Otherwise, Americans would be exposed to the harsh reality that the Democrat Party has collapsed like a birthday party’s bouncy house when the air pump is unplugged.

The party is an empty, leaderless shell right now. 

The nation’s oldest political party is quite simply overwhelmed by the relentless onslaught of Donald Trump’s well-planned opening weeks’ offensive and his legions of energetic enforcers cutting costs and the bulging bureaucracies of too many government departments running on DEI unhindered by accountability.

It will be some time before the party of Andrew Jackson overcomes its current well-earned reputation for gaslighting and sticking Americans with a lying, senile president and his corrupt family of grifters. 

The recently deceased administration of President No. 46 had the exact opposite of a Midas touch. Virtually everything Biden and his unelected puppeteers touched for 48 endless months turned into dung, from the economy and inflation to the lethal Afghan withdrawal and relations with the Mideast’s only functioning democracy. 

As one result, in an historic U-turn from 2020, voters turned the entire federal government over to Republicans, who are now making the most of their existing control while it lasts. 

Few things look more helpless than congressional minorities, which makes it entertaining for the moment to watch the likes of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi flounder helplessly.

The only tactic left to slow Trumpmentum is to shop for Democrat judges and sue No. 47. But they can’t keep up with the tireless pace of the 78-year-old Trump, who’s tied with Biden for oldest president inaugurated. But he sure doesn’t act like it.

Democrats have basically disappeared in D.C., which is why the Ukraine story is so helpful at covering up their frantic milling around like residents of a disturbed anthill.

As Axios so brutally pointed out to Democrats: 

They lost to a convicted felon they ridiculed as a racist, misogynistic fascist — and an existential threat to democracy.

Having presided over the highest inflation since Jimmy Carter’s inflationary term, with a president puzzled by screen doors, a vice president unable to conquer coherence, and in excess of 10 million illegal newcomers, the party has little to argue for and only a victorious, energetic Trump to argue against.

As a result, Democrats now are polling at the lowest level in 16 years. Less than a third (31 percent) have a favorable image of their party, 57 percent negative. Nearly six-in-ten (58 percent) say the Democrat Party needs major changes or a complete overhaul.

Democrats’ biggest support group, legacy media, is going through its own economic and morale seizures. 

Meanwhile, our HotAir colleague Ed Morrissey points out the new Harvard poll finds whopping approvals for Trump policies: 

• Declaring there are only two genders - 68 percent, 
• Banning men from girls’ sports - 69 percent, 
• Closing the border with added security - 76 percent, 
• Finding and eliminating government fraud and waste - 76 percent, and 
• Deporting illegals with criminal records - 81 percent.

Trump began his second term with a job approval of 49 percent — same as Obama in 2013. Oh, and 10 points higher than the start of his first term.

To continue the flow of good news, Democrat donors have reportedly turned off the money spigot. They poured billions down the drain last year to no effect. Now, many want to see real action before writing new checks.

The Founding Fathers properly feared political parties for inevitably pursuing their own interests over the country’s. Democrats survived their 19th-century support for slavery and the KKK. After the 1964 Goldwater debacle, the GOP not only survived but, within four years, began control of the White House for five of the next six presidential terms.

Remember when Republicans were the party of business and rich country club members? Now, it’s the populist, working-class party thanks to its redesign by the powerful persona of Donald Trump, who owns 15 luxury golf courses.

The Democrat Party was already weakened by eight years of a self-centered Barack Obama. Eventually, the party will bounce back by morphing into something else, if it can find a leader who knows what day it is.

So what, pray tell, can Democrats do about this right now?

Turns out, they don’t know and can’t decide. At the recent election of a new DNC chair, the crowd was asked if Kamala Harris lost because of racism and misogyny. Every hand went up. 

The new chair, a Tim Walz colleague named Ken Taylor, offered a less than rousing assurance, “We’re not dead as a party.” 

If that belief holds, next year’s midterm outlook looks good for the GOP, which must defend a challenging 22 of the 35 Senate seats up then.

Democrat Party members seem undecided for now on what approach to take – aggressive, no-holds-barred, anti-anything Trump, which has failed for 10 years, or a more pragmatic here’s-how-we-would-fix-things.

Not by coincidence, the most vocal proponents of both strategies see themselves as positioning for the party’s nomination in 2028, when Trump cannot run again.

An Emerson College Poll in November found Harris by far the favored 2028 nominee front-runner with 37 percent and everyone else in single digits.

The aggressive approach comes from senators like Chris Murphy of Connecticut and governors like California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ JB Pritzker, all trying to raise their profiles. Not that hard for the rotund Pritzker, who even appeared on “The View.” 

“My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country,” he said. “We don’t have kings in America — and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one.” 

Then, to ensure we knew of his presidential ambitions, Pritzker claimed they have nothing to do with his principled stand. “I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.”

Other Democrats like Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer carefully profess their willingness to work with the Republican president on some unspecified things to benefit their state, but not tariffs. As does Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro, whose media-professed rising-star status was preserved by not being on the 2024 ticket.

Then, there’s Maryland’s Rep. Jamie Raskin. He’s the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. 

Looking at nine years of failed Democrat hoaxes, lawfare, indictments, leaks, trial convictions, and not one but two impeachments, Raskin has another idea to sink Trump’s political career once and for all.

Raskin thinks a third Trump impeachment would do the trick. 

That might seem unlikely given current Republican control of the House. But hope springs eternal, and right now, Democrats don’t have much else to work with.