I'm enjoying the analysis of where Democrats went wrong, this one from a republican consultant Alex Castellanos on X writing with VDH-like clarity. I hate to say it but the only thing that could revive Democrats right now is Republican failure. Don't give them that.
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"I hope you will let me offer a few thoughts on the current state of the Democratic Party. The breaking news? It’s much worse than Democrats think."
Let Them Eat Woke
By Alex Castellanos
If you have ever been desperate and adrift, you understand the Democratic Party’s frustration.
One day, James Carville tells his party to do nothing and let President Trump destroy himself. Another, the Montgomery Burns of American politics, Senator Chuck Schumer, advises a strategy of sustained resistance, rallying his troops to “make Donald Trump the quickest lame duck in history.” The old Senate Minority Leader feeds his angry, cannibalistic followers in hope they won’t eat him.
Some Democrats protest their party has been too woke. Others, not woke enough. Pete Buttigieg, a man not often confused with a lumberjack, swaps “darn” and “shucks” for saltier words to demonstrate his party’s determination. The Democrats’ new flag may flaunt a manly spittoon, but still, it’s rainbow-colored. They thrash about like sinking swimmers, afraid they are going down for the last time, grasping for anything that might float them to the surface.
Here is a bit of advice from a swimmer who, on occasion, has nearly slept with the fishes: No political issue or strategy will save you. Your problems extend far beyond politics.
You are dying of old age.
Democrats, your party has a product problem, not a marketing problem. Don’t look around. Look in the mirror. Your problem is staring back.
You’ve lost the ability to govern your country. That’s why your party expired in 2024 with Kamala Harris.
That election was not a changing of the guard, it was the end of an era. The organizing principles that have defined the Democratic Party since the 1930s are now exhausted and near the grave.
Once, the modern Democratic Party had a governing philosophy. Democrats had a set of beliefs about how government should function, its purpose, and its relationship with its citizens. They had a system through which they could productively exercise authority.
They could make government work.
In response to the Great Depression, FDR led our nation into a new era. He created big government to pull the country out of a sinkhole. The “public sector,” oddly detached from the actual public, grew through WWII, prospered with the post-war boom, and swelled again with Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.”
The Keynesian idea that government should manage the economy—and everything it touched—was eventually embraced by establishment Republicans. It held that Washington’s nobility should provide and enforce the solutions to all human problems. So, from Nixon through Obama and Biden, the power of the collective state ballooned. And a naive America cheered.
Washington’s prelates told us the hard work of building a better society did not have to be done by its citizens. They promised, “Less responsibility for you!” and “More free stuff for everybody!” Fat, happy, and indulging in capitalism’s success, we threw them wads of money and let them control everything.
They constructed a machine, a Fourth Branch of government, The Bureaucracy, mentioned nowhere in the Constitution.
Independent and unaccountable, the Fourth Branch intertwined with others, manufactured NGOs, and engineered a tangle of interconnected assembly lines that turned back on themselves and fed each other.
Our public servants amassed such money and authority that they became our masters. Their creation swelled cancerously as they gorged on the toil of the people. Our rulers became sick with power, and their virtue signaling produced feverish absurdities: Men can be women. Genders are unlimited. Children should be disfigured. Free speech is violence. Borders are racist. The real victims of crime are the criminals.
And last November, in front of the entire world, to the horror of the Ancien Régime, the cancer they could not stop feeding killed them all.
Above us, Ronald Reagan is smiling. His jibe that “We’re from the government, and we’re here to help you” was the laugh line at the old Democratic Party’s wake.
The Democratic Party of FDR and the Great Society, or what is left of it, is a ridiculous anachronism. It’s obsolescence runs deeper than its ideas. If you don’t think that party fears the future, note its defensiveness as Elon Musk and DOGE assault their corruption. Democrats tremble at the efficiency of technology, much as elevator operators dread automation. The party’s top-down, aristocratic idea of government is as out-of-date as powdered wigs.
President Trump is performing brilliantly. To call what Trump and Musk are doing ‘downsizing’ is to miss the point. We’re witnessing a fundamental transformation at a level not seen since Franklin Roosevelt: the rebirth of our government as a leaner, more democratic and compassionate servant, in tune with the times ahead.
In this new “Golden Age,” Americans will be freer. We will no longer be sheep, lorded over by an old kleptocracy of shepherds. In this season of our history, if we have the will to stay the course, we can take back our borders, our schools, and our economy. We can reclaim our government, our safety, and our speech.
This leads to the only advice I can offer the Trump Administration: Close the door on a Democratic comeback in the approaching off-year elections. Explain that the Democrats are yesterday, and it is President Trump who is leading us into the future. Democrats are old. Republicans are new. In our optimistic nation, freedom is always a new idea, and ‘new’ is our most powerful word.
That’s my suggestion: Paint the bigger picture. Brand our flailing, desperate opponents ‘#YesterdaysDemocrats.’ Bury them where they stand—in the past.
@FoxNews @BretBaier @marthamaccallum @DanaPerino @elonmusk
