Whoopi Goldberg and the Leftist Echo Chamber

Whoopi Goldberg says she can’t leave America as she promised, if Trump won.

Why not?

Because, she says, she’s too poor to live without her income as one of the lead shrews on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg is worth $30 million–at a minimum. This is why Democrat Communists lost. They think $30 million is poverty.

It also shows how they live in psychological echo chambers. The horrific spectacle we see on The View represents the inner works of a woke leftist mind.

No amount of money can ever fix these people.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

We All Have Don Jr. to Thank for This.

This November 28th, when America counts its blessings, top of my list will be Donald J. Trump, Jr. He is really the guy who made the success of 2024 possible.

If you think back to 2016, the whole Trump effort, it was not just unlikely, it was ridiculous. The campaign consisted mostly of Donald Trump’s stream-of-consciousness Tweets and phone calls to various talks shows. Volunteers from around the country organized their own events for him, because there was no real traditional campaign organization. Some went very well. Others, not so much, like the March 2016 rally at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Smack in the middle of one of America’s premier left-wing neighborhoods, it turned into an ANTIFA-style riot. 

Trump’s personnel choices were equally odd. For his campaign communication director, he chose the beautiful, but shy, fashion model Hope Hicks. Hicks refused to do an on-camera interview and communicated with the working press by handing out Xerox copies of her memos.

When he got to the White House, Pres. Trump was immediately handicapped by poor organization and some awful hires. Most Trump people came in one of three flavors — loyal, but incompetent, like Mike Flynn. The just plain incompetent, like Coats and Sessions. And worst of all, the incompetent and outright perfidious, like Gens. Kelly, Mattis, and McMaster.

Most of that last category seem to be people Ivanka and Jared wanted.

Unsurprisingly, this team of scrubs was no match for the D.C. Swamp. Much of the anger and frustration of Trump and his supporters on Jan 6, 2021, was fueled by the realization of just how badly they were served by people who were supposed to be on their side.

If you are somebody like Rudy Giuliani, tirelessly working with Pres. Trump to save the country, and you see him get him impeached for properly trying to investigate the Biden bribery scandals or have the Deep State run a game to falsely impugn the Hunter Biden laptop or worst of all, see the Deep State’s outrageous Russiagate scandal, which was cooked up by Hillary Clinton’s people. Then yes, you may even start to think the voting machines in Georgia could be rigged.

After the disappointing 2022 midterms, most people (including me) gave Donald Trump no chance. DeSantis even passed by him in the betting odds.

Behind the scenes, however, it was Don who started to bring some order to the chaos of Trump world. Until then, he had been the second banana in the family behind Ivanka and Jared. But they were bored with the whole political scene after 2020 and moved on. Especially after Jared got Qatar to bail him out of his high-rise real estate disaster.

Sponsored

Don (and his brother Eric) had spent most of the first Trump term in New York, ably running the Trump business, even as they had to meet a make-or-break deadline to refinance their holdings. Then, it was finally Don’s turn to help assist his father’s political operation and did he ever.   

Don began with hiring Susie Wiles to run the national campaign. Wiles got her start with Jack Kemp, then worked for Ronald Reagan all eight years. She has a marvelous record of running campaigns. When she became available after a falling out with Ron DeSantis, she was welcomed into the 2020 campaign, and then tabbed to run the whole 2024 effort. This was a great move. She has a whole ecosystem of competent people around her, and she got Trump organized and focused on the issues.

The unprecedented lawfare attack by the Biden administration in 2023 was met calmly and became a rallying point for people who had seen enough of the Democrats’ dirty tricks.

Don was also the talent scout, bringing in fresh new faces who could make a difference. He was the one who got Ronna McDaniel ousted from the RNC and brought in Charlie Kirk to implement more modern election tactics. Whereas in 2020, President Trump decried early voting; in 2024, Don was convinced those were now the rules and we had to outdo the Democrats.

It was Don who befriended JD Vance, seeing he was budding star, and had his father endorse him in a crowded Senate primary. Don also lobbied for him as VP pick, which proved an inspired choice, as he connected with younger voters.

When it is all said and done, it will also probably be revealed Don was the one reaching out to Elon Musk years ago, when he turned against Biden and decided to save free speech on social media. This at a time when Donald Trump, Sr. was holding his infamous Dinner With the Schmucks.

Remember, it was Jared and Ivanka who kept attaching President Trump to ridiculous celebrities like Kanye West and the Kardashians. While it was Don who built a network of serious people to help the country, like Peter Theil. 

The first days of the Trump transition are now going like the last days of the Trump campaign — focused, efficient, and smooth. I suspect that’s in large measure due again to Don and he is likely the one recommending all the solid cabinet picks.

Thanks to Donald J. Trump, Jr., I think Trump 47 is going to be a far more successful experience than Trump 45.

Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, KY.   

Totalitarianism is addictive

My training, education, and professional practice taught me narcissists and sociopath don’t change. And you can expect more of the same going forward.

If anything, there will be an escalation of their venom.

Evidence for my points?

In her “concession” speech, Harris lectured us (expecially Trump supporters) on the need to accept election results.

She essentially said, “Unlike Trump supporters, we accept election results.”

If you believe this, then you probably believe in the command-and-control, centrally run economy that Kamala and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., tried to impose.

The very Democrats who lectured us on the need to be civil and accept election results refuse to acknowledge the critical importance of election integrity.

Instead of accepting an open investigation into alleged voting irregularities, as secure people might do, they threatened and imprisoned those who dared for daring to question.

Democrats’ civility and “acceptance” are fake.

Kamala, her entire party — still led by Obama, and supported by Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Walz, and others, want control, not freedom…

Find the full article HERE.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

Totalitarianism is addictive.

My training, education, and professional practice taught me narcissists and sociopath don’t change. And you can expect more of the same going forward.

If anything, there will be an escalation of their venom.

Evidence for my points?

In her “concession” speech, Harris lectured us (expecially Trump supporters) on the need to accept election results.

She essentially said, “Unlike Trump supporters, we accept election results.”

If you believe this, then you probably believe in the command-and-control, centrally run economy that Kamala and Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., tried to impose.

The very Democrats who lectured us on the need to be civil and accept election results refuse to acknowledge the critical importance of election integrity.

Instead of accepting an open investigation into alleged voting irregularities, as secure people might do, they threatened and imprisoned those who dared for daring to question.

Democrats’ civility and “acceptance” are fake.

Kamala, her entire party — still led by Obama, and supported by Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Walz, and others, want control, not freedom…

Find the full article HERE.

Follow Dr. Hurd on Facebook. Search under “Michael Hurd” (Charleston SC). Get up-to-the-minute postings, recommended articles and links, and engage in back-and-forth discussion with Dr. Hurd on topics of interest. Also follow Dr. Hurd on X at @MichaelJHurd1, drmichaelhurd on Instagram, @DrHurd on TruthSocial. Dr. Hurd is also now a Newsmax Insider!

“Burn the System Down”: Democrats Now Face Charges That They’re Actually the Ones Trying to Destroy Democracy

American Flag Burning

“Burn the System Down”: Democrats Now Face Charges That They’re Actually the Ones Trying to Destroy Democracy

(WND News Center)—Protecting democracy was a catch phrase that Democrats have used for years to explain their hatred of now President-elect Donald Trump.

He was, after all, they said, a “Hitler.” He would be a dictator. He would use the military against his political opponents, jailing them and worse.

The only salvation for America’s “democracy” would be to keep Democrats, in this election Kamala Harris, in power, they said.

Now they’ve flip-flopped, and are openly advocating for the downfall of democracy, according to new analyses.

Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, said, “Democracy appears to be losing its appeal on the left. After campaigning on panic politics and predicting the imminent death of democracy, some on the left are now calling to burn the system down in light of Republicans not only taking both houses and the White House but Trump likely winning the popular vote.”

He pointed out that it’s ironic that “Democratic politicians and pundits repeated the mantra that, if we did not elect Harris, this might be our last election.

He explained, “After losing that election, democracy appears to be the problem. The majority of Americans voting for Trump have been called ‘anti-American’ by Gov. Hochul. Other politicians and pundits have called them racists, misogynists, or weaklings seeking domination by strongmen and bullies.”

Now, as protesters are calling for demolition of “the system as a whole,” figureheads are joining.

“CNN’s Bakari Sellers wants to pressure Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to resign and replace her with Harris. Former Harris aide Jamal Simmons wants Biden to resign to allow Harris to become president despite the vote of the majority,” Turley explained.

The problem runs directly to the failing support for Democrats among voters, with Trump winning women by eight points and gaining ground among young voters, black voters, Hispanic voters and more.

“The call for Biden to simply do what the public did not want to do (in making Harris president) is particularly ironic. Many voters were repulsed by the Democrats simply making Harris the nominee after all the primaries were over. This was the candidate who could not garner any appreciable votes in the prior presidential primaries before being made Vice President by Biden. Now, the idea is that she would be elevated by the unilateral act of Biden,” Turley wrote.

Yet Simmons has insisted, “This is the moment for us to change the entire perspective of how Democrats operate.”

Sellers just wants Harris on the Supreme Court.

“At no point in history has anyone suggested that Harris was a leading legal mind. Nothing in her history suggests that she is a competent, let alone promising, candidate for the highest court,” Turley pointed out.

He noted “The one option that does not appear to be popular is to listen to the voters and actually return the Democratic Party back toward the center of our politics. The problem is now the voters themselves.”

commentary at the Federalist warned that, “Leftists are the great threat to democracy, not Trump.”

“They chose the most extreme politician to run for president, through an antidemocratic process of selection. She epitomized the two great idols of the Democratic Party, its raison d’être: unrestricted ‘reproductive freedom’ (abortion) and coercive LGBTQ immorality. Harris in turn chose the most politically extreme running mate she could find, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.”

The writer, Robert Gagnon, explained the leftists controlled the news media, social media, colleges and universities, entertainment industry, Fortune 500 companies and more, and they still wanted more power.

He cited the Democrats’ attempts at a one-party state through massive illegal immigration, their push for “trans insanity,” “compelled speech” for pronouns, “unrestricted” abortion, including coercion for doctors and pharmacists who had religious objections to destroying the unborn.

Then they talked of packing the Supreme Court, ending the Senate filibuster and adding four senators to their party roll.

“The majority of Americans now see that the biggest threat to our republic is the Democratic Party that runs most of the country. We finally just got tired of the political extremism and totalitarianism. That’s why Harris-Walz lost and why Trump-Vance won,” the commentary said.

Content created by the WND News Center is available for re-publication without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@wndnewscenter.org.

This article was originally published by the WND News Center.t

© 2024 🔔 The Liberty Daily

Well, ya can’t win ’em all.

I’m surprised by the ease with which I’m taking this. I was far more worried in ’16, but Trump will have far fewer constraints on his worst impulses this time around, and is poised to bring on average a much worse group of people to his admin than during his first term. The main reason this doesn’t seem nearly as dire a prospect is that Trump himself has declined so noticeably in vitality, and so rapidly that he may well already lack the energy to really yeltsin things up. We might even be lucky enough to have this be an abbreviated term, with him stepping down at the two-year mark to focus his last years on hedonism.

The effect of burnout and normalization can’t be neglected, neither. As creatures of flesh, there’s only so much we can chemically expend on panic before we burn out. This may well be a much worse term than the first. For as old as DJT is, he’s still only a year younger than Ayatollah Khomeini was before his own assumption of supreme leadership. The Imam was hardly the picture of health in his dotage, and his chaos machine tragically spins on almost half a century later.1 It’s best to not underestimate the damage an unchecked elderly man with unlimited power and an unquenchable sense of grievance can inflict. But our feelings don’t care about our facts. Their chemicals have already expended themselves upon us for as long as we have invested ourselves in this shameful drama. For our youngest voters, such has been nearly half their lives.

But who is Your H.R. kidding? DJT did not win because of “normalization”. November 5th was a massacre. Worse in many ways than the more devastating Electoral College defeats of Mondale and Dukakis, as Harris’ principle shortcoming was not with any individual demographic she failed to sufficiently woo, nor whom switched votes, but with the well-over ten-million Americans who voted in 2020, and stayed home in ’24. Both candidates received lower vote totals than their parties performances four year ago. But even if neither candidate managed to convince anyone from 2020 to change tickets, and even if every voter from 2020 was still voting in 2024; then for every one absent Trump voter, there were over ten Harris voters who did the same. An eight-figure loss in voters. Nearly a sixth of the prior cycle’s coalition.

When John McCain lost to Barack Obama in ’08, the Republicans were short only a twentieth of the prior cycle’s numbers. Hillary wasn’t even a hundredth short of Obama 2012; losing only due to the quirk of the Electoral College. Romney, Kerry, Dole, and even Dukakis all improved their popular numbers on their party’s prior presidential performance. The last and only time the Dems — or any other American political party, including the ones that no longer exist — have seen an eight-figure loss in voters was 1968, and that was with one of their own candidates running a poison-pill independent campaign as revenge for the passage of the ’64 Civil Rights Act. Even without a George Wallace, the Democrats have lost in Humphreyesque fashion.Subscribe

But at least this loss was convincing. There will be no coup attempt this January at least. Nor will there be any way to frame this loss as a matter of tactics. It’s not possible to lose a real election this decisively because of merely picking the wrong V.P., or not visiting the right states. This was a strategic defeat. Woke is not dead, but the American public, having the agenda forced upon us by the majority of our intelligentsia and our institutions, with a general trend of increasing intensity since the Civil Rights Movement, reject the theory with each degree it forces itself to be practice. To the point where we will actively choose the dumber and more criminal option if it means keeping the saddle of racial and sexual bolshevism off our backs. Though I myself personally think this was still the worse of the two options, Your H.R. is only one man. Millions of others, who only four years earlier gave the Democrats a chance to show they could be our return to normalcy, felt betrayed enough by their about face to either switch teams or not care.

A major shakeup is in order. One which may well not be for the better. Plenty already are calling the Harris candidacy a failure due to being too centrist. A preposterous argument, but one which might well win out anyway if a sufficiently charismatic, ideologic, and demagogic figure can capture the ’28 nomination. But such a deep commitment to recapturing the dumb-people vote would be a tremendous negative step for the nation, as we already have one party so skilled at the art as to be futile to challenge. The far better option would be for the Party of Elite Human Capital to finally realize that the longstanding liberal rejection of human biodiversity, or even the very concept of innate ideas and capabilities, will always fail upon contact with reality. And any attempts to undo this condition of mankind via social engineering will be doomed to failure, disappointment, and the needless infliction of cruelty on endless generations of fresh victims. Genetic engineering, IVF, or even a rise in public awareness of the importance of genetics for human intelligence: all could well bring the meaningful gains that generations of social policy have failed to provide. But policy must be made for the real world. Not imaginary ones. And even if and when we do bring about these meaningful gains, they still won’t mean we won’t have general intelligence gaps between both individuals and groups, as well as gaps in all other talents and abilities. Far better to accept the world as is and restore and recommit to our historic Anglo commitment to individual liberty, rather than foolish Franco commitment to group equality.

Unlikely? Yes. But it’s still an option.

Far more pressing is that the Republicans have now elected an honest-Injun2 HBD-pilled presidential ticket. This offers tremendous opportunity to undo decades of bad policies. The Hananian reform agenda, lain out in The Origins of Woke, may well see enactment, and the retard brigade selfishly promised jobs by our grovering chief executive may well prove only as lasting as Scaramucci. Much can be done by the Republicans to persuade smart people to vote for them again, in particular the breaking of disparate impact standards at the wheel, and the further securement of the Supreme Court to ensure the expungement of as much Warren and Burger awfulness as possible.

But Your H.R. won’t get his hopes up too much. Rightoid brainlessness and bigotry was a pressing enough concern to lose my vote even after the Biden administration proved even more of a failure than the first Trump administration. Those who willingly seek the exploitation of such forces are to be trusted even less than those sincerely stupid enough to be true believers, but the chance to avoid dealing with these people entirely was tossed aside long ago. Shameful toadying, sadly, will be the best option for many, including most of all those that deserve better. If Zelensky has to rename the Crimean Peninsula into Donaldea, or offer daughter Oleksandra’s hand in marriage to Barron,3 if such indignity be the price which need save Eastern Europe from Ruskie belligerence and restore the sovereignty of the post-Soviet era, so be it. The world as is must be the measure of our options, and many cruel choices await us, but though our short-term hopes be shattered again and again, the hope of long-term victory only grows more promising. The generation-past wish of America being more like Europe now appears hopelessly foolish even to the same leftoids who once supported it. The threats of Russia and China, though real and growing, have been again and again exposed for their extreme crookery and hollowness, masturbating themselves and their populations with chauvinism until they’ve comfortably covered up the memory of their extensive corruption and tremendous poverty relative to the Free World. History has not ended, but there is still no conceivable rival to the United States of America as the World’s supreme power, and even our worst presidents can’t ruin things enough to change that course in the foreseeable future.

We are still, by far, the country to bet on. That covers up a lot of heartache. Even for those suffering so large a defeat as November 5th.

Thanks for reading H.R.’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Well, ya can’t win ’em all.

I’m surprised by the ease with which I’m taking this. I was far more worried in ’16, but Trump will have far fewer constraints on his worst impulses this time around, and is poised to bring on average a much worse group of people to his admin than during his first term. The main reason this doesn’t seem nearly as dire a prospect is that Trump himself has declined so noticeably in vitality, and so rapidly that he may well already lack the energy to really yeltsin things up. We might even be lucky enough to have this be an abbreviated term, with him stepping down at the two-year mark to focus his last years on hedonism.

The effect of burnout and normalization can’t be neglected, neither. As creatures of flesh, there’s only so much we can chemically expend on panic before we burn out. This may well be a much worse term than the first. For as old as DJT is, he’s still only a year younger than Ayatollah Khomeini was before his own assumption of supreme leadership. The Imam was hardly the picture of health in his dotage, and his chaos machine tragically spins on almost half a century later.1 It’s best to not underestimate the damage an unchecked elderly man with unlimited power and an unquenchable sense of grievance can inflict. But our feelings don’t care about our facts. Their chemicals have already expended themselves upon us for as long as we have invested ourselves in this shameful drama. For our youngest voters, such has been nearly half their lives.

But who is Your H.R. kidding? DJT did not win because of “normalization”. November 5th was a massacre. Worse in many ways than the more devastating Electoral College defeats of Mondale and Dukakis, as Harris’ principle shortcoming was not with any individual demographic she failed to sufficiently woo, nor whom switched votes, but with the well-over ten-million Americans who voted in 2020, and stayed home in ’24. Both candidates received lower vote totals than their parties performances four year ago. But even if neither candidate managed to convince anyone from 2020 to change tickets, and even if every voter from 2020 was still voting in 2024; then for every one absent Trump voter, there were over ten Harris voters who did the same. An eight-figure loss in voters. Nearly a sixth of the prior cycle’s coalition.

When John McCain lost to Barack Obama in ’08, the Republicans were short only a twentieth of the prior cycle’s numbers. Hillary wasn’t even a hundredth short of Obama 2012; losing only due to the quirk of the Electoral College. Romney, Kerry, Dole, and even Dukakis all improved their popular numbers on their party’s prior presidential performance. The last and only time the Dems — or any other American political party, including the ones that no longer exist — have seen an eight-figure loss in voters was 1968, and that was with one of their own candidates running a poison-pill independent campaign as revenge for the passage of the ’64 Civil Rights Act. Even without a George Wallace, the Democrats have lost in Humphreyesque fashion.Subscribe

But at least this loss was convincing. There will be no coup attempt this January at least. Nor will there be any way to frame this loss as a matter of tactics. It’s not possible to lose a real election this decisively because of merely picking the wrong V.P., or not visiting the right states. This was a strategic defeat. Woke is not dead, but the American public, having the agenda forced upon us by the majority of our intelligentsia and our institutions, with a general trend of increasing intensity since the Civil Rights Movement, reject the theory with each degree it forces itself to be practice. To the point where we will actively choose the dumber and more criminal option if it means keeping the saddle of racial and sexual bolshevism off our backs. Though I myself personally think this was still the worse of the two options, Your H.R. is only one man. Millions of others, who only four years earlier gave the Democrats a chance to show they could be our return to normalcy, felt betrayed enough by their about face to either switch teams or not care.

A major shakeup is in order. One which may well not be for the better. Plenty already are calling the Harris candidacy a failure due to being too centrist. A preposterous argument, but one which might well win out anyway if a sufficiently charismatic, ideologic, and demagogic figure can capture the ’28 nomination. But such a deep commitment to recapturing the dumb-people vote would be a tremendous negative step for the nation, as we already have one party so skilled at the art as to be futile to challenge. The far better option would be for the Party of Elite Human Capital to finally realize that the longstanding liberal rejection of human biodiversity, or even the very concept of innate ideas and capabilities, will always fail upon contact with reality. And any attempts to undo this condition of mankind via social engineering will be doomed to failure, disappointment, and the needless infliction of cruelty on endless generations of fresh victims. Genetic engineering, IVF, or even a rise in public awareness of the importance of genetics for human intelligence: all could well bring the meaningful gains that generations of social policy have failed to provide. But policy must be made for the real world. Not imaginary ones. And even if and when we do bring about these meaningful gains, they still won’t mean we won’t have general intelligence gaps between both individuals and groups, as well as gaps in all other talents and abilities. Far better to accept the world as is and restore and recommit to our historic Anglo commitment to individual liberty, rather than foolish Franco commitment to group equality.

Unlikely? Yes. But it’s still an option.

Far more pressing is that the Republicans have now elected an honest-Injun2 HBD-pilled presidential ticket. This offers tremendous opportunity to undo decades of bad policies. The Hananian reform agenda, lain out in The Origins of Woke, may well see enactment, and the retard brigade selfishly promised jobs by our grovering chief executive may well prove only as lasting as Scaramucci. Much can be done by the Republicans to persuade smart people to vote for them again, in particular the breaking of disparate impact standards at the wheel, and the further securement of the Supreme Court to ensure the expungement of as much Warren and Burger awfulness as possible.

But Your H.R. won’t get his hopes up too much. Rightoid brainlessness and bigotry was a pressing enough concern to lose my vote even after the Biden administration proved even more of a failure than the first Trump administration. Those who willingly seek the exploitation of such forces are to be trusted even less than those sincerely stupid enough to be true believers, but the chance to avoid dealing with these people entirely was tossed aside long ago. Shameful toadying, sadly, will be the best option for many, including most of all those that deserve better. If Zelensky has to rename the Crimean Peninsula into Donaldea, or offer daughter Oleksandra’s hand in marriage to Barron,3 if such indignity be the price which need save Eastern Europe from Ruskie belligerence and restore the sovereignty of the post-Soviet era, so be it. The world as is must be the measure of our options, and many cruel choices await us, but though our short-term hopes be shattered again and again, the hope of long-term victory only grows more promising. The generation-past wish of America being more like Europe now appears hopelessly foolish even to the same leftoids who once supported it. The threats of Russia and China, though real and growing, have been again and again exposed for their extreme crookery and hollowness, masturbating themselves and their populations with chauvinism until they’ve comfortably covered up the memory of their extensive corruption and tremendous poverty relative to the Free World. History has not ended, but there is still no conceivable rival to the United States of America as the World’s supreme power, and even our worst presidents can’t ruin things enough to change that course in the foreseeable future.

We are still, by far, the country to bet on. That covers up a lot of heartache. Even for those suffering so large a defeat as November 5th.

Thanks for reading H.R.’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

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Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

The same cast won’t be returning next season.

A.B. Stoddard

Nov 08, 2024

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(The Bulwark / Midjourney)

THREE MONTHS AGO, the Democratic party looked robust. It was willing to push a sitting president off the ticket because of his advanced age, then it quickly united around another candidate. The Republican party, by contrast, was sticking with its (also old) convicted criminal. Parties exist to win elections, not launder money to their nominee’s lawyers or tend to the egos of elderly men—and the Democrats showed they understood that.

But that party was demolished on Tuesday.

Democrats are now reeling, and not only because of the breadth of Donald Trump’s rout, which points to a historic realignment in the electorate that will force them to adapt their policies and messaging—but also because their entire apparatus just fell apart. Their team is busted. All the big players have just participated in, and influenced, their last election. They will have their opinions, and they will render declarations, but they are done.

President Joe Biden crawls, humiliated, into retirement in January after being expelled. He will be blamed forever by many of his fellow Democrats for Trump’s return to power. Kamala Harris, a vice president and former senator who never had deep roots in the party, has suffered a devastating defeat. And while Harris sources said her concession speech Wednesday was designed to position her to remain a party leader, that appears naïve.

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Trump has defeated not one but two women, the nation’s first and only females to become major party presidential nominees. As a consequence, popular Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are now unlikely to lead their party.

Indeed, given the country’s populist turn, the Democratic party may shy away from elite lawyers in the future—bad news for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Someone like Sen. John Fetterman or Rep. Ruben Gallego—a former Marine who grew up poor, had his own bed for the first time when he arrived at Harvard University, and seems poised to soon be Arizona’s senator-elect—may be smarter choices. Gavin Newsom need not apply.

As for who will champion the party’s ideas and reinvigorate the demoralized grassroots behind new candidates—those jobs are open too.

The Clintons and the Obamas, of the free-trade establishment and of the past, won’t be wanted in a party that must reposition itself to win over working-class voters it has hemorrhaged since 2016.

Rep. James Clyburn, age 84, helped Biden win the party’s nomination in 2020 but he is not playing kingmaker anymore.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, age 73, has never been influential in the party and is now headed into the wilderness as Senate Democrats are unlikely to regain a majority in the chamber for the foreseeable future.

Jaime Harrison who runs the Democratic National Committee, will pass the baton in humility and bewilderment . . . but to whom?Join

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has served just one term as leader of the House Democrats, is the only current leader who will be part of the future Democratic party.

Nancy Pelosi remains the only senior leader in the party with any moral authority. Had she not succeeded in pushing Biden out in July, Trump’s victory would have been far larger. She passed power successfully to Jeffries and is a shrewd strategist connected at all levels who will be clear eyed about the party’s path forward. But she is also 84 and was just elected to her twentieth term in the House.

It’s hard to know where to start.

Trump’s smashing win shows he has built a durable and diverse working-class coalition. He held strong with every voting bloc, and made gains with most. In 2020, he lost Latino men to Biden by 36 to 59 percent; this year, he won them 55 to 43. Many women voted for abortion rights ballot initiatives while supporting Trump, whose Supreme Court justices helped overturn RoeYoung men under age 30, whom Biden won by 15 points four years ago, now voted for Trump by 14 points. The entire country, including blue states, moved rightward.

This affirmed the GOP argument that Democrats are considered elitist and out of touch, speaking only to the 43 percent of the electorate with college degrees. They are seen as soft on crime, wrong on energy production, and as radical culture warriors who expect us all to welcome boys on to girls sports teams and say “birthing persons;” people who, in a quest for social justice, label everyone who disagrees with them bigots and racists.

Trump’s advertisements during football games about Harris supporting prisoners having taxpayer-funded sex-change operations in prison didn’t just resonate because it turned off Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. At a deeper level, it raised doubts that no matter how centrist she sounded in her campaign she might give in to pressure from the left.

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SINCE DEMOCRATS’ DEFEAT ON TUESDAY, two camps have already formed and are leaking to the media. One believes that if only Biden had left sooner and there had been a primary, Harris (or someone else) could have become a stronger candidate and prevailed. The other accepts that Harris never had a chance and argues that no Democrat could have stopped a Trump victory.

Not all of the recriminations are productive. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who should also take a bow, excoriated Democrats the day after the election for abandoning working-class people. He criticized sending billions to the Israeli government for its “all out war against the Palestinian people” and questioned whether Democrats “have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

Since all those working-class Americans just voted for Trump’s corrosive plan to give Elon Musk unfettered power in his administration, yes, it’s true: Democrats probably don’t have any idea how to do that.

Jaime Harrison slapped back at Sanders on Thursday, calling his criticism “straight up BS” and crediting Biden with being the most pro-worker president of his lifetime.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive considered a future presidential candidate, called for the party to start over. “There needs to be new thinking, new ideas and a new direction. And, you know, the establishment produced a disaster.”

Others, however, are blaming progressives. Rep. Ritchie Torres argued that the left has “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’” He added that “the working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

Given this rift, finding consensus on a new policy agenda will be confounding. Democrats support expanding health care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, taxing the wealthy, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, paid family leave, and childcare support. All of which are popular, and most of which Republicans oppose. They will argue over how this is messaged—and will presumably struggle to argue that if the economy stays strong in the next few years, it should be attributed to Biden’s legislative accomplishments—like the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill, and new clean energy manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act—and not to Trump policies.

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DEMOCRATS WILL UNITE against Trump and his policies, too. But they must overcome intraparty division on immigration. The party needs to back new restrictions while opposing Trump’s promised plans for massive deportations of immigrants. They can’t deny that Biden’s failure to control the border was a huge gift to Trump. It grew during his term to become a top concern across the political spectrum and added to a sense of chaos. As David Frum warned, so aptly, in 2019: “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”

Trump will not convince other nations to absorb 15 million people but he will round up thousands and likely hold them in internment camps, which could become a spectacle as vivid and troubling as the family-separation policy of Trump’s first term and will damage the economy as well. Democrats should again push for passage of the strict border-security bill written by Sen. James Lankford that Trump spiked.

Finally, as Democrats attempt to appeal to those who have stopped hearing them, they should recognize that voters no longer want to hear about Trump.

He will use the power of his second term in dangerous, and likely unconstitutional, ways. The results could be calamitous. But a majority of voters—even after his coup attempt—have given him permission to do as he pleases. And so has the Supreme Court. If Democrats want to secure an electoral majority again, they will have to choose their battles.

They will also have to get much better at talking with people, and listening to them. Trump will work hard to make sure fewer and fewer voters listen to Democrats, and that he’s doing all the talking.

The Bulwark

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Democrats Now Must Rebuild Their Obliterated Party

The same cast won’t be returning next season.

A.B. Stoddard

Nov 08, 2024

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(The Bulwark / Midjourney)

THREE MONTHS AGO, the Democratic party looked robust. It was willing to push a sitting president off the ticket because of his advanced age, then it quickly united around another candidate. The Republican party, by contrast, was sticking with its (also old) convicted criminal. Parties exist to win elections, not launder money to their nominee’s lawyers or tend to the egos of elderly men—and the Democrats showed they understood that.

But that party was demolished on Tuesday.

Democrats are now reeling, and not only because of the breadth of Donald Trump’s rout, which points to a historic realignment in the electorate that will force them to adapt their policies and messaging—but also because their entire apparatus just fell apart. Their team is busted. All the big players have just participated in, and influenced, their last election. They will have their opinions, and they will render declarations, but they are done.

President Joe Biden crawls, humiliated, into retirement in January after being expelled. He will be blamed forever by many of his fellow Democrats for Trump’s return to power. Kamala Harris, a vice president and former senator who never had deep roots in the party, has suffered a devastating defeat. And while Harris sources said her concession speech Wednesday was designed to position her to remain a party leader, that appears naïve.

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Trump has defeated not one but two women, the nation’s first and only females to become major party presidential nominees. As a consequence, popular Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are now unlikely to lead their party.

Indeed, given the country’s populist turn, the Democratic party may shy away from elite lawyers in the future—bad news for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Someone like Sen. John Fetterman or Rep. Ruben Gallego—a former Marine who grew up poor, had his own bed for the first time when he arrived at Harvard University, and seems poised to soon be Arizona’s senator-elect—may be smarter choices. Gavin Newsom need not apply.

As for who will champion the party’s ideas and reinvigorate the demoralized grassroots behind new candidates—those jobs are open too.

The Clintons and the Obamas, of the free-trade establishment and of the past, won’t be wanted in a party that must reposition itself to win over working-class voters it has hemorrhaged since 2016.

Rep. James Clyburn, age 84, helped Biden win the party’s nomination in 2020 but he is not playing kingmaker anymore.

Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer, age 73, has never been influential in the party and is now headed into the wilderness as Senate Democrats are unlikely to regain a majority in the chamber for the foreseeable future.

Jaime Harrison who runs the Democratic National Committee, will pass the baton in humility and bewilderment . . . but to whom?Join

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who has served just one term as leader of the House Democrats, is the only current leader who will be part of the future Democratic party.

Nancy Pelosi remains the only senior leader in the party with any moral authority. Had she not succeeded in pushing Biden out in July, Trump’s victory would have been far larger. She passed power successfully to Jeffries and is a shrewd strategist connected at all levels who will be clear eyed about the party’s path forward. But she is also 84 and was just elected to her twentieth term in the House.

It’s hard to know where to start.

Trump’s smashing win shows he has built a durable and diverse working-class coalition. He held strong with every voting bloc, and made gains with most. In 2020, he lost Latino men to Biden by 36 to 59 percent; this year, he won them 55 to 43. Many women voted for abortion rights ballot initiatives while supporting Trump, whose Supreme Court justices helped overturn RoeYoung men under age 30, whom Biden won by 15 points four years ago, now voted for Trump by 14 points. The entire country, including blue states, moved rightward.

This affirmed the GOP argument that Democrats are considered elitist and out of touch, speaking only to the 43 percent of the electorate with college degrees. They are seen as soft on crime, wrong on energy production, and as radical culture warriors who expect us all to welcome boys on to girls sports teams and say “birthing persons;” people who, in a quest for social justice, label everyone who disagrees with them bigots and racists.

Trump’s advertisements during football games about Harris supporting prisoners having taxpayer-funded sex-change operations in prison didn’t just resonate because it turned off Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. At a deeper level, it raised doubts that no matter how centrist she sounded in her campaign she might give in to pressure from the left.

Keep up with all our articles, newsletters, livestreams, and podcasts:Join


SINCE DEMOCRATS’ DEFEAT ON TUESDAY, two camps have already formed and are leaking to the media. One believes that if only Biden had left sooner and there had been a primary, Harris (or someone else) could have become a stronger candidate and prevailed. The other accepts that Harris never had a chance and argues that no Democrat could have stopped a Trump victory.

Not all of the recriminations are productive. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who should also take a bow, excoriated Democrats the day after the election for abandoning working-class people. He criticized sending billions to the Israeli government for its “all out war against the Palestinian people” and questioned whether Democrats “have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power? Probably not.”

Since all those working-class Americans just voted for Trump’s corrosive plan to give Elon Musk unfettered power in his administration, yes, it’s true: Democrats probably don’t have any idea how to do that.

Jaime Harrison slapped back at Sanders on Thursday, calling his criticism “straight up BS” and crediting Biden with being the most pro-worker president of his lifetime.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive considered a future presidential candidate, called for the party to start over. “There needs to be new thinking, new ideas and a new direction. And, you know, the establishment produced a disaster.”

Others, however, are blaming progressives. Rep. Ritchie Torres argued that the left has “managed to alienate historic numbers of Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and Jews from the Democratic Party with absurdities like ‘Defund the Police’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ or ‘Latinx.’” He added that “the working class is not buying the ivory-towered nonsense that the far left is selling.”

Given this rift, finding consensus on a new policy agenda will be confounding. Democrats support expanding health care, lowering the cost of prescription drugs, taxing the wealthy, raising the minimum wage, expanding Medicaid and Medicare, paid family leave, and childcare support. All of which are popular, and most of which Republicans oppose. They will argue over how this is messaged—and will presumably struggle to argue that if the economy stays strong in the next few years, it should be attributed to Biden’s legislative accomplishments—like the CHIPS Act, the infrastructure bill, and new clean energy manufacturing in the Inflation Reduction Act—and not to Trump policies.

Share The Bulwark


DEMOCRATS WILL UNITE against Trump and his policies, too. But they must overcome intraparty division on immigration. The party needs to back new restrictions while opposing Trump’s promised plans for massive deportations of immigrants. They can’t deny that Biden’s failure to control the border was a huge gift to Trump. It grew during his term to become a top concern across the political spectrum and added to a sense of chaos. As David Frum warned, so aptly, in 2019: “If Liberals Won’t Enforce Borders, Fascists Will.”

Trump will not convince other nations to absorb 15 million people but he will round up thousands and likely hold them in internment camps, which could become a spectacle as vivid and troubling as the family-separation policy of Trump’s first term and will damage the economy as well. Democrats should again push for passage of the strict border-security bill written by Sen. James Lankford that Trump spiked.

Finally, as Democrats attempt to appeal to those who have stopped hearing them, they should recognize that voters no longer want to hear about Trump.

He will use the power of his second term in dangerous, and likely unconstitutional, ways. The results could be calamitous. But a majority of voters—even after his coup attempt—have given him permission to do as he pleases. And so has the Supreme Court. If Democrats want to secure an electoral majority again, they will have to choose their battles.

hey will also have to get much better at talking with people, and listening to them. Trump will work hard to make sure fewer and fewer voters listen to Democrats, and that he’s doing all the talking.

How to Help Your Parents Age Well

I see so many people who spend more years caring for their elderly parents than they spent raising their own children. This is becoming more and more commonplace as advances in medical science continue to extend the lives of Baby Boomers.

Aging parents are all different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with every parent. However, from a “coping” point-of-view, I’ve come up with 7 basic strategies a grown child can employ to keep his or her sanity while still providing loving care to a parent or parents.

  1. Accept that aging is a part of life. Avoid saying things to yourself like, “I can’t believe this is happening.” Or: “I wish my parents didn’t get old.” Instead of looking at it as a burden, try to view it as an opportunity for a new kind of relationship. Older people are not just a burden. They have a perspective on life that goes back a lot further than yours. Things can be learned from that perspective.
  2. Be clear with yourself about what you’re able and willing to do for your older parent. If you’re prepared to have your aging mother or father live with you, that’s fine. But don’t think this is your obligation. Other options do exist. Weigh those options carefully and be at ease with the one that you choose. If you’re uncomfortable, your parent will sense it.
  3. Don’t overcompensate. If you feel guilty for not being available enough, then you’ll overcompensate in inappropriate ways. You’ll do favors that aren’t reasonable or realistic. You’ll be late for work. You’ll give up your own relaxation time. Your guilty fawning will turn your elderly parent into a brat! And you will become angry and resentful. Many take it out on their parents, so nobody benefits from this supposed “sacrifice.”
  4. Replace guilt and stress with rational self-talk. For example: “Aging is a natural part of life. It is what it is. Under these circumstances, no living situation will be perfect or will please everyone — and that’s OK.” Keep perspective!
  5. Share responsibility if possible. This is particularly important if you’re still raising children or have a job to manage. If you have siblings, hold regular meetings to discuss what makes most sense for each to do. Some people hate being chauffeurs, while others are fine with it. Some people are happy to sit and chat with an older person, while others get impatient after five minutes. Assign responsibility based on what makes most sense for each family member to do. If possible, hire outside help.
  6. We all need and want our space. It’s important to set — and remember — your boundaries. Gently enforce them by being willing to say, “I’m sorry, I’m not able to do that for you right now.” This actually puts most parents at ease. Most elderly people are sensitive to not feeling that they’re burdens. If they know they can count on you to sometimes say no, it will make them more at ease when you say yes, because they’ll know you mean it!
  7. Get used to making decisions for your parents. Give them as much choice as you can, but when it’s something big, don’t fret over having to disappoint them. It’s up to YOU to be consistent and do what you know you have to do, without feeling wishy-washy or guilty. Somebody has to be in charge.

Life is sometimes about role reversals. Probably the ultimate role reversal is when your aging parent who once took care of you now needs your care. Just as mommy or daddy once led the way for you, it’s now your turn to do the same for them. In order to be the best that you can be for your aging parent(s), it’s supremely important that you also take care of yourself in the process.

Michael J. Hurd

A weekly reader of this column emails that insignificant things often annoy her. For example, she was upset in a restaurant recently because a child was making some noise. She admits that the kid was just being a kid, and that the parents seemed to be doing their best to contain him. But it still ruined her dinner. This happens to her in other situations too. She asks me what she can do to change her attitude.

One of my favorite techniques in solving these problems is “cost-benefit analysis.” It’s a simple process whereby you look at the time, energy and emotional cost of paying attention to disruptive or annoying thoughts. I don’t know what her thoughts were in the restaurant, but they probably went something like this: “I can’t believe these people brought their kid in here! And lucky me — right next to my table!”

Notice that I’m calling the THOUGHTS disruptive and annoying. That’s the key principle of cognitive therapy. It’s not the child (or whatever) that’s directly causing the anxiety. It’s your mind. You can change your mind by changing your thoughts, and you can change your thoughts by changing your perspective. For example, she could have tried thinking, “Just because this kid is making noise doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy my food. His parents really are trying to deal with it, and most likely he’ll settle down. And, if it gets bad enough, I can leave or move to another table.” The point is that you can CHOOSE how you look at something.

I realize it’s hard to do this when you’re under stress, so why not try a little (free) cognitive therapy on yourself. Get a notepad, and make two columns. The first column says “costs” and the second says “benefits.” Consider your frustration on the road. One way to think while driving is, “This is terrible. I’m stuck behind this slow person.” Then write down the costs and benefits of that thought. Maybe something like, “It makes me feel good to be angry about the slow driver. I release some stress, and then it passes. I move on.” Feeling angry and upset (cost) is outweighed by the immediate stress reduction you get by complaining about it (benefit). But what if the cost of being angry turns out to be more anger, and escalates into bad decision-making while you’re driving? Are these costs worth the anger? Probably not. It might make sense to think of another way to respond.

Cost-benefit analysis, originally developed by psychiatrists and therapists such as Aaron Beck, David Burns and Albert Ellis, is not just an intellectual exercise. It can truly change the way you react to troubling situations. You start with the premise that your thoughts determine the way you feel. If you don’t like the way you feel, then find alternative thoughts, which, in turn, will create different feelings. Consistently applied, it becomes a habit.

I look at situations like road rage or anger over children in restaurants as the “is/should” conflict. People get mad because they feel like there SHOULD not be a child in the restaurant, or the slow driver SHOULD not be in front of them. But it doesn’t matter how it should be — all that matters now is the way it IS. There IS a child sitting next to you. You can leave or you can change the way you think about it. Deal with it, because anger will change nothing (other than, possibly, your life expectancy).

There are times when we are surrounded by stupid behavior. But at the same time, our outlook on those behaviors can determine how we feel. The choices we make apply not only to how we act, but to how we think. If you want to change how you feel about something, either take action or change your thinking. The choice is yours.

Michael J. Hurd