger dynamic going on, which is that a Judicial Watch lawsuit force CA counties to do a voter roll purge. So far, in only half the counties reporting, over 2.1 million have been taken off the rolls. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to say that probably 60% of those are Democrats. By the time LA and other counties report, it will be close to 3.5 million removed, or approx 2 million Democrats---while on the other end Rs have flipped 270,000. Not parity, but certainly a clusterbomb on Democrat seats there.
Redistricting doesn't affect EVs, except in ME and NE.
And Rs will gladly take those to seats. But it will affect the House. And the census will do the rest.
Again: Other than Nebraska and Maine, redistricting does not affect EVs. Did you skip that government class?
This constant diagnosis is such a waste of time. The majority of Americans don't trust the Democrat Party. They opened the border and allowed in 12 to 20 million illegal migrants, of whom were 500,000 criminals, and did nothing about it. They ignored inflation while it was ravaging the lower and middle classes. And now the Democrat Party won't condemn the violence going on against ICE. It's obvious that they want Trump to send in more Marines and national guard so they can say Trump is a dictator and a fascist and whatever name they can think of. The majority of Americans want illegals deported!!! Trump is doing just that despite all the judicial headwinds. AMERICANS DON'T TRUST DEMOCRATS. I am an unaffiliated voter who voted for Obama twice because I didn't trust the neocon Republicans who brought us into war and wanted to police the world. Democrats need to face facts and embrace what Trump and the Republicans are doing because that is what the majority of Americans want. Right now, they are heading to a dead end. Trump is bad. Trump is bad. Trump is bad. The Democrat message is crap.
Majority Democrats sounds like just the latest performative flavor of the month designed not to reform the party's conspicuous political misdirection, but rather to disguise it.
When the so-called political "Big Tent" fails to discriminate against lawbreakers, illegal aliens (actually one in the same) and elitist authoritarian Leftists then it is only buying time, not rebuilding.
The essential problem for Democrsts is that their party has been hijacked by a radical Left so completely out of touch with the vast majority of Americans, including many if not most pre-progressive, pre-woke Democrats.
In a final act of irony, perhaps the Democratic Party will yet be saved by DJT's most egregious political misstep to date; promising yet failing to deliver on release of the infamous Epstein pedophilia client list.
When MAGA Republicans start abandoning him, you know both parties are facing strong political headwinds ahead.
Read up on the DNC's total joke of a "re-do" election because someone claimed the gender-parity rules weren't followed. For pity's sake.
Democrats are perpetually damaged by the adoption of a matriarchal worldview replacing the patriarchal worldview.
The matriarchal worldview is one that says your actual fat butt looks sexy in those jeans, and that you are a talented artist or athlete when you are neither. The matriarchal worldview is collective hugging, collaboration and cooperation but with individual retribution and covert agendas to destroy other's reputations. The matriarch lives in a stew of difficult emotional regulation and everyone in the hive demands soothing words to help prevent hysteria.
Conversely, the patriarchal worldview is one where we can say your actual butt looks fat and unattractive in those jeans... that you need to stop eating carbs and work out, and that if you are not good at art or sports, the honest truth will be delivered but also with an encouragement that with hard work you will always get better. The patriarchy is individual achievement and demonstrated merit that may or may not include collaboration with others depending on the actual goal. The patriarchy seeks pragmatic truth and seeks honest words to help optimize choice and decision-making.
Democrats are mother's-child people... and the media mothers them into feeling good about themselves while their behavior and choices remain crappy.
Republicans are father's-child people... and they are at constant conflict blasting themselves and everyone else with the truth... demanding responsibility and accountability.
Democrats ignore tradeoff analysis seek the short-term feel-good fix. Democrats are more risk-averse and have a scarcity mindset.
Republicans consider tradeoffs and more likely seek the long-term game. Republicans are more risk-taking and have an abundance mindset.
You can see this play out in all the places that Democrats and Republicans dominate state and local government. Democrats make irrational policy decisions that ignore tradeoffs and thus are suboptimized and cause problems. Democrats also cannot make easy decisions unless they dominate with a controlling majority (where they tend toward collective consensus), but their decision-dragging fear of a political mistake is only mitigated by their expectation that the media will mother-cover for them.
We are into a couple of decade social and political experiment that has never happened before in the human race... a move to a female-dominated worldview and system... that has taken root in the Democrat party. At this point it is clear that it not going well at all... especially for the Democrat party.
"Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall" Prov 16:18 NKJ To me, the theme of the comments and somewhat in the article centers around arrogance. No doubt, this will seem ironic to those who aren't exactly Trump fans, and that's a fair point. But the Lord hates 'haughty eyes', which I believe is strong in the progressive left and is apparent on the right too.
I want Trump to admit more often when he's wrong (I believe any aspiring politician would do well in understanding how powerful humility is), I want the radio cheerleaders to be more humble and I want Trump supporters like myself, to always be acutely aware of how deceivingly evil pride is.
I know, in my soul, gender affirming care for minors, men in women's sports/spaces, color over character, and a lawless border are wrong, to name a few, but I don't believe that's arrogance, I believe that's the gift of discernment from the Holy Spirit. Without question, the typical progressive would say the opposite with the same conviction. The difference, IMO, is I'm trying to be led by the Word, not man's wisdom, God bless
I've given up on Democrats. They are like old Goldwater conservatives. -- true believers that are going to sink the ship. The woke treat their beliefs like a religion -- maybe the Calvinists or the Puritans?? If they could get lightning to smote the unbelievers, they would. And they would feel so virtuous.
This is an updated version of the "hyphenated American" vs. the melting pot, a dichotomy that was a prominent feature of politics at the turn of the 20th century. The melting pot prevailed while ancestry wasn't totally subsumed. The Democrats have swung very hard toward a neo-hyphenated perspective, and will not even listen to anyone who speaks up for the melting pot, which is and always has been far more popular.