Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) heckled the president on Tuesday in Congress, not the ideal way for his party to win friends. (Allison Robbert / AFP / Getty Images)
Yogi Berra, the mid-century New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher known for his pithy and often-humorous life observations, once famously quipped: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” It was sound advice, perhaps, for a traveler on the go and in search of a quick meal. But the modern Democratic Party, rudderless and confused and reeling from a pitiful collective performance during Tuesday evening’s presidential joint address to Congress, now confronts a decision that’s no joke.
One the one hand lies the path of least resistance: doubling down on the status quo — the progressive culture-warring, woke/identity politics-driven agenda that has dominated the party ever since Barack Obama upset Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. On the other hand lies the more difficult, but ultimately more promising path: a conscientious return to a politics of the prudential center. Which path Democrats choose from here will go a long way toward determining their relevance as a national political party for the foreseeable future.
Obama’s shocking upset over the madam-president-in-waiting was an inflection point for the trajectory of the Democratic Party. Voters rejected the cultural centrism that was a President Clinton-era hallmark in favor of the “hope” and “change” promised by Obama’s “coalition of the ascendant.” Initially, perhaps, that may have looked like a smart bet: Obama trounced John McCain in the 2008 presidential general election. But the one-time “coalition of the ascendant” transmogrified into an identitarian and deeply off-putting “coalition of aggrieved interests.” Culturally militant wokeism eventually reached its pernicious apex during the Biden presidency — which saw
the first explicitly “DEI” Supreme Court justice selection (Ketanji Brown Jackson, after Biden vowed to nominate a Black woman) and
a seemingly DEI vice presidential running mate (Kamala Harris, after Biden was
pressured to choose a Black woman).
This version of the Democratic Party, which featured Obama himself as the leading presidential campaign trail surrogate for Harris, was thoroughly rejected in November by the American people. It turns out that voters didn’t really know what they were signing up for when they embarked on an extended political journey of “hope” and “change.” They weren’t interested — and aren’t interested — in legitimizing irreversible medical treatments euphemistically sold as “gender-affirming care.” They weren’t interested — and aren’t interested — in assenting to wide-scale resettlement of
people from Africa, the Middle East and Latin America whose cultures and customs are antithetical to our own.
Some leading Democrats do finally seem to get the memo. Former Clinton strategist James Carville, for instance, has called for Democrats to distance themselves from the excesses of woke civilizational arson. But many others disagree. There is no indication at all, for instance, that the talking heads of “The View” have done any introspection: Shortly after November’s electoral shellacking, co-host Sunny Hostin attributed Harris’ loss to Donald Trump to “racism” and “misogyny.” Surveying the left-of-center punditocracy scene, it often seems that there are far more Hostin-like voices of escalation than there are Carville-like voices of sobriety.
Democratic elected officials are also deeply split. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California made headlines this week by repudiating certain facets of wokeism during an interview with Charlie Kirk, but some congressional Democrats attending Trump’s address on Tuesday evening took the opposite approach, beyond refusing to applaud: Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) heckled the president and was kicked out of the House chamber within the speech’s first few minutes — deservedly so.
In what world do Democrats think they do themselves any political favors with these antics — and more important, these underlying substantive political stances? One guest of Trump on Tuesday, Payton McNabb, is a female former high school athlete who was injured during a match against a team with a transgender player. A New York Times/Ipsos poll in January
found that 67% of Democrats (and 94% of Republicans) do not believe transgender women should compete in sports against other women. Even Newsom, in his podcast episode with Kirk, called those matchups “
deeply unfair.”
Newsom seems to be reading the tea leaves — unlike congressional Democrats. There is a similar divide on the issue of illegal immigration and “sanctuary” jurisdictions; consider, for instance, New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ high-profile flip on the issue, which has brought him into line with Trump.
To make matters even worse, a majority of Democratic elites too often now come across not merely as schoolmarmish and excessively self-righteous — but as heartless and lacking compassion, to boot. Party leaders undoubtedly think of themselves as “compassionate,” especially for those perceived as being “oppressed” (on the neo-Marxist intersectional scale of victimization status). But where is the compassion for McNabb? Where is the compassion for the family of Laken Riley, the Athens, Ga., student whose life was
tragically cut short by a Venezuelan man who prosecutors said entered the country illegally?
In order to recover their standing and regain lasting relevance as an electorally feasible national political party, Democrats are going to have to repudiate the entirety of their post-2008/post-Obama cultural legacy. That is the simple truth. The American people want a stable pocketbook, a stable border and a stable world stage. They’re not interested in the Obama-Biden-Harris Democratic Party’s idiosyncratic conception of waging a culture war.
Are Democrats up to such a challenge? The intraparty civil war is on — but I certainly have my doubts. Unless and until they do repudiate their cultural militance, however, Democrats will continue to flounder about in irrelevance. Perhaps they’ll need to get their clocks cleaned at the ballot box a few more times. That wouldn’t be the worst thing.
Josh Hammer is senior editor-at-large for Newsweek. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer
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