There are a lot of questions circulating around the Democrat Party right now. Will Joe Biden be the nominee? Who will take over in his place? Will donors get their money back? Why is AP writing headlines that should have fact-checkers screaming at their computer screens?
The Democrats are lost in the woods right now, but if they want to find their way out of it, they need to start asking the most simple of questions.
"What is the Democrat Party?"
For the last eight years, that question has had an unspoken answer. The Democrats like to say they're the party "of" stuff, but what they actually were was the party of "not Trump." That's it. That's what's defined the Democrat platform for ages now.
The left is obsessed with Donald Trump. There's no denying it. Damn near everything it's done, it's done under the guise of undoing what Trump did, stopping Trump from ever returning, and hyper-focusing on what Trump is saying and doing now. For being the party of "not-Trump," it spends the majority of its time basing its activities and positions with a focus on Trump.
In its own way, it's more the "party of Trump" than it is anything else.
Axios correspondent Alex Thompson appeared on a CNN panel and made a very solid point along these lines.
Thompson said that the question of "Can Joe Biden still beat Trump?" is far less important than the question Democrats should be asking, which is "Can he do the job he's running for?" Thompson noted that Democrats need to start wondering if Biden will still be competent enough to do the job a year or even two years from now.
Thompson caps this off very well.
"There's more to being president than not being Donald Trump."
“There are 2 convos happening here…1: can Biden beat Trump? I think that has obscured what is potentially an even more important conversation which is can he do the job he’s running for 4 and a half years from now?…it’s not just about can he win, it’s what happens if he does… pic.twitter.com/EIoOJnizrK
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 4, 2024
To answer Thompson's question, no, Biden can't do his job in a year or two years. He can't do it now, and I think that's been made pretty apparent. It's apparent to Democrats as well. If it weren't, there wouldn't be an ongoing civil war within the left as to what to do now. The debate made it very clear that Biden isn't even ridin' with Biden. He's somewhere else, no matter where he is physically.
But too many Democrats are hyper-focused on Trump to realize that what they're doing is abusing an old man. More than that, they're too fixated on Trump to understand that even if they do beat Trump, they're going to have the same problems they've had for years now. They won't be able to be anything other than the party of "not Trump." He will still be the central figure of a borderline pseudo-religion. They'll still be so obsessed with him that they'll still not remember how to run a country properly because everything they do will be based on their hatred for one man.
The Democrats have to do the impossible: stop fixating on Donald Trump. Maybe if they did, they would realize that they've been crafting policies that alienate Americans based on an overblown prejudice, which is par for the course for Democrats throughout history, but still.
They need to start focusing on how to run the country in ways that actually benefit Americans, not run it contrary to the wishes and wants of the people who follow Trump.
This is just not a good system to base a government on.
If Democrats figure that out, they can start to truly make a comeback because it will be a return to some form of sanity. It will be a solid push away from the radicalism that's consumed the party, pardoned by the idea that it's a valid thing to do because it keeps them ideologically distant from a man they believe is radically based on the right. It's a delusion that's caused their party to erode from within.
The simple fact is that they're too obsessed with Trump, and they need to snap out of it.
