If Only Democrats Were In Disarray

It’s be an improvement.

The Democratic Party appears in shambles. Democrats suffered a devastating defeat in the 2024 elections, losing both the presidency and Senate and failing to regain the House. They’ve kept the same leadership that presided over this loss, and despite losing considerable ground with young people and working-class minorities, House Democrats have just elected committee chairs who are variations of white, elderly, and possibly dying.

However, Democrats aren’t actually in “disarray.” The party’s operating pretty much as it always has, but the most well-run Arby’s is still an Arby’s. Loyal Democratic voters might reflexively protest if you criticize the party, but while the hard-working volunteers on the front lines deserve our respect, they aren’t the the ones steering the ship into the nearest Trump-shaped iceberg.

Democrats deeply value norms, institutions, and overall good governance. Challenging the status-quo, even one that’s growing steadily more fascist, is very difficult for people who were either born to chumpness or had chumpness thrust upon them.

Democrats Who Surrender In Advance Are Bipartisan Accomplices

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An ABC News story from Tuesday revealed some details from Democrats’ Washington Generals playbook. Tal Axelrod writes, “Democrats have a plan to take back power in Washington back from Republicans in two years: work with them now.” Democrats online have argued that ABC News misrepresents the party’s true cautiously defiant position, and if so Democrats should sue ABC News for defamation. They should sue even if it’s true. ABC News folds easily.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but some Democrats said that they’ll oppose Trump and his goons “when their values collide” but are open to grand bargains on immigration, federal spending, and entitlements. Republicans deliberately sabotaged a bipartisan border security bill because Trump thought it would help President Joe Biden, and Republicans are set to shut down the government on Elon Musk’s orders so Biden will leave office in chaos. I think their values have already collided.

But Rep. Suzan DelBene from Washington thinks there’s still potential for peace in our time. DelBene led the House Democrats’ campaign arm, and she’s set to do so again in 2026 because Democrats reward success and failure equally, like socialism but stupider.

“People want to see government work, and we’re going to hold Republicans accountable for whether they’re willing to help move things forward for the American people,” DelBene said somewhere from 1993. “So, if they aren’t, then absolutely, that will impact them at the ballot box.”

It did not.

Republicans aided Trump’s coup attempt, blocked a bipartisan investigation into January 6, and still won control of the House in 2022. The resulting MAGA mad House was the least productive in history, but not only didn’t Democrats regain the majority, they lost the Senate, as well.

“I think we are telling them that we’re here to govern,” DelBene added. “And I guess the question is, are they serious about governing?”

No, the question is how anyone who wonders if Republicans are “serious about governing” could possess a brain with the necessary power to keep their legs moving. Democrats like DelBene arrogantly assume that everyone defines“governing” as holding hands and passing constructive legislation that helps everyone, especially lobbyists. Republicans are “serious about governing.” They have a whole Project 2025. They just plan on governing like it’s Germany 1935.

Democrats Have A Project 2025 Branding Challenge

Someone over on Bluesky defended Democrats’ apparent “dope a dope” strategy.

Dems’ posture at the beginning of his first term was more like: “We'll work with him when we can, oppose him when we must.” Then Trump actually began governing and it was a mishmash of overreach and incompetence, which gave Dems plenty to oppose, and they skillfully exploited the opportunity.

“I’m on fire, but maybe I can achieve some bipartisan victories with the fire? No, wait, actually, the fire’s consuming me and my flesh is melting! Now, I’m a pile of smoldering ash. Please donate to my ash recovery fund.”

This is not 2008 when Republicans lost to a Black guy named Barack Hussein Obama. They needed a few weeks to recover. It’s not even 2016 when Democrats lost to a reality TV star but hoped he’d turn out no worse than George W. Bush. This is 2024. Trump was already president! Democrats don’t need to wait for him to “overreach.” He’s already attempted to overthrow the government, stolen classified documents, and taken his first steps toward persecuting his political enemies. Tuesday night, a week before Christmas, the House GOP recommended a bogus criminal investigation into Liz Cheney.

The ABC News article contains quotes from Democrats and so-called strategists who insist bipartisanship is the best work forward and that voters will reward Democrats for extending a hand to Republicans. It’s like the guy from Memento is the party’s chief political consultant.

Why Democrats Should Start Acting Like A Democratic Political Party

Getting chill pilled

Democrats spammed our emails and text messages with fundraising appeals rooted in the premise that this wasn’t your grandfather’s election, especially since Black people could vote in this one. No, democracy itself was a stake.

What Democrats feared would happen did in fact happen. That threat doesn’t vanish just because it’s unpleasant. Yet, in an interview with The Bulwark’s Sam Stein, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz suggests that Democrats “chill out … just a bit,” as if Kamala Harris lost to Alan Alda’s Arnold Vinick from The West Wing.

Schatz argues that maybe Democrats have overstated past threats to the nation, like the global pandemic that killed millions of people.

“We told people [during the COVID pandemic], ‘Hey, listen, you’re going to die.’ Then, definitionally, the people who didn’t die are still around, right?”

This is called “survivor’s bias,” and it’s true that most Americans remember 2020 as a frustrating time when they couldn’t travel, leave their house, or gather indoors with their friends. However, a significant number also attended their loved ones’ funerals over Zoom. Democrats let Republicans exploit survivor’s bias, while permitting the GOP to spin pandemic deaths under Trump as unavoidable. Schatz is helping promote the narrative that blames Democrats for closing schools but lets Trump off the hook for literally killing people.

“And then we say, ‘Democracy is going to die,’ right? And then democracy doesn’t die. And then we say four years later, by the way, this time is the time to be worried about American-style democracy collapsing. And I just think people just stopped believing this idea that we’re always at the precipice of a catastrophe. They don’t like living like that.”

Or Democrats are terrible at messaging and fail to meaningfully connect with voters where they are. Studies have shown that young people and Latinos in particular — the groups whose support for Democrats has eroded — predominately get their news from social media. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has 12.8 million followers on what was once Twitter, 8.1 million on Instagram, and a rapidly growing following on Bluesky. Gerry Connolly, who Democrats picked as ranking member of the Oversight Committee, has about 83,000 Twitter followers, less than some fan accounts for Marvel movies.

Connolly presumably got the nod because he follows the secret handshake restricted club rules plus he has seniority. AOC has only held her seat for six years but she has connected with significantly more people during that time than Connolly, who’s been in the House since 2009. I might sound like a union buster but seniority shouldn’t prevail over an organization’s current needs.

Trump is less than a month away from returning to power. He’s already started dismantling democracy while Democrats still wish to preserve the status quo. The problem is that without a forward-looking vision and bold action, MAGA will soon become the very status quo that Democrats meekly preserve.