The Democrats’ Destruct Code
Larry Schweikart
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In the movies, the doomsday device is set, the timer running, and there are only minutes—if not seconds—to turn it off. Today’s Democrats are collapsing as a major, viable political party, and their timer approaches zero. Do they have anyone left to turn it off?
In the 1980s, after two mammoth drubbings by Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, largely on economic issues but with a powerful subcomponent of the “moral majority,” the Democrat Party did the only thing it could do to save off death. It reformed itself under the Democrat Leadership Conference led by Bill Clinton, emphasizing middle-class values, low crime, economic growth, and stability. Despite having the most scandal-ridden administration since Ulysses Grant, Clinton managed to avoid impeachment almost entirely on the back of the economy—which he allowed to be nurtured by those “effing bond tradres,” to quote George Stephanopoulos. It worked. Clinton’s economy, still benefitting from the Reagan tax cuts and investment, provided such an economic cushion that 66 votes to remove him could not be found.
But he left a wounded and ultimately lame successor for the nomination, Al Gore (whom he beat out for the DLC’s support in 1992). Just as Hillary was denied the presidency not once, but twice, so too Gore was denied the presidency twice—both times by Bill Clinton. But that’s another story.
Seventeen years later, the Democrat Party is in shambles. Everyone knows the numbers and I won’t repeat here the national staggering losses the party has suffered since Barack Obama. Fortunately for Obama, and contrary to many pundits on both sides, he was not the sole, or even the major reason for their collapse. Instead, since 2008 the Democrats have systematically turned so hard left they’ve almost done a loop. Whether banning American flags from their convention stage, egging on a Muslim father to chastize Donald Trump from the stage, to tolerating campaign invasions by BlackLivesMatter thugs, the Democrats have done everything they possibly could to alienate middle Americans of all races and religions, but particularly Christian whites. Obama himself decided in 2012 not to even attempt to win the votes of the white working class. Enough residual guilt allowed him to eke out reelection, but that white guilt did not transfer (and my opinion is it won’t even transfer again to another black candidate, such as Kamela Harris or Corey Booker).
By 2016, that strategy had essentially left hundreds of thousands of working Americans searching for a new party, or at least a new leader. Along came Trump, who willingly embraced them. After all, America is still overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly middle class.
Here’s where it gets extremely dicey for the Democrats. Having lost the presidency, the House, and the Senate, suddenly the Democrats were reduced to only two options: 1) get rid of Trump; and/or 2) get the Republicans to do their dirty work for them in opposing him. How did those go?
The “muh Russia” narrative is deader than Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic.” You can judge the validity of this statement by simply looking at the fake news coverage of it, or rather, the utter absence of it. On Sunday, while sitting in an airport and forced by proximity to listen to CNN, I noted that in an hour Russia news consumed barely five minutes. Taylor Swift’s well-shaped buttocks got more screen time (as it should). Suddenly the Democrats were left without an impeachment option. But wait! Trump still might toss a nuke at the NORKs, right? No. Backchannel negotiations successfully ended (for now) the threat of a North Korean missile headed near us or our allies. So Trump couldn’t be impeached for using the war powers of the executive, or not using them. Another impeachment issue off the table.
Along comes the so-called “alt right” and the arrival of the so-called “antifa” fascists, desperate for another fight. In case you forgot, these people nearly killed a young man in Berkeley with a bike lock to the head; shot Congressman Steve Scalese (and would have killed several if not for fast acting cops); and killed a man in Oregon. Paired with BlackLivesMurder, the so-called “antifa” fascists not only wanted a fight, they wanted blood, and got it. Since an investigation into what happened is still going on, no one can yet know what the driver of the car that killed one “was thinking.” We know even confessions obtained immediately after crimes are suspect, so literally the jury will be out on this for a while.
But it seemed to give the Democrats (they think) another issue to possibly drum up some inane charges on which to impeach Trump. (“Failing to condemn sufficiently?” “Insufficient demonization of designated groups?”) Of course, this won’t work any more than “muh Russia.”
But this kind of stuff is starting to make ordinary people in the heartland downright angry. They don’t want to have to get involved in such nonsense. But if you drag them in, they will come loaded.
Indicators are all around. I’ve shared voter registration changes (which, since my last update, continue with the general trend) that show Republicans gaining and Democrats losing big. While some of this is normal purging of voter rolls, much more is a quiet abandonment of the Democrat Party. And we aren’t even talking turnout, but registrations. When it comes to turnout, last night offered yet another tornado warning to the Democrats in Alabama, where one of the two Trump-friendly candidates won easily (and will win the runoff, barring a cataclysmic collapse). Moreover, the Democrat has no real shot in the general election, and if the three or four Republican “streams” unite, he could be utterly buried.
No, that’s not the warning sign, but what happened within that Democrat primary: no turnout. Only about one-third as many Democrats voted in this primary as in previous primaries. Perhaps they thought it didn’t matter. Perhaps they didn’t like the candidates. Perhaps.
More likely, there is a massive malaise sweeping across the Democrats who are observing first hand the death of their party by a cancerous radicalism, and their immediate reaction is to stay home. Their reaction in four years will be to, while still Democrats, vote for Donald Trump.
And not just in Alabama. Everywhere. As my statistics have shown, this erosion of the Democrats runs from New Jersey to Nevada, from Maryland to Arizona. The few bright spots for them are in places that are electorally irrelevant, since they went for Democrats in the last election: Oregon, Colorado, and California. They are gaining nowhere. With those three exceptions, they are losing everywhere.
What this means is that deprived of an impeachment, and facing the most shocking minorities they’ve seen since the 1870s, the Democrat Party will either make the most unlikely, radical change one can imagine to try to recapture its 20th century voters, or it will evaporate.
The radical elements, of course, don’t care. They don’t care about the political process, or laws, or culture, or anything except the most vile, Maoist leftism. They are the fascists with the torches. In all likelihood, the Democrats have realized it too late, and are about to disappear as a viable political entity. The question is, have the Republicans realized it too late as well? If so, Donald Trump could form an America First Party that would sweep both these sick cows into the street for the garbage man to collect.
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