Victor Davis Hanson
Democrats mostly see Americans merely as a conglomeration of separate tribes: blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, gays, women, transsexuals, and upscale bicoastal whites. In their tribalist views, all the groups are seen as more loyal to their own tribal members than they are either to other tribes or to America itself.
In what they call “intersectionality,” Democrats believe that they have to fuse and weld together the disparate bands by tailor-made concessions to each. So, Leftists, in the manner of Roman emperors bidding for the loyalties of the Praetorian Guard, then barter for the support of each tribe by promises of various entitlements, exemptions, and policies. They do not see voters as universally human with identical desires and aspirations, who embrace shared national wishes for affordable housing, food, transportation, power, fuel, and health care that transcend what differences they may appear to hold by their respective superficial appearances.
In contrast, Trump and the MAGA movement likewise appreciated the various tribal and special interest groups in America. But, in contrast to Democrats, they sought to unite all factions by their shared concerns over crime, inflation, affordable housing, border security, and deterring enemies abroad. Those worries would trump their individual racial or gender differences that then became incidental, not essential, to who they were. In sum, Trump of all people substituted class concerns for racial and sexual tribalism, and mirabile dictu, proved far more ecumenical in attracting new constituencies than past “moderates” like the Bushes, John McCain, Bob Dole, and Mitt Romney.
The more such Republican inclusiveness won out, all the more furious Democrats weirdly turned on their own tribalist constituencies to blame them for the November loss. So, the Obamas charged that blacks suffered from false consciousness—in Marxist terms of not knowing what “really” was good for them (unless they listened to their master tutors, Barack and Michelle Obama).
Party hacks blamed Hispanics for “selling out” their elite liberal patrons by voting to close the border and keep their communities safe and prosperous. Some clueless leftists thought Trump should close the border to punish apostate Mexican Americans unaware that the majority of the latter wanted the border closed.
The hard-left women of The View damned “white women” for supposedly voting in ways that were too materialist—like ensuring safety for their children, affordability for their households, and honor and pride for the country. They too were in an echo chamber as their shrillness, quasi-racism, and incompetence bled their audiences. Indeed, for the first time in history, pay-to-watch Fox News in the Morning, hosted by African American Harris Faulkner (The Faulkner Focus) captured a larger audience than the free-to-watch The View.
In sum, the Democrats are atomized, each faction steadily smaller and shriller than a possible whole—all fighting with one another, none willing to conduct an autopsy of what went wrong.
Or is it worse than that—given the Democratic National Committee just elected hard left Minnesotan Ken Martin, known previously for tweeting that then President Trump was guilty of treason, by citing the demonstrably false story that Russians were giving the Taliban bounties for killing Americans and that Trump had done nothing about it. Martin comes to the DNC from running the Minnesota Democratic Party and on the recommendation of his close friend Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. But note Walz proved one of the most inept vice-presidential candidates in history and contributed to the 2024 Harris defeat. And Martin did not reverse Minnesota’s bleeding of leftist voters; in fact, Harris got fewer votes in Minnesota in 2024 than Biden had in 2020.
Perhaps the best simile is that the Democrats are acting like addicts and cannot break their woke-DEI drug that they apparently must inject to survive—even as they accept that such fixations are lethal habits that are killing their own party.
Nevertheless, like all end-stage addicts, Democrats feel that perhaps just one more hot shot, just one more powerful, pure fix will send them into nirvana rather than finally to oblivion. And so, they have forgotten nothing and have thus learned nothing.
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