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Trump Has Left Democrats Dazed, Demoralized, Deluded, and Leaderless

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Most of the nation’s political attention since Donald Trump’s re-inauguration has been focused on the impressive volume, breadth, and speed of his initiatives to get the country back in balance.

It’s been a blur, which is the point, frankly. Let the hopeful nation see that the Shuffler in Chief is gone along with his secret cabal of enablers and their four years of colossal screw-ups, cover-ups, and lies.

There’s a new crew in town full of energy, fresh ideas, and, at last, a welcome vision for getting things right. The nation’s dangerous drift is over.

At the same time, what’s gone largely unnoticed is the disappearance of Democrats. A few piped up with ghostwritten talking points during Senate confirmation hearings for Trump Cabinet nominees. But otherwise, Poof!

Trump, his team, and their furious pace of reform have essentially sidelined Democrats. The members of that party in the nation’s capital are dazed, confused, overwhelmed, demoralized, disorganized, and deluded, with little sign of imminent recovery. 

In the long run, frankly, this is not good for the ongoing political health of a functioning democracy. See smoky, dysfunctional California for what happens when unchecked one-party rule wanders its way into silliness, chaos, and ineptitude without the accountability balance of a legitimate opposition and attentive voters.

But I confess, in the short run, this is grand fun watching that party of dullards and its sympathetic media wallow in powerlessness after colluding in lies and willful blindness to disguise a sick president, which endangered the nation’s security, just to maintain their grasp on federal power.

You know those dash-cam videos of road-rage drivers pulling off a dangerous stunt that just happens to occur in clear view of a state trooper? The lights and siren go on. Instant karma levied on others does feel good.

The signs of Joe Biden’s dementia were there in 2020, as were the limits on his public exposure. COVID was just the excuse for putting mid-morning lids on Biden’s campaign days, while Trump held daily rallies in multiple states.

All along, RedState writers were on top of the growing signs of Biden’s infirmities and media malfeasance. More than two years ago, I asked if Biden would even make it to 2024, forget 2029.

By this time last year, it was clear to honest observers that his avowed second term was a fantasy. Remember the brief commotion over Michelle Obama stepping in to save Democrats’ day? We did dodge that one.

To prove his point that Trump shouldn’t be president, an arrogant Biden, fueled by the undisciplined ambitions of his wife and handlers, challenged the Republican to a very early debate in June. Trump confidently accepted. We observed that encounter could decide the whole thing.

It did. And not the way Biden expected. His 90-minute mental coma in front of 55 million Americans dissolved that dream. Still, Dr. Jill’s prescription for four years more as First Lady survived almost another month. 

But then, in what must surely be the most cynical move in 21st-century U.S. politics so far, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer decided that the party’s duly elected presidential nominee would be summarily removed as mentally unfit for another term beginning in 2025. 

But, ladies and gentlemen, trust us, his mental unfitness doesn't begin until Jan. 20, 2025. He's just fine to finish out the current term.

Republicans draw more on their elected state-level farm teams for federal office candidates, especially governors. An entire generation of state-level Democrat officeholders was wiped out in the 2010 midterm slaughterhouse reaction to Obama's arrogant legislative overreaches. 

And anyway, loving centralized government as Democrats do, they instinctively turn to Congress for preferred candidates.

So, the only possible replacement for the DEI lovers was Biden's VP partner, ex-Sen. Kamala Harris, who was black and much younger, but also intellectually unfit to be a coherent commander in chief in any scenario. 

The party oldtimers Pelosi, 84, and Schumer, 74, knew the 82-year-old Biden would certainly lose to Trump, and Harris would too probably. Media would try to help, of course, stressing the historic first (black) female angle that worked well for Sen. Obama in 2008 and ignoring that her hollow campaign message was a nothingburger, albeit a “Joyful” one. 

But then, hey, the party would be rid of them both, once and for all. Win-win.

And so that came to pass on Nov. 5, only worse. Collectively, voters saw through all the subterfuge. They carefully gave Republicans the House, the Senate, and then the White House. And the Supreme Court already has a 6-3 conservative majority thanks to the first term's political tag team of Trump and Mitch McConnell.

Trump became the first GOP candidate in decades to win the popular vote. He captured all seven swing states and gained in sectors across the board, enough to claim a mandate, which means whatever he wants it to mean.

Trump, who withstood a relentless array of lawfare attacks during exile in his private Florida castle, has returned wiser, stronger, and more determined with legions of younger loyalists to insert into a hostile bureaucracy. He controls the GOP now, having helped elect many members. He’s already avoided stumbles that hurt him last time.

And oh, look? Democrats have no leader. No one. Not a man or woman with the stature or savvy to sculpt an appealing alternate message beyond "No!" and “Trump bad.”

If he'd been thinking of the party's future, Obama could have tutored an heir-apparent as VP. But he did not want a potential rival; so he chose Biden, 19 years older. Now, look who the 78-year-old Trump selected; JD Vance, who is 40.

There's so much action coming out of the Trump-Vance White House that unorganized pockets of Democrat resistance can’t keep up or even decide what to do. Many have become resigned to the onslaught for now. It’s a far cry from the volume and number of plots and street demonstrations from 2017.

The huge social-media engines that once fanned the anti-Trump flames and protests are now sympathetic to Trump or owned by his supporters. And a new post-inauguration poll found a dramatic 19-point shift in Americans now saying the country is on the Right Track.

Mounting party divisions emerged during a little-noticed conference call between Schumer and eight impatient Democrat governors last week. The governors demanded their Senate leader stiffen caucus resistance to Trump's agenda and appointees.

Then, some desperate Democrats in the Senate offered to work with Republicans on the festering border problems.

The loudest opposition voice so far didn't come from an elected Democrat. It was a Woke female Episcopalian minister.

The N.Y. Times ran a story admitting – “Trump Leaves Democrats Dazed and on the Defensive. It reported that “Locked out of power in Washington, the party is struggling to agree on a unified message of opposition.” 

And it quoted activist Matt Bennett: 

It feels like we’re battling the L.A. fires, and the wind is 100 miles per hour, and it’s zero percent contained. We’re just going to have to wait for the wind to die down a little. It’s going to be a minute before Democrats can mount an effective response. 

Or many minutes. Which gives President No. 47 time to rip out No. 46's policy landmines and embed his own.

Nine years of attacking Trump's agenda in Congress, the courts, and the streets haven’t worked. So, with no real leader, House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries figures more of the same-old-same-old will. He declared:

We are gonna fight it legislatively. We are gonna fight it in the courts. And we’re gonna fight it in the streets.

Things are so bad for liberals that Fox News’ Harris Faulkner is drawing more viewers now than “The View.” And MSNBC had to summon Rachel Maddow back from semi-retirement for daily inspiration. 

It’s wonderful entertainment!

The Democratic National Committee met over the weekend to analyze the election results and elect new officers free of any Biden odor. (As new chairman, they chose Ken Martin, state chair in Minnesota, where Tim Walz is still living.)

Byron York covered the sessions with his always astute observations:

As the DNC, choosing new leadership, surveyed its current position — out of power — leaders told themselves that the causes of the party’s failures are 1) racism and misogyny, and 2) poor communications. 

That is what losing parties do. Somebody else is to blame. Our only fault is insufficiently communicating to voters how wonderful we are.

Never mind the border, inflation, crime, dementia, the Afghan exit, serial lying, needless splits with allies like Israel, and an incompetent candidate.

As entertaining as Democrats’ convulsions are to witness now, conservatives need to remember how quickly American politics can change and how the two enduring parties can adapt to setbacks.

In 1964, liberal Democrat President Lyndon Johnson crushed conservative Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, capturing 61 percent of the popular vote, 44 of the 50 states, and 486 of the 538 electoral votes. There were questions then whether the GOP would survive as a viable national party.

But just four years later, an unpopular Johnson was forced to abandon his own reelection attempt, much like Biden. His vice president, Hubert Humphrey, inherited the nomination, much like Kamala Harris. Humphrey could take only 13 states. 

And Richard Nixon’s election that year handed Republicans control of the White House for 20 of the next 24 years.

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