I'm not sure how much of a future the Democrats have right now. I mean I hate early predictions and declarations of the death of political parties but what I have been seeing lately is just disturbing. Instead of reflection on obvious deficiencies in their platform the party apparatus has decided it is really the fault of the American voters. I mean I am a guy who hates political correctness and would gloriously fail sensitivity training but stuff like the racism being expressed towards Hispanics who voted Trump is mind boggling. This does not feel normal to me. It might go away and things go back to regular politics but I am not sure it will.
Don’t worry, the Democrats will have a future. There has to be somewhere for the scalawags, even if nothing else; but there are also sex, class, and race differences to exploit forever, or until virtually everyone learns their insaliency.
As an olive branch to the opposition and help bring the country together, I’m hoping Trump will fulfill the Dems desire to abolish the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court.
A Kagan/Shapiro ticket sounds like it would be unbeatable. It would depend, I think, on how healthy Justice Sotomayor is. If she has to leave the court in a year or so, the possibility of building coalitions would be greatly diminished. That would allow Justice Jackson to become the Great Dissenter of the 21st Century.
Oooh, I didn’t think of that! Well, my impulse when I am told that ‘Der Sturmer is supporting…or Izvestia has endorsed…’—don’t take advice from idiots.
Somehow I don't see Jackson as "the Great" anything. I've read her opinions. She's not the lightweight I feared she would be, but she'll never, I think, rank in the top half od SCOTUS justices. The firepower just isn't there.
if you thinking Gina Raimondo i think you will be wrong...She is not the substantive figure you might think her to be.
Was hoping for a Trump victory to bring a reset in 2028 with two new faces....Trump performs or does not trip over himself and Vance might be emulate GWB 41 as successor to Reagan. Who knows as much can change fast and world very complex and troubled today..
Bibi N quite happy and Mullahs not all that happy and Iran will think a bit as to a reprisal against Israel despite its public pronouncements...
I thought she was very reasonable as a Governor. I've been disappointed by her in her Cabinet position. She only stands out because she's not as bad as the rest. Hardly a glowing recommendation.
I am 74 years old, a lifelong history student (had state awards in high school) and while not active as a partisan, I have always watched what goes on in politics. One observation I have is this--senators, especially long-serving ones, do not make good presidents. The Senate does not build the skill sets for executive positions. Governors are usually better--with some exceptions, such as Carter.
I grew up in a UAW household, in the '50s and '60s, when the Democrats were the party of the blue-collar worker. I realized long ago that they had abandoned that base. In its place, they have put together a coalition of outgroups--first blacks, then gays, then Hispanics, Muslims, and most recently transgenders. And I have been wondering for a while how long they could hold it together. Years ago, I saw reports that while the black politicians went along, most grassroots blacks did not like the gays appropriating the language of the Civil Rights movement. Depending on their background, many Hispanics are not that thrilled with blacks. Many Hispanics I have known are hard workers and small business owners. And in recent years, some lesbians are not thrilled with what transgenders have been doing to women's sports. And while they have gained a lot of Fortune 500 types and professors, the blue-collar workforce is a much larger body of people. I have a bachelor's degree myself, but I ended up being a remodeling contractor for 40 years. I am not all that surprised at what's going on. But I do not know for sure how this will turn out. And BTW, I have Appalachian roots myself--my mother was born in 1920 near Hazard, Kentucky, about 20 miles or so south of where Vance's grandparents were from.
The problem with a coalition of outgroups is that it is played as a zero sum game. Anything one group gets means one or more other groups didn't get "they fair share" -- whatever the heck that would be.
And I think you're correct that many of these groups didn't like each other all that much to begin with. I found my Black students, especially the men, to be much more anti-LGBT than my whites student, for intance.
Meanwhile my Hispanic/Latino students and their families seemed to be much more conservative and religion-oeriented than the average Dem voter.
And, finally, college has become much less attractive to young men than at anytime since at least 1970. To the extent that they join the trades, or become entreperneurs, and get married, both they and their wives will become less likely to vote Dem. (And I have seen way more wives marry these types, have children, and become nore conservative than I have seen these men become more Left because of their wives.
And my family came from (before the Civil War) the county next to the Hatfields and McCoys. The hillbilly strain runs deep.
Agnus DEI is an excellent pun - one more Catholic thumb's up here. Elena Kagan would be a magnificent candidate (I agree, she'd never leave the USSC) - brilliant, articulate, impartial.
I didn't really mean that she would want to be president or that the Democrats would want her to be. My only point is that it is not hard to find women who would be far better candidates than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I suspect it will be hard for the Dems to nominate a woman who would be a better candidate. I think that the first woman president will be a Republican.
Thank you for a much saner take on all this than some others I've read. From all I've seen on Substack and X, I do not see Democrats changing their tune. I just finished an article penned by a prominent left leaning person who started out by talking about Democrats being out of touch, which ended with talking about uneducated masses with a lack of information that tipped them to the dark side, with comments that went even further demonizing Trump voters as not worthy of attention. I just shook my head. No point trying to comment there - it's like screaming into the void.
Josh Shapiro the party nominee in 2028?!?!? The Democrats choosing a Jew?!? The party that turns a blind eye to antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere in our society? And whose daily newsletter, i.e., the NYT, published a story two days after the election with the following headline: “Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party”? Dude, are you delusional?
Another great read with some original perspective. Your points about how different things would have been if the election in 2020 went the other way are well put. Your commenter’s point about a woman of substance, and your example are both worthy of consideration. My hope would be that both parties are seeking a person of substance for their next candidate. I hope time will show President Trump to be such a leader. As much as I currently favor Mr. Vance’s chances at succeeding Mr. Trump, with all that yet remains to be done, I think we should not guarantee automatic promotion to the Presidency. Whoever is elected should do it the old fashioned way and “earn it.” That doesn’t mean raising the most money or getting the most social media buzz, but by crafting the right things to do for the nation’s prosperity - and doing them.
As a retired diplomat, I can agree that cookies and milk would not be good preparation tor the hardships of the job. In fact, if I were on the selection board for an incoming class and saw someone applying for an FS commission after graduating from such a program, I would encourage them to look for another line of work. Possibly as a professional shusher in a public library.
People seem to be both overstating and understating the meaning of the 2024 election.
Trump fans overstate when they claim a majority vote win is a validation of Trump and MAGA policies. But Trump’s approval remains stuck in negative territory around 45%, which is his base. An additional margin of around 7% voted for him not because they like him or have joined the MAGA movement, but because they feel the pain of bad policy at the grocery aisle, gas pump, and bill stack. So they voted against the establishment candidate. It’s not a vote for Trump or MAGA; it’s a vote to try new management. It’s no more complicated than that.
But in 2 years there is a House election and Trump will be the incumbent, and if things have not been miraculously improved the swing 7% may flip and give the House majority to Democrats, effectively ending Trump’s ability to move legislation.
But Trump-haters are also understating the meaning of this election when they contrive every kooky excuse for the rejection of their candidate: Russian manipulation (again), the racism/sexism of the American voter (as if people surviving paycheck to paycheck can afford to sacrifice good policy to indulge bigotry), the alleged dominance of “right-wing” media.
The fact is the majority of Americans voted on policy. Not in the sense that they read wordy NYT stories about a Brookings study on reciprocal tariffs or optimal marginal tax rates. But they know bad policy in their gut from the price stickers on food, and from worrying videos of world wars and terrorism spiraling out of control; and ER waiting rooms, maternity wards, and affordable housing swamped with unplanned migrants, and schools too busy coping with a flood of English-2nd-language students to bother improving the already-dismal education of American kids.
Leftists/Democrats probably lack the self-honesty and courage to accept the truth: Americans rejected their bad policies, not in an intellectual way but in a gut-check way. They were not fooled when the establishment candidate promised “a new way forward”; they knew that candidate was likely to double-down on the already-failed policies. This is why turning the shrieking attacks on Trump “up to eleven” had no effect; the swing 7% don’t care whether you think Trump is twice as awful as yesterday, they already know he’s a cad, they’ve already discounted his flaws; this election was not about Trump (or MAGA), it was about the bad policies.
So Trump / MAGA voters have no grounds for cockiness; their movement is still a minority, and their win may be transient. Democrats have a very low bar to clear to convince 7% that incumbent Trump is no improvement, and thus bog down his agenda. But long-term electoral success will require them to confront the fact that the American people have enough peasant shrewdness to recognize dysfunctional policies, and expect Democrats to reform. But this will be nearly impossible, as the Democrat party is a cabal of interests whose rent-seeking must come at the expense of the average American, married to a religious wing whose climate/rainbow belief system is hysterically intolerant and controlling.
I sincerely doubt there is anything like a majority in favor of what have clearly become the Dem/Left goals. As long as they keep beating that drum they won't gain enough of the 7% (or more) to win much. Right now they seem to be running on the momentum of the original FDR years. I suppose we'll see in 2026.
Trump’s four years out of office also gave him a debriefing on his error in assuming the party to which he delivered the White House would back him and his agenda. We can see the plans taking shape to root out never-Trumpers and install an actual team on the same page.
I think there are lots of problems with a Justice Kagan run for the presidency. While she is clearly bright and has had success on the court (not as much recently) I think as an unmarried childless woman she will bring the unsaid thoughts of "cat lady" to the fore. Vance will be smart enough to never again need to say those words but the image is seared into the American mind. Shapiro would never take the second seat to anyone. If Shapiro leads the ticket why not keep Kagan on the court? I will make a prediction 4 years out. It will be JD Vance and either Shapiro or Beshear. Telsi Gabbard as VP to Vance.
I find Beshear over-rated, but you may be right. I am always leery of dynastic candidates. He does seem more likely than, say, Polis, or the new MD gov whose name I forget, and by 2028 Pelosi will no longer be able to shove Newsom into the role.
As I noted above, I wasn't really offering Kagan as a serious choice. Merely as an example of how easy it is to find a woman who would be a far better candidate than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I think that a female Democrat will, for the next couple of presidential election cycles, be seen as an HR/DEI candidate. Not to mention, a girl boss. So she will always be starting from behind. If someone like Trump can beat Clinton and Harris, imagine what a more respectable version of Trump - such as Vance - could do.
Especially if Trump actually manages to turn things around in the economy, comes up with some kind of “Nixon to China” solution to Biden’s immigration fiasco, and calms down the international scene.
I know those are big league “if’s”, but it’s also a lot of opportunity.
Neither Shapiro nor Kagan will ever be on a national ticket, for the same reason Shapiro wasn’t this time.
Let me explain it in word of one syllable. Jew.
I wish that would become less salient in the Democratic Party, and I think it would if they were wise. I don’t get my wish, and they aren’t wise, and Democratic Jew-hatred is still gathering strength.
You may well be correct, but I'll suggest one caveat. I think that Democratic voters are considerably more intelligent than Democratic Party leaders. Democratic voters pushed Kamala Harris's ejection seat button in 2019--party leaders then handed her the vice presidency. Democratic voters were busily rejecting Joe Biden in 2020, when party leaders chased all the other contenders out of the race to prevent him from losing to Bernie Sanders--a Jew (albeit not Israel-friendly at this point). Similarly, they revved up the super-delegates in 2016 to prevent Sanders--the Jew--from defeating Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Since 2020, Democratic leaders hid Biden's physical and mental condition because they feared that primary voters would reject him. Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and crew nixxed the idea of an open convention because they feared Kamala wouldn't survive the race and the DEI Crew would be furious. One Shapiro theory is that he would have been selected, but Pelosi vetoed the choice and insisted on her erstehile caucus member, Tim Walz. So, I'm not really sure that rank-and-file Democrats would reject Shapiro. Party leaders would. The question is whether the party oligarchs still have sway in 2028 after three disastrous elections that they created.
I’m not sure which of you is correct - and indeed it’s probably unknowable right now - but the plausible path for Shapiro in 2028 is him running and quickly owning the (relatively) “moderate” lane while 3 or 4 at least semi-credible others compete for the left lane, and Shapiro gets pluralities in most primaries, while at least two leftists stay in it until the end.
And the vitriolic, antisemitic pushback from the oppressor-oppressed woke left would only help cement his position amongst a *chunk* of Dem voters. It might not get him a clear majority, but it would imo cement his 35%-40% plurality leadership status in much the same way as occurred for Trump in the GOP primaries of 2016.
Whatever else you think of Dem party leaders, I don’t see them conspiring to push out the moderate and annoint an AOC or someone similar in that scenario. IMO they want power even more than they want party unity.
My thesis is they were neither that dumb nor that smart.
Someone at the Dem party smart/brilliant negotiated having the first ever June debate to leave them an option to remove Biden if it became necessary.
But the woke/DEI ideology throughout the Dem party is such that they would have had neither victory nor unity had they replaced Kamala with a white male.
The only plausible one that would have worked is Michele Obama.
Thank goodness we will never know if that particular counterfactual would have worked for them. It is surely the scenario I feared.
One disadvantage the Democrats have that I don't think gets enough examination is the fawning national press.
Alfred P. Sloan that man who established General Motors had an interesting habit. If something came before the board, and no one was against it, it was tabled. Mr. Sloan's position was that if no one was against it, they hadn't thought it through.
Without challenge we become weak. There's numerous examples, please bear with me while I give another one.
Years ago there was a lawyer at AT&T who had a habit of taking extreme positions and allowing his staff to pull him back to a reasonable position. This worked fine at first, but as he rose in the corporation the less likely his staff was to challenge him, and he began to believe that his extreme positions were correct. You can imagine how that worked out for him and the corporation.
Whether the performance of the press is due to laziness, corruption, or incompetence - it really doesn't matter. Maybe the organizations think they are doing the Democrats a favor by going easy on them - but they are not. Without challenge the weakness gradually infects and destroys everything.
Will this be corrected? I suppose it's possible if the national press is replaced by a younger, newer, competent press. Or maybe they will see the iceberg ahead and change course before they have to pack up their lives in cardboard boxes.
Without their massive expenditures for Team Kamala - and for that matter, Team Democrat for at least the last 20 years - Trump probably wins NH, NM, VA, and maybe even CO and NJ to boot.
Don’t underestimate the number of over 40 year olds they’ve succeeded in brainwashing.
I agree they will have difficulty doing same with the under. 35 crowd.
Great stories. My best guess (hope?) is that New Media obliterate Old Media. That Bari Weiss's substack The Free Press flourishes and the New York Times shuts down.
I usually agree with your takes, and very rarely find them “dumb”.
The NYT quite likely will continue to lose credibility, but unlike some of their cohorts they are making money with their “go left, young man” strategy. So the idea that they will shut down seems beyond far fetched, even in the long-term.
The medium term direction in fortunes for most of the left-biased press (downwards) versus The Free Press and its ilk (up) seems of course a no-brainer. But that’s a lot different that claiming the NYT will shut its doors.
I said hope. And, as one who worked as an economic forecaster, I followed an important principle: your prediction should be specific on the future event or on the time period, but not both. That way, you’re never demonstrably wrong.
Of course the Times remains open for a while. They produce Wordle, which is a big money-maker. But it’s an open question whether the NYT and its ilk have more influence today than new media/social media. Will the NYT be operating in 20 years? Probably, but then I recall magazines being central influencers in civic life. Till the internet left them as relics.
I’ve read that the NYT is making plenty of money, just not in the old fashioned print way. Don’t remember the details, but it had to do with exploiting the internet - recipes, podcasts, etc.
Interesting analysis - thanks! While at some point there will be a woman president, I’m far more interested in a competent president than getting some check mark just to say we’ve elected the first woman president.
I'm not sure how much of a future the Democrats have right now. I mean I hate early predictions and declarations of the death of political parties but what I have been seeing lately is just disturbing. Instead of reflection on obvious deficiencies in their platform the party apparatus has decided it is really the fault of the American voters. I mean I am a guy who hates political correctness and would gloriously fail sensitivity training but stuff like the racism being expressed towards Hispanics who voted Trump is mind boggling. This does not feel normal to me. It might go away and things go back to regular politics but I am not sure it will.
Don’t worry, the Democrats will have a future. There has to be somewhere for the scalawags, even if nothing else; but there are also sex, class, and race differences to exploit forever, or until virtually everyone learns their insaliency.
As an olive branch to the opposition and help bring the country together, I’m hoping Trump will fulfill the Dems desire to abolish the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court.
:)
A Kagan/Shapiro ticket sounds like it would be unbeatable. It would depend, I think, on how healthy Justice Sotomayor is. If she has to leave the court in a year or so, the possibility of building coalitions would be greatly diminished. That would allow Justice Jackson to become the Great Dissenter of the 21st Century.
Two Jews on the ticket? That may get Ilhan Omar AND Marjorie Taylor Greene chatting.
Oooh, I didn’t think of that! Well, my impulse when I am told that ‘Der Sturmer is supporting…or Izvestia has endorsed…’—don’t take advice from idiots.
Somehow I don't see Jackson as "the Great" anything. I've read her opinions. She's not the lightweight I feared she would be, but she'll never, I think, rank in the top half od SCOTUS justices. The firepower just isn't there.
if you thinking Gina Raimondo i think you will be wrong...She is not the substantive figure you might think her to be.
Was hoping for a Trump victory to bring a reset in 2028 with two new faces....Trump performs or does not trip over himself and Vance might be emulate GWB 41 as successor to Reagan. Who knows as much can change fast and world very complex and troubled today..
Bibi N quite happy and Mullahs not all that happy and Iran will think a bit as to a reprisal against Israel despite its public pronouncements...
I just put her as plausible. Let's just say "better chance than Kamala Harris or Joe Biden." I feel pretty safe on that one.
I thought she was very reasonable as a Governor. I've been disappointed by her in her Cabinet position. She only stands out because she's not as bad as the rest. Hardly a glowing recommendation.
Yes, and i would have to say that she is a bit of a sell out, much like others who joined Biden Admin such as Janet Yellin.
I am 74 years old, a lifelong history student (had state awards in high school) and while not active as a partisan, I have always watched what goes on in politics. One observation I have is this--senators, especially long-serving ones, do not make good presidents. The Senate does not build the skill sets for executive positions. Governors are usually better--with some exceptions, such as Carter.
I grew up in a UAW household, in the '50s and '60s, when the Democrats were the party of the blue-collar worker. I realized long ago that they had abandoned that base. In its place, they have put together a coalition of outgroups--first blacks, then gays, then Hispanics, Muslims, and most recently transgenders. And I have been wondering for a while how long they could hold it together. Years ago, I saw reports that while the black politicians went along, most grassroots blacks did not like the gays appropriating the language of the Civil Rights movement. Depending on their background, many Hispanics are not that thrilled with blacks. Many Hispanics I have known are hard workers and small business owners. And in recent years, some lesbians are not thrilled with what transgenders have been doing to women's sports. And while they have gained a lot of Fortune 500 types and professors, the blue-collar workforce is a much larger body of people. I have a bachelor's degree myself, but I ended up being a remodeling contractor for 40 years. I am not all that surprised at what's going on. But I do not know for sure how this will turn out. And BTW, I have Appalachian roots myself--my mother was born in 1920 near Hazard, Kentucky, about 20 miles or so south of where Vance's grandparents were from.
Great take, thanks.
The problem with a coalition of outgroups is that it is played as a zero sum game. Anything one group gets means one or more other groups didn't get "they fair share" -- whatever the heck that would be.
And I think you're correct that many of these groups didn't like each other all that much to begin with. I found my Black students, especially the men, to be much more anti-LGBT than my whites student, for intance.
Meanwhile my Hispanic/Latino students and their families seemed to be much more conservative and religion-oeriented than the average Dem voter.
And, finally, college has become much less attractive to young men than at anytime since at least 1970. To the extent that they join the trades, or become entreperneurs, and get married, both they and their wives will become less likely to vote Dem. (And I have seen way more wives marry these types, have children, and become nore conservative than I have seen these men become more Left because of their wives.
And my family came from (before the Civil War) the county next to the Hatfields and McCoys. The hillbilly strain runs deep.
Agnus DEI is an excellent pun - one more Catholic thumb's up here. Elena Kagan would be a magnificent candidate (I agree, she'd never leave the USSC) - brilliant, articulate, impartial.
Glad to have the thumbs up and the agreement on Kagan.
I suspect Kagan is too impartial for the Dem powers now and she'll age out before she gets a chance. But I agree she won't leave the Court soon.
I didn't really mean that she would want to be president or that the Democrats would want her to be. My only point is that it is not hard to find women who would be far better candidates than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I suspect it will be hard for the Dems to nominate a woman who would be a better candidate. I think that the first woman president will be a Republican.
Also Jewish.
Ask Josh Shapiro how that's likely to turn out.
Yup. :)
Thank you for a much saner take on all this than some others I've read. From all I've seen on Substack and X, I do not see Democrats changing their tune. I just finished an article penned by a prominent left leaning person who started out by talking about Democrats being out of touch, which ended with talking about uneducated masses with a lack of information that tipped them to the dark side, with comments that went even further demonizing Trump voters as not worthy of attention. I just shook my head. No point trying to comment there - it's like screaming into the void.
Thanks!
Josh Shapiro the party nominee in 2028?!?!? The Democrats choosing a Jew?!? The party that turns a blind eye to antisemitism on college campuses and elsewhere in our society? And whose daily newsletter, i.e., the NYT, published a story two days after the election with the following headline: “Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party”? Dude, are you delusional?
Yes. I’m delusional. Kind of a trademark. :)
Touché. (Shapiro, by the way, would be an excellent choice.)
Another great read with some original perspective. Your points about how different things would have been if the election in 2020 went the other way are well put. Your commenter’s point about a woman of substance, and your example are both worthy of consideration. My hope would be that both parties are seeking a person of substance for their next candidate. I hope time will show President Trump to be such a leader. As much as I currently favor Mr. Vance’s chances at succeeding Mr. Trump, with all that yet remains to be done, I think we should not guarantee automatic promotion to the Presidency. Whoever is elected should do it the old fashioned way and “earn it.” That doesn’t mean raising the most money or getting the most social media buzz, but by crafting the right things to do for the nation’s prosperity - and doing them.
As a retired diplomat, I can agree that cookies and milk would not be good preparation tor the hardships of the job. In fact, if I were on the selection board for an incoming class and saw someone applying for an FS commission after graduating from such a program, I would encourage them to look for another line of work. Possibly as a professional shusher in a public library.
Another excellent analysis, Robert.
People seem to be both overstating and understating the meaning of the 2024 election.
Trump fans overstate when they claim a majority vote win is a validation of Trump and MAGA policies. But Trump’s approval remains stuck in negative territory around 45%, which is his base. An additional margin of around 7% voted for him not because they like him or have joined the MAGA movement, but because they feel the pain of bad policy at the grocery aisle, gas pump, and bill stack. So they voted against the establishment candidate. It’s not a vote for Trump or MAGA; it’s a vote to try new management. It’s no more complicated than that.
But in 2 years there is a House election and Trump will be the incumbent, and if things have not been miraculously improved the swing 7% may flip and give the House majority to Democrats, effectively ending Trump’s ability to move legislation.
But Trump-haters are also understating the meaning of this election when they contrive every kooky excuse for the rejection of their candidate: Russian manipulation (again), the racism/sexism of the American voter (as if people surviving paycheck to paycheck can afford to sacrifice good policy to indulge bigotry), the alleged dominance of “right-wing” media.
The fact is the majority of Americans voted on policy. Not in the sense that they read wordy NYT stories about a Brookings study on reciprocal tariffs or optimal marginal tax rates. But they know bad policy in their gut from the price stickers on food, and from worrying videos of world wars and terrorism spiraling out of control; and ER waiting rooms, maternity wards, and affordable housing swamped with unplanned migrants, and schools too busy coping with a flood of English-2nd-language students to bother improving the already-dismal education of American kids.
Leftists/Democrats probably lack the self-honesty and courage to accept the truth: Americans rejected their bad policies, not in an intellectual way but in a gut-check way. They were not fooled when the establishment candidate promised “a new way forward”; they knew that candidate was likely to double-down on the already-failed policies. This is why turning the shrieking attacks on Trump “up to eleven” had no effect; the swing 7% don’t care whether you think Trump is twice as awful as yesterday, they already know he’s a cad, they’ve already discounted his flaws; this election was not about Trump (or MAGA), it was about the bad policies.
So Trump / MAGA voters have no grounds for cockiness; their movement is still a minority, and their win may be transient. Democrats have a very low bar to clear to convince 7% that incumbent Trump is no improvement, and thus bog down his agenda. But long-term electoral success will require them to confront the fact that the American people have enough peasant shrewdness to recognize dysfunctional policies, and expect Democrats to reform. But this will be nearly impossible, as the Democrat party is a cabal of interests whose rent-seeking must come at the expense of the average American, married to a religious wing whose climate/rainbow belief system is hysterically intolerant and controlling.
I sincerely doubt there is anything like a majority in favor of what have clearly become the Dem/Left goals. As long as they keep beating that drum they won't gain enough of the 7% (or more) to win much. Right now they seem to be running on the momentum of the original FDR years. I suppose we'll see in 2026.
Well said, Eric. Political victories in democracies are not permanent.
Agree on just about all of this.
"climate/rainbow belief system"
I must remember this phrase. It encompasses quite a bit in four words.
Trump’s four years out of office also gave him a debriefing on his error in assuming the party to which he delivered the White House would back him and his agenda. We can see the plans taking shape to root out never-Trumpers and install an actual team on the same page.
Yup. It will be entertaining to watch.
I think there are lots of problems with a Justice Kagan run for the presidency. While she is clearly bright and has had success on the court (not as much recently) I think as an unmarried childless woman she will bring the unsaid thoughts of "cat lady" to the fore. Vance will be smart enough to never again need to say those words but the image is seared into the American mind. Shapiro would never take the second seat to anyone. If Shapiro leads the ticket why not keep Kagan on the court? I will make a prediction 4 years out. It will be JD Vance and either Shapiro or Beshear. Telsi Gabbard as VP to Vance.
I find Beshear over-rated, but you may be right. I am always leery of dynastic candidates. He does seem more likely than, say, Polis, or the new MD gov whose name I forget, and by 2028 Pelosi will no longer be able to shove Newsom into the role.
As I noted above, I wasn't really offering Kagan as a serious choice. Merely as an example of how easy it is to find a woman who would be a far better candidate than Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris.
I think that a female Democrat will, for the next couple of presidential election cycles, be seen as an HR/DEI candidate. Not to mention, a girl boss. So she will always be starting from behind. If someone like Trump can beat Clinton and Harris, imagine what a more respectable version of Trump - such as Vance - could do.
Especially if Trump actually manages to turn things around in the economy, comes up with some kind of “Nixon to China” solution to Biden’s immigration fiasco, and calms down the international scene.
I know those are big league “if’s”, but it’s also a lot of opportunity.
Neither Shapiro nor Kagan will ever be on a national ticket, for the same reason Shapiro wasn’t this time.
Let me explain it in word of one syllable. Jew.
I wish that would become less salient in the Democratic Party, and I think it would if they were wise. I don’t get my wish, and they aren’t wise, and Democratic Jew-hatred is still gathering strength.
I hope you're wrong but fear you're right.
I usually am, damn it.
You may well be correct, but I'll suggest one caveat. I think that Democratic voters are considerably more intelligent than Democratic Party leaders. Democratic voters pushed Kamala Harris's ejection seat button in 2019--party leaders then handed her the vice presidency. Democratic voters were busily rejecting Joe Biden in 2020, when party leaders chased all the other contenders out of the race to prevent him from losing to Bernie Sanders--a Jew (albeit not Israel-friendly at this point). Similarly, they revved up the super-delegates in 2016 to prevent Sanders--the Jew--from defeating Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Since 2020, Democratic leaders hid Biden's physical and mental condition because they feared that primary voters would reject him. Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, and crew nixxed the idea of an open convention because they feared Kamala wouldn't survive the race and the DEI Crew would be furious. One Shapiro theory is that he would have been selected, but Pelosi vetoed the choice and insisted on her erstehile caucus member, Tim Walz. So, I'm not really sure that rank-and-file Democrats would reject Shapiro. Party leaders would. The question is whether the party oligarchs still have sway in 2028 after three disastrous elections that they created.
Right-of-center voters were smarter and more virtuous, on average, than the winning candidate in America this year and in Germany in 1933.
I’m not really tempted to believe that the wisdom and virtue of the masses is going to straighten out their leaders.
As to the sway in 2028: remember the sway of the partisan media.
I’m not sure which of you is correct - and indeed it’s probably unknowable right now - but the plausible path for Shapiro in 2028 is him running and quickly owning the (relatively) “moderate” lane while 3 or 4 at least semi-credible others compete for the left lane, and Shapiro gets pluralities in most primaries, while at least two leftists stay in it until the end.
And the vitriolic, antisemitic pushback from the oppressor-oppressed woke left would only help cement his position amongst a *chunk* of Dem voters. It might not get him a clear majority, but it would imo cement his 35%-40% plurality leadership status in much the same way as occurred for Trump in the GOP primaries of 2016.
Whatever else you think of Dem party leaders, I don’t see them conspiring to push out the moderate and annoint an AOC or someone similar in that scenario. IMO they want power even more than they want party unity.
As to that last sentence, you can’t prove it by the year just passed.
My thesis is they were neither that dumb nor that smart.
Someone at the Dem party smart/brilliant negotiated having the first ever June debate to leave them an option to remove Biden if it became necessary.
But the woke/DEI ideology throughout the Dem party is such that they would have had neither victory nor unity had they replaced Kamala with a white male.
The only plausible one that would have worked is Michele Obama.
Thank goodness we will never know if that particular counterfactual would have worked for them. It is surely the scenario I feared.
One disadvantage the Democrats have that I don't think gets enough examination is the fawning national press.
Alfred P. Sloan that man who established General Motors had an interesting habit. If something came before the board, and no one was against it, it was tabled. Mr. Sloan's position was that if no one was against it, they hadn't thought it through.
Without challenge we become weak. There's numerous examples, please bear with me while I give another one.
Years ago there was a lawyer at AT&T who had a habit of taking extreme positions and allowing his staff to pull him back to a reasonable position. This worked fine at first, but as he rose in the corporation the less likely his staff was to challenge him, and he began to believe that his extreme positions were correct. You can imagine how that worked out for him and the corporation.
Whether the performance of the press is due to laziness, corruption, or incompetence - it really doesn't matter. Maybe the organizations think they are doing the Democrats a favor by going easy on them - but they are not. Without challenge the weakness gradually infects and destroys everything.
Will this be corrected? I suppose it's possible if the national press is replaced by a younger, newer, competent press. Or maybe they will see the iceberg ahead and change course before they have to pack up their lives in cardboard boxes.
I think the traditional press is a Dead Man Walking. They expended the last of their power this time to no avail.
I disagree.
Without their massive expenditures for Team Kamala - and for that matter, Team Democrat for at least the last 20 years - Trump probably wins NH, NM, VA, and maybe even CO and NJ to boot.
Don’t underestimate the number of over 40 year olds they’ve succeeded in brainwashing.
I agree they will have difficulty doing same with the under. 35 crowd.
Great stories. My best guess (hope?) is that New Media obliterate Old Media. That Bari Weiss's substack The Free Press flourishes and the New York Times shuts down.
NYT shuts down? Really?!?
I usually agree with your takes, and very rarely find them “dumb”.
The NYT quite likely will continue to lose credibility, but unlike some of their cohorts they are making money with their “go left, young man” strategy. So the idea that they will shut down seems beyond far fetched, even in the long-term.
The medium term direction in fortunes for most of the left-biased press (downwards) versus The Free Press and its ilk (up) seems of course a no-brainer. But that’s a lot different that claiming the NYT will shut its doors.
I said hope. And, as one who worked as an economic forecaster, I followed an important principle: your prediction should be specific on the future event or on the time period, but not both. That way, you’re never demonstrably wrong.
Of course the Times remains open for a while. They produce Wordle, which is a big money-maker. But it’s an open question whether the NYT and its ilk have more influence today than new media/social media. Will the NYT be operating in 20 years? Probably, but then I recall magazines being central influencers in civic life. Till the internet left them as relics.
Good take on all this: https://archive.md/4ileh#selection-5639.0-5639.66
Well, I knew most of this, and for sure agree.
However I had *not* known this stat:
“The median age of an MSNBC viewer is 70, while Fox News’s is 69 and CNN’s is 68.”
I new it was older, but not THAT much older…
That appears to be happening. I subscribe to The Free Press and Bill O'Reilly. Bill says he has more viewers now than he did at Fox.
I’ve read that the NYT is making plenty of money, just not in the old fashioned print way. Don’t remember the details, but it had to do with exploiting the internet - recipes, podcasts, etc.
Good diagnosis; poor prognosis. This will not be corrected. It is just too pleasant. You know, like heroin.
Interesting analysis - thanks! While at some point there will be a woman president, I’m far more interested in a competent president than getting some check mark just to say we’ve elected the first woman president.