Ruy Texeira, writing for liberalpatriot.com, has just published an article titled “The Democrats’ Brahmin Left Problem”. In it, he details how the Democrat Party has been overtaken by “woke” elitists and, because of this, how they have lost ordinary “working class” citizens (something – pardon the immodesty – I have been writing about pretty regularly).
There is a ton of useful reading in this article. But I was particularly struck by what Peggy Noonan – ostensibly a Republican, but a frequent critic of that party, and especially of Donald Trump – has to say about this subject.
Here it is (the bold print is mine):
Sometimes a party takes a concussive blow, such as the 2024 presidential loss, and you can see: They’ll shape up and come back, they’re pros, they lost an election but not their dignity. But now and then you see: No, these guys don’t know what happened, they are going to lose over and over before they get the message.
What I saw Tuesday night [at Trump’s Congressional address] is that the Democratic Party in 2025, as evinced by its leaders on Capitol Hill, is too proud and stupid to change…
[Here is some] advice for the Democrats.
I will start with something they won’t believe. In politics, there is bringing the love and bringing the hate. When the 13-year-old boy who had brain cancer and has always wanted to be a cop is appointed as an honorary Secret Service agent, laminated ID and all, and the child, surprised by the gesture, hugs the normally taciturn head of the Secret Service, the only thing to do, because you are human, is cheer that child. And when the president honors a young man whose late father, a veteran and policeman, had inspired his wish to serve, and dreams of attending West Point, and the president says that he has some sway in the admissions office and young man you are going to West Point—I not only got choked up when it happened I’m choked up as I write. The boy with cancer high-fives the young man, and the only response to such sweetness is tears in your eyes.
That moment is “the love.” It was showing love for regular Americans. To cheer them is to cheer us. It shows admiration for and affiliation with normal people who try, get through, endure and hold on to good hopes.
The Democrats brought the hate. They sat stone-faced, joyless and loveless. They don’t show love for Americans anymore. They look down on them, feel distance from them, instruct them, remind them to feel bad that they’re surrounded by injustice because, well, they’re unjust….
Mr. Trump says: No, man, I love you.
Which is better? Which is kinder, more generous? Which inspires? Which wins?
Democrats have to understand where they are. They have completely lost their reputation as the party of the workingman. With their bad governance of the major cities and their airy, abstract obsessions with identity politics and gender ideology, they have driven away the working class, for whom life isn’t airy or abstract. Democrats must stop listening to the left of the left of their party. It tugs them too far away from the vast majority of Americans. They have been radical on the border, on crime, on boys in the girls’ locker room. They should take those issues off the table by admitting they got them wrong.
Excellent analysis.
The only thing I disagree with is Ms. Noonan’s conclusion that Democrats “should take those issues off the table by admitting they got them wrong”.
It’s not that easy.
Why? Because Democrats, in reality, have put themselves in a near-impossible position.
To do so – to admit they were wrong – is to butt heads with the hard-left “woke” crowd currently running the show (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jamie Raskin, Jasmine Crockett, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, etc.). That would be nothing short of civil war. And there’s no guarantee who would win.
And even if the “we got them wrong” crowd prevailed? Apart from putting the party in complete disarray, who would believe that the same people telling us one thing for years, suddenly had a sincere change of heart… juuuusssttt, coincidentally, when it turns out that their positions are losers in the vote department. That starts at 0% credibility…and has nowhere to go but down.
Personally, I don’t see how Democrats dig themselves out of the hole they have dug any time soon.
