We've all seen the seemingly oxymoronic phrase: "Nothing succeeds like failure."
While the aphorism is sarcastic, “Nothing succeeds like failure” is an ideal mantra — spoken or assumed — of today's Democrat Party. In a proverbial nutshell, it's a perfect way of saying, for the Left, that failure tends to perversely lead to more of the very behavior or policies that caused the failure in the first place.
Sound familiar?
In other words, when a Democrat policy fails, its advocates don’t abandon it — they insist the problem is twofold: it didn’t go far enough, and Republicans got in the way. In essence, Democrat failures become justification for doubling down on the very policies that failed in the first place.
So how and why did this dishonest cornerstone of the Democrat Party begin?
Hard to say, but I do know this:
When President Lyndon Johnson ushered in the Democrat Party’s disastrous War on Poverty in 1964, the party’s embrace of massive wealth redistribution began in earnest — and the masters of taking and spending your money never looked back.
Increasingly, pitting class against class, and race against race became the Democrat coin of the realm.
The party, of course, denies it, but its electoral strategy has come to depend heavily on maintaining a coalition of disparate groups united by grievances over race, class, income, gender, or other perceived inequities. Political division isn’t merely an unfortunate byproduct of that strategy; it's generally what holds the coalition together.
Hence the constant effort to assemble enough competing constituencies to overcome voters who still identify with more traditional values of Americanism — fundamental decency, small-d democratic values, individual opportunity, patriotism, and faith in God. The result is a political incentive not to heal every division, but to keep enough of them alive to remain electorally useful.
And now, given the sudden successes of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including their recent primary wins, combined with the election of NYC Mayor Zorhran Mamdani — and his "free" buses, controversial pied-à-terre tax, city-owned grocery stores, and more — the policies of LBJ and old-school "moderate" Democrats look almost conservative in comparison.
Over just the last week, we've seen House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08) reaffirm that the DSA is part of the Democrat Party — even as he disavowed much of their radical agenda — and New York State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher declare that stealing should be legal for people who "need" what they're stealing. Apparently, under socialism, shoplifting isn't a crime — for some people, that is — it's a "right."
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In a Monday column, political commentator Jonathan Turley perfectly summed up Mamdani's Marxist mess, which is increasingly reflective of a Democrat Party continuing to lurch to the Left:
No one has perfected the politics of failure more than Zohran Mamdani. In New York, chaos only undermines the status quo. For example, his demand for free buses has predictably led to thousands of commuters — including affluent citizens — skipping fares, costing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority tens of millions of dollars. After all, only a chump would pay a fare that is about to be eliminated.
As the transit budget implodes, the calls for greater state subsidies will only increase — as will calls just to accept the reality and make public transportation free to the user (and expensive to the taxpayer).
Then there is rent reform. With Mamdani promising rent controls, landlords are predictably raising rents. Rent costs have reached their highest level ever under Mamdani, with the average apartment now costing $4,965 per month — and $6,655 per month in Manhattan.
So Mamdani can now push for even more significant regulations and rent controls by pointing to the rise in housing costs in an endless loop. As rent control inevitably constrains supply and prices for market-rate apartments skyrocket, he can call for even greater controls.
It gets worse.
The DSA has called for everything from abolishing the U.S. Senate, the presidency, the Supreme Court as we know it, and the Electoral College, in addition to replacing the two-party system with proportional representation and ranked-choice voting, expanding the House of Representatives (can you spell "politburo"?), allowing non-citizens and all convicted felons to vote, and public financing of all campaigns.
Heck, Karl Marx couldn't have written the DSA platform any "better."
As Turley suggested, "for radicals, social and economic upheaval is not a tragedy but an opportunity," adding:
The future seems bright for the American socialists. After all, with just a little more failure, who knows what Mamdani and others can achieve in America.
In a proper context, failure is only productive when those who fail take honest responsibility for it, identify its actual cause(s), make demonstrable changes, and try again — with better judgment.
Unfortunately, the Democrat Party and its radical pals on the far Left are incapable of the above.
Why?
Because all they need is a sufficient number of envious, low-information voters who continue to buy the lies of the newfangled (repackaged) DSA and Marxists like Mamdani to continue to win. As the late comedian George Carlin warned, never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
