Hostage To The Horde

President Trump took to the stage last week to do what he does so well: put on a show. Nothing new here. He's reached the White House twice in no small part because he knows how to play to the voters. Mixing in achievements, promises, hyperbole, some questionable claims, and a bushel of emotional ploys, he energized both his base and his party across over an hour and a half.

My take on his agenda remains a mixed bag, with his tariff mania standing as my biggest objection (with the caveat that he’s only been seated two months, so I wait and see), but what interests me more today is the state of his opposition. Trump set a trap for the Democrats, and they marched right into it. Full throttle, and proudly. They again failed to read the national "room," and chose to sit in scowling silence as Trump made a 13 year old cancer survivor an honorary member of the Secret Service, as he spoke to the families of victims-of-migrants Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, and as he spoke of the arrest of Kabul Airport bombing mastermind Mohammad Sharifullah.

Yes, all these photo-ops are indeed political stunts, but so are wearing matching pink suits, banging a cane incessantly to the point of being escorted out, and holding up little signs with cutesy messages. Speeches are theater, and every President humanizes his administration during States of the Union.

The opposition party, and this applies to both Team Red and Team Blue, has to walk a fine line during these stunts. Too much concurring enthusiasm, and they ‘betray’ their base. Too little, and they turn off the voters. Scowl at a 13 year old cancer survivor's moment, and they beclown themselves.

Unfortunately, the beclowning is what the Dems' left flank continues to demand. The lack of self-awareness there would be astounding were it not so "more of the same." Despite losing big to a party headed up by a widely reviled former President, despite having keystones of their cultural agenda rejected by the voters, the Angry Left horde continues to hold the party hostage. The party's behavior at Trump's speech made that clear.

It also is clear that the Dems are still ignoring the wider message of this past election - that the nation is just not interested in being dragged into the Left's vision of society. The Great Rejection of the Left's border policies; obsession with transgender activism, pronouns, and gender identities; antipathy to the victims of crime, free speech, and freedom of religion; forcing green energy and electric cars on us; regulating every inch of our lives; divisive zero-sum identity politics; and more is the real lesson of this past election.

A lesson the still-dominant faction of the Democratic Party doesn't want to hear.

As a result, the once-reliable constituencies that shifted away from Team Blue will continue breaking the faith and quitting the plantation. This will, in turn, concentrate the power of the Angry Left that is demanding continued #resistance to everything that Trump and the GOP do, merits notwithstanding. The anger and opposition to the DOGE effort's unmasking of profligate waste - though not really uncovered, because we've all known that tens or hundreds of billions are wasted or worse every year - is an affront to every taxpayer and every citizen, present and future.

It's also a signal: 'Our strategy is to criticize and obstruct everything until we get back in power, then we will resume our agenda.'

Which is a problem. Voters who aren't one with this agenda but aren't happy with the populist direction of the GOP's agenda either are left out in the cold.

Now they know how libertarians feel.

The Democrats' campaign strategy this past election was based on Trump-hatred. It didn't work. Trump played to the voters, while Harris promised to "do unto" the voters the way Biden and whoever was pulling his strings did. Since Trump is term-limited, Trump-hatred isn't going to work as well in 2028.

In 1994, after his party got shellacked at the ballot box, Bill Clinton tacked to the center, co-opted the most popular GOP policies, and made them his own. He enjoyed much success the latter six years of his term, and even came across as a sympathetic figure during his metoo-before-#MeToo moment.

In 2010, after his party got shellacked at the ballot box, Barack Obama dug his heels in, ignored the voters’ message, doubled down on the policies that cost the Democrats the House, and despite defeating Milquetoast Mitt Romney in 2012, lost his party the Senate in 2014 and a cumulative 1000+ legislative seats across his eight years. And set the stage for Trump's first victory.

Today's Democrats appear to be choosing the Obama path rather than the Clinton model. This may work in slowing Trump's agenda, and the tiny GOP House majority suggests the Dems stand a good chance at winning the House in 2026, but if their message is "back to the Biden agenda," they may have another rude awakening. And set the stage for another populist-GOP President 2028.

Strategist James Carville believes the Dems should look to co-opt the most popular policies currently pushed by the GOP in an effort to recapture the voters they lost. That mirrors the Clinton approach. The Angry Left horde, on the other hand, wants to press on with its agenda, no matter its unpopularity. That's the Obama approach. History favors the Clinton approach, but the present-day Left's arrogance predicts the Obama approach.

Which will leave them with the same strategy as last year: rely on dislike of Trump for electoral success.

We saw how that turned out.