Nationally, parties either accumulate political capital or they spend it. Clinton saw his drubbing as a call to accumulate capital by reaching across the aisle to strengthen the economy, cut spending and reduce crime. Obama believed his personal favorability (resulting from a "happy economy" based on illegitimate QE) gave him the political power to double down - hard - with his "pen and a phone" strategy that defied congressional majorities. Unfortunately for the Dems, they have neither a Clinton nor an Obama right now and their bank of political capital is as empty as their bench.
The other significant problem for the Dems is the corrupt and fraudulent finance operation they've been running has been uncovered and zeroed out. Laundering taxpayer dollars for campaigns, get-out-the-vote operations and political activism through NGOs won't be an option for them in 2026 or 2028. They're going to have to rely on their own grassroots going forward without tens of thousands of taxpayer funded "activists". And we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on this: ActBlue is under investigation and the rats are jumping from that ship already.
So to sum up the Dems quandary: they have no leadership, no ideas and no more access to illegitimate cash. That, and they have a massive corruption stink about them. They don't need a political pivot - they need to start over.
Problem is, nobody ever starts over. Most of the incumbents are going to get re-elected. The lowest re-election rate in the last 60 years was 2010, and that was still 85%. Yes, they can change their policies and priorities, but those changes are going to be incremental.
Trump-hatred isn't going to work as well in 2028 - but I can see them gearing up already with the Vance-hatred.
Their worn out strategy failed pretty spectacularly in November, yet I see a doubling-down. It’s bound to fail again - unless the Republicans fail to learn from the Democrats’ mistake, which is to overplay their hand on debatably popular issues. Which they may be doing already.
Spot on, Peter! Democrats are no longer cool, rather they are HIP (Hateful, Intolerant and Petulant😡😡). That’s not particularly attractive to prospective voters. The Dems will either change or become an irrelevant political party.
Nationally, parties either accumulate political capital or they spend it. Clinton saw his drubbing as a call to accumulate capital by reaching across the aisle to strengthen the economy, cut spending and reduce crime. Obama believed his personal favorability (resulting from a "happy economy" based on illegitimate QE) gave him the political power to double down - hard - with his "pen and a phone" strategy that defied congressional majorities. Unfortunately for the Dems, they have neither a Clinton nor an Obama right now and their bank of political capital is as empty as their bench.
The other significant problem for the Dems is the corrupt and fraudulent finance operation they've been running has been uncovered and zeroed out. Laundering taxpayer dollars for campaigns, get-out-the-vote operations and political activism through NGOs won't be an option for them in 2026 or 2028. They're going to have to rely on their own grassroots going forward without tens of thousands of taxpayer funded "activists". And we've only seen the tip of the iceberg on this: ActBlue is under investigation and the rats are jumping from that ship already.
So to sum up the Dems quandary: they have no leadership, no ideas and no more access to illegitimate cash. That, and they have a massive corruption stink about them. They don't need a political pivot - they need to start over.
Problem is, nobody ever starts over. Most of the incumbents are going to get re-elected. The lowest re-election rate in the last 60 years was 2010, and that was still 85%. Yes, they can change their policies and priorities, but those changes are going to be incremental.
Incremental...or superficial.
Trump-hatred isn't going to work as well in 2028 - but I can see them gearing up already with the Vance-hatred.
Their worn out strategy failed pretty spectacularly in November, yet I see a doubling-down. It’s bound to fail again - unless the Republicans fail to learn from the Democrats’ mistake, which is to overplay their hand on debatably popular issues. Which they may be doing already.
Yeah, that's in the works, but Trump's.... "style".... makes it easy to stoke hatred of him. Vance isn't going to offer that.
Spot on, Peter! Democrats are no longer cool, rather they are HIP (Hateful, Intolerant and Petulant😡😡). That’s not particularly attractive to prospective voters. The Dems will either change or become an irrelevant political party.