THE GREAT CONTEST HAS ENDED
A bit of digestion leads straight into a post-mortem, eh? There’s always a winner and a loser, and so there’s always a win and a loss. Here we attempt to take a look at these things, and at the State of the Nation that led us to this outcome.
Bonus stars go to Trump and Musk! Sorry Harris, no such luck this round.
Well, here we are. The Great Contest has ended, quickly and decisively. It’s something that I’m still digesting, or in truth, still actively avoiding digesting. Easier to eat some shit and watch some television and drift through a day or two as an amorphous blob free of real thought or feeling.
There is a particular American bent toward a cheap anger. It’s an easy emotion, one that offers quick and simple satisfaction, and to be fair, one that has plentiful sources in our modern society. The problem arises in the misguided nature of the thing, and so in the careening toward fake solutions that assuage the uncomfortable irritation but offer nothing of substance. There is no nuance or acceptance of complexity and so inevitable imperfection in outcomes. There is only feeling and base level superficial response to it. ANGER demands an outlet. Decay and decline are bad and so must be reversed, simply. Equivocation of any kind equates to weakness and must be punished. And of course all of this is underlain by the extremely American bent toward paranoia… a loose and fervent paranoia that permeates all aspects of life, not in an all-consuming sense, save for the most extreme individuals, but in a way that it touches everything. We end up an angry people unwilling to analyze reality in any meaningful way - a people that knows we’re getting fucked, but doesn’t really care to find out who’s doing the fucking, only to rage against the closest target of ire. Because if the ire itself is justified, then who cares where it’s directed, really… Right? Tell me who the enemy is and I’ll start swinging, brother. THAT will make me feel better, and feeling better is as far ahead as I can think these days in this muddled modern world.
Yeah, long term consequences be damned. Larger picture self-interest be damned. Self-interest in this current paradigm lies in finding an outlet for the rage and then raging against it and feeling a short-lived satiation. Meanwhile, the paths that could potentially lead to some form of meaningful change and improvement in society are not taken, and if all goes to plan by those helping to fan these flames of short-sighted anger, they will be blocked, obstructed, closed down for as long as possible and hopefully forever. It’s a plot that has been employed by the powerful throughout history - because it works. When the status quo works for the elites, but not for the people, redirect their attention. Have them rage against the aspects of the status quo that don’t matter for your interests and in doing so direct attention away from the aspects that are important for your interests. The people can likely be riled up to care about either. It’s like, the angry mob has formed just outside the gates. It’s too late to disperse them - something will have to be burned before they’ll all go home and go to bed. So, just accept that, and turn them toward something that doesn’t really matter to you - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to you, or someone that is an enemy to you. “Nay, not this estate good people! We are not the source of your troubles! Have you not heard of… that strange looking group of people in that strange neighborhood just over yonder? Have you not seen how they behave differently than you - THAN US? Surely, that is because they are the ones plotting against you…” Make them believe it, and then they’ll do what you want without much further effort. And of course, they have agency, so if you can make it about something that doesn’t really matter to them - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to them, or someone that is an enemy to them… well, then the sell becomes easy. Make sure it’s in your interest, but if you can, use whatever momentum already exists amongst them for the redirect. Then while they march on and the fire spreads you can return to tending to what really matters, be that wealth, or power, or some strange ideological framework… whatever tickles your fancy as an elite. You can continue to have dominion over them without having to give up anything of meaning.
Yes, true, but we’re zooming out a bit too far… Donald Trump and the Republicans won the election by harnessing the cheap and simple American anger, the sense of grievance with… life, and the strange flippant contrianism that rises out of it. It’s an odd combination of things, primarily along the lines of, SOCIETY’S GONE TO SHIT!!!! Inflation - grocery prices - gas - IT’S TOO HIGH! Illegal immigrants are a shadowy mass of doom that has permeated the entire nation and, while difficult to blame for many specifics, can certainly be blamed for generally making everything BAD. We just need to know who’s coming into our country! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR JOBS!? Manufacturing jobs, real jobs, jobs that have been being destroyed since the 1980s and 90s - we need them back! The woke progressive values of the most vocal leftists have surely swept at least half if not more of the nation, and they are destroying masculinity, and family values, and good classical conservative ways of living, and they are going to be shoved down your throat, and maybe up your ass. Biden is too old, Kamala Harris is too woke and ineffective. We’re giving too much money to places like Ukraine, and we’re going to stop the war there, and unnecessary wars in general, but we’re also going to have the strongest military ever, and we’re going to bomb anyone that we have to. Less war, more war, whatever, you get it. Things like international accords, and drawn out diplomatic efforts, and large-scale government programs… we’ve just had enough. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! CUT THE RED TAPE!!!! It’s time to just tear down all that bullshit and force our will through! No need to question why those things exist in the first place because they aren’t working now, and enough is really enough, so fuck trying to fix anything, we’re tearing it DOWN BABY.
Essentially, there are a lot of bad and wrong people in our country, and they want to do bad and wrong things to all of you, and there are a lot of bad and wrong things going on in our country, just in general, yes, and aren’t all of you getting fucked in a thousand ways, and don’t you want to not be getting fucked, and don’t you hate looking weak, and don’t you want to look strong, and don’t you maybe just a little bit want to fuck those bad and wrong people who are fucking you, and don’t you want everything to be good and easy and never make you uncomfortable, but without saying that because you are tough and would of course never say that’s all you want because you aren’t weak little pussies like them? And of course, we’ll make some jokes and have some fun while we’re doing all this, get a little rowdy. We don’t need to talk about how we’re going to do all of this, or what any of it means, because we’re angry and we’re justified in our anger and it feels good to talk about how angry we are and fuck it, fuck them, we’re taking back what’s ours, and we’re having a little fun while we do it - YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT’S TABOO OR WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST! Hehehe……
Yeah, so we’ll take many of the real problems facing average Americans and put them firmly in the hands of a billionaire president, with a multi-millionaire vice president, the richest man in the world as a close advisor to and proponent of the administration, and of course the wider Republican establishment, famous for policies like trickle down economics, union busting, and deregulation as desired by industry. A real dream team for the American worker. But hey, as consolation prizes maybe we’ll finally get to ban abortion and Venezuelans, and keep making fun of people with blue hair. Isn’t that nice? Remember that while you continue to slog through the muck for an unraised minimum wage, pion.
The American mentality decries finesse and swings a blunt object around gleefully and forcefully. If Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, this is beat everyone with a stick and scream at them, then laugh while they cry. Welcome to modernity. Decorum is dead, with spit on its grave.
So… we are angry, and if someone can just speak to that anger, just harness it and channel it and give us a small moment of catharsis amidst the rage - well, that’s good enough. Here’s the keys to the castle baby.
Of course, one side can’t win without the other one losing, and while analysis of the win always feels more pertinent, it’s important to analyze the loss as well. Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn’t pull it off. It’s a long and wavering path that led their campaign down the drain, but I think the best place to start is probably 2016. Bernie Sanders was a populist and he had momentum. He talked to the average American, the American worker, and he acknowledged many of the stark realities that Trump was fanning the flames of. But he also offered actual plans to address them - complex, multi-faceted things, things that we can still debate the efficacy of, but certainly things that seemed to resonate with the people and were horrifying to the elites. Things that were loathed by the Corporate Democratic Party Structure. So, before worrying too much about Trump’s path in the primaries, or any of the Republican contenders, they dealt with the internal threat - they destroyed the enemy within first. Can we definitively say Bernie Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination if the Party had not meddled? No, of course not - we can’t be sure. But we can say with certainty that the Party put its thumb on the scale and did its best to scuttle his candidacy and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party fought back against their own populist movement, believing they could bring it to heel with sheer willpower and brute political force. Meanwhile, the Republicans gave up on fighting their own populist movement, and let it end up at the top of the ticket. And the rest is history.
Did sexism play a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump? Of course it did. But so did stifling an authentic populist movement and so misreading the mood of the nation - running a Corporate Democrat Insider when the populace was busily raging against insiders. When people are angry, telling them that their anger is, essentially, dumb, and that you know better than them generally doesn’t work… ignoring and/or artificially stifling a groundswell of support and telling people to get in line will generally backfire in the end. Whether you like it it or not. Similarly, telling large swathes of people that they’re sexist if they don’t vote for your candidate generally doesn’t work. And I’ll offer up a harsh political reality here for those that are feeling a swell of moral argument at that statement - even if it’s true, saying it won’t get you votes. And you won’t win without the right votes. And you won’t govern if you don’t win. Morality matters deeply in governance… but it doesn’t seem to resonate too strongly with the angry American voter. That is to say, when it comes to The Great Contest, effectiveness is king, and effectiveness certainly must involve dealing in reality.
Well, Joe Biden managed to pull through in 2020, but it’s hard to say many people were really fired up about him on a personal level. We had just had the reality of a Donald Trump presidency, and then a pandemic with associated economic jolt, very alarming and bizarre times and Joe Biden was, well… boring… and kind of normal. So he pulled through. Well, it didn’t take long into his administration for many Americans to start thinking his advanced age was an issue, and while we’re skipping myriad large matters here, that culminated in his debate with Donald Trump earlier this summer. It was a fucking disaster. And it was what many Americans had considered to be a real possibility, and what many democrats had feared. But the Party/Administration, really one entity at this point, had basically been telling everyone, including their own friendly detractors, to fuck off, because like in 2016 and 2020, they knew what was best.
Well, it was such a fucking disaster that they then changed their minds. Time for Joe to go! Except… their hubris had kept them from making any real plans for an alternative. The writing had long been on the wall for the average American, but not for the Party. So what had they been doing to prepare for this potential outcome? Scouring the Democratic Party ranks for a potentially popular stand in? Certainly not. Getting Vice President Kamala Harris out in the limelight more, seen as an individual, maybe even a separate entity from the Administration - working on her image with the American People? No thanks. Instead, everyone was told to shut the fuck up and circle the wagons, until the Party just suddenly walked out of the defensive circle and said, “Whoops!”
Whoops indeed. Well, we then saw the ruthlessly efficient Party Machinery spring into action, and in record time and with a record lack of public detractors we had Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. As a cold and aloof political analyst I was actually impressed - the Machine moved quickly and efficiently and unimaginatively to a publicly presentable outcome that seemed to stave off the potent sense of absolute crisis. And the initial honeymoon phase that followed for her candidacy seemed to affirm what the Party had been telling us all since 2016 - shut the fuck up and let the real adults handle it. We’ll come out on top. Let the Democratic Party be a little undemocratic, internally, and we’ll give you democracy externally in the end. YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE BOYS AND GIRLS - JUST EAT WHAT YOU’RE SERVED!!!
Yeah, well, it turned out that running a previously entirely sidelined generally unpopular Vice President from the incumbent administration, a well-known frequent allergy of average Americans, with an unknown Minnesota governor didn’t whip up enough voting fervor across the populace. The initial pitch was “Joy!” to a seething populace full of the aforementioned cheap and simple anger and fervent contrarianism. And while there was an initial pivot from previous Democratic Party strategies - i.e. be careful about being seen as too cozy with Hollywood and celebrities; perhaps don’t focus too much on making Trump and his supporters out to be fascists on the move, instead just call them weird - as momentum waned, the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront. Kamala Harris performed very well in her debate with Donald Trump, creating a stark contrast to Joe Biden and even making Donald Trump look, well, careening and unfocused and petty. But then what? Well, hard to say. So again, it was back to the same 2016/2020 playbook, and the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront as the campaign marched on to Voting Day.
And so we had another winning strategy from the wizards of the Democratic Party Machine - anoint a candidate who lacks the organic popularity, and then use the same previously defeated/narrowly won strategies to try to get them across the finish line. If there was ever a time for trying a dramatic, if risky, shift in strategy, in messaging, even in policy - this was it. This was a candidacy born out of a political crisis against a candidacy that we were told could be the end of democracy. But instead of some kind of bold pivot to meet the moment, we ended up with more of the same, sleekly packaged by the Party Wizards with the same gift wrap used in 2016 and 2020 with a loss and a lukewarm win as track record. The Democratic Party has still not learned how to read the room. And when they do a bit of reading, and they don’t like the message they receive, they run from it, rather than try to learn how to harness it.
Now this is a tough line, and I have mixed feelings about it, but I have to ask - when it comes to politics, what’s better - avoiding and denying that which you find unsavory, labeling it as reprehensible and untouchable, taking the moral stand - and losing? Or to see reality for what it is and find a way to harness it - play in the dirt and win. Well, politics is a game of power, so let’s check back in in a year and see where we’re at, eh? See what lovely changes have been made…
There is a particular American bent toward a cheap anger. It’s an easy emotion, one that offers quick and simple satisfaction, and to be fair, one that has plentiful sources in our modern society. The problem arises in the misguided nature of the thing, and so in the careening toward fake solutions that assuage the uncomfortable irritation but offer nothing of substance. There is no nuance or acceptance of complexity and so inevitable imperfection in outcomes. There is only feeling and base level superficial response to it. ANGER demands an outlet. Decay and decline are bad and so must be reversed, simply. Equivocation of any kind equates to weakness and must be punished. And of course all of this is underlain by the extremely American bent toward paranoia… a loose and fervent paranoia that permeates all aspects of life, not in an all-consuming sense, save for the most extreme individuals, but in a way that it touches everything. We end up an angry people unwilling to analyze reality in any meaningful way - a people that knows we’re getting fucked, but doesn’t really care to find out who’s doing the fucking, only to rage against the closest target of ire. Because if the ire itself is justified, then who cares where it’s directed, really… Right? Tell me who the enemy is and I’ll start swinging, brother. THAT will make me feel better, and feeling better is as far ahead as I can think these days in this muddled modern world.
Yeah, long term consequences be damned. Larger picture self-interest be damned. Self-interest in this current paradigm lies in finding an outlet for the rage and then raging against it and feeling a short-lived satiation. Meanwhile, the paths that could potentially lead to some form of meaningful change and improvement in society are not taken, and if all goes to plan by those helping to fan these flames of short-sighted anger, they will be blocked, obstructed, closed down for as long as possible and hopefully forever. It’s a plot that has been employed by the powerful throughout history - because it works. When the status quo works for the elites, but not for the people, redirect their attention. Have them rage against the aspects of the status quo that don’t matter for your interests and in doing so direct attention away from the aspects that are important for your interests. The people can likely be riled up to care about either. It’s like, the angry mob has formed just outside the gates. It’s too late to disperse them - something will have to be burned before they’ll all go home and go to bed. So, just accept that, and turn them toward something that doesn’t really matter to you - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to you, or someone that is an enemy to you. “Nay, not this estate good people! We are not the source of your troubles! Have you not heard of… that strange looking group of people in that strange neighborhood just over yonder? Have you not seen how they behave differently than you - THAN US? Surely, that is because they are the ones plotting against you…” Make them believe it, and then they’ll do what you want without much further effort. And of course, they have agency, so if you can make it about something that doesn’t really matter to them - or better yet, something that is inconvenient to them, or someone that is an enemy to them… well, then the sell becomes easy. Make sure it’s in your interest, but if you can, use whatever momentum already exists amongst them for the redirect. Then while they march on and the fire spreads you can return to tending to what really matters, be that wealth, or power, or some strange ideological framework… whatever tickles your fancy as an elite. You can continue to have dominion over them without having to give up anything of meaning.
Yes, true, but we’re zooming out a bit too far… Donald Trump and the Republicans won the election by harnessing the cheap and simple American anger, the sense of grievance with… life, and the strange flippant contrianism that rises out of it. It’s an odd combination of things, primarily along the lines of, SOCIETY’S GONE TO SHIT!!!! Inflation - grocery prices - gas - IT’S TOO HIGH! Illegal immigrants are a shadowy mass of doom that has permeated the entire nation and, while difficult to blame for many specifics, can certainly be blamed for generally making everything BAD. We just need to know who’s coming into our country! WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR JOBS!? Manufacturing jobs, real jobs, jobs that have been being destroyed since the 1980s and 90s - we need them back! The woke progressive values of the most vocal leftists have surely swept at least half if not more of the nation, and they are destroying masculinity, and family values, and good classical conservative ways of living, and they are going to be shoved down your throat, and maybe up your ass. Biden is too old, Kamala Harris is too woke and ineffective. We’re giving too much money to places like Ukraine, and we’re going to stop the war there, and unnecessary wars in general, but we’re also going to have the strongest military ever, and we’re going to bomb anyone that we have to. Less war, more war, whatever, you get it. Things like international accords, and drawn out diplomatic efforts, and large-scale government programs… we’ve just had enough. ENOUGH’S ENOUGH! CUT THE RED TAPE!!!! It’s time to just tear down all that bullshit and force our will through! No need to question why those things exist in the first place because they aren’t working now, and enough is really enough, so fuck trying to fix anything, we’re tearing it DOWN BABY.
Essentially, there are a lot of bad and wrong people in our country, and they want to do bad and wrong things to all of you, and there are a lot of bad and wrong things going on in our country, just in general, yes, and aren’t all of you getting fucked in a thousand ways, and don’t you want to not be getting fucked, and don’t you hate looking weak, and don’t you want to look strong, and don’t you maybe just a little bit want to fuck those bad and wrong people who are fucking you, and don’t you want everything to be good and easy and never make you uncomfortable, but without saying that because you are tough and would of course never say that’s all you want because you aren’t weak little pussies like them? And of course, we’ll make some jokes and have some fun while we’re doing all this, get a little rowdy. We don’t need to talk about how we’re going to do all of this, or what any of it means, because we’re angry and we’re justified in our anger and it feels good to talk about how angry we are and fuck it, fuck them, we’re taking back what’s ours, and we’re having a little fun while we do it - YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT’S TABOO OR WHAT TO DO YOU FUCKING COMMUNIST! Hehehe……
Yeah, so we’ll take many of the real problems facing average Americans and put them firmly in the hands of a billionaire president, with a multi-millionaire vice president, the richest man in the world as a close advisor to and proponent of the administration, and of course the wider Republican establishment, famous for policies like trickle down economics, union busting, and deregulation as desired by industry. A real dream team for the American worker. But hey, as consolation prizes maybe we’ll finally get to ban abortion and Venezuelans, and keep making fun of people with blue hair. Isn’t that nice? Remember that while you continue to slog through the muck for an unraised minimum wage, pion.
The American mentality decries finesse and swings a blunt object around gleefully and forcefully. If Teddy Roosevelt said speak softly and carry a big stick, this is beat everyone with a stick and scream at them, then laugh while they cry. Welcome to modernity. Decorum is dead, with spit on its grave.
So… we are angry, and if someone can just speak to that anger, just harness it and channel it and give us a small moment of catharsis amidst the rage - well, that’s good enough. Here’s the keys to the castle baby.
Of course, one side can’t win without the other one losing, and while analysis of the win always feels more pertinent, it’s important to analyze the loss as well. Kamala Harris and the Democrats couldn’t pull it off. It’s a long and wavering path that led their campaign down the drain, but I think the best place to start is probably 2016. Bernie Sanders was a populist and he had momentum. He talked to the average American, the American worker, and he acknowledged many of the stark realities that Trump was fanning the flames of. But he also offered actual plans to address them - complex, multi-faceted things, things that we can still debate the efficacy of, but certainly things that seemed to resonate with the people and were horrifying to the elites. Things that were loathed by the Corporate Democratic Party Structure. So, before worrying too much about Trump’s path in the primaries, or any of the Republican contenders, they dealt with the internal threat - they destroyed the enemy within first. Can we definitively say Bernie Sanders would have triumphed over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination if the Party had not meddled? No, of course not - we can’t be sure. But we can say with certainty that the Party put its thumb on the scale and did its best to scuttle his candidacy and promote the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party fought back against their own populist movement, believing they could bring it to heel with sheer willpower and brute political force. Meanwhile, the Republicans gave up on fighting their own populist movement, and let it end up at the top of the ticket. And the rest is history.
Did sexism play a role in Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump? Of course it did. But so did stifling an authentic populist movement and so misreading the mood of the nation - running a Corporate Democrat Insider when the populace was busily raging against insiders. When people are angry, telling them that their anger is, essentially, dumb, and that you know better than them generally doesn’t work… ignoring and/or artificially stifling a groundswell of support and telling people to get in line will generally backfire in the end. Whether you like it it or not. Similarly, telling large swathes of people that they’re sexist if they don’t vote for your candidate generally doesn’t work. And I’ll offer up a harsh political reality here for those that are feeling a swell of moral argument at that statement - even if it’s true, saying it won’t get you votes. And you won’t win without the right votes. And you won’t govern if you don’t win. Morality matters deeply in governance… but it doesn’t seem to resonate too strongly with the angry American voter. That is to say, when it comes to The Great Contest, effectiveness is king, and effectiveness certainly must involve dealing in reality.
Well, Joe Biden managed to pull through in 2020, but it’s hard to say many people were really fired up about him on a personal level. We had just had the reality of a Donald Trump presidency, and then a pandemic with associated economic jolt, very alarming and bizarre times and Joe Biden was, well… boring… and kind of normal. So he pulled through. Well, it didn’t take long into his administration for many Americans to start thinking his advanced age was an issue, and while we’re skipping myriad large matters here, that culminated in his debate with Donald Trump earlier this summer. It was a fucking disaster. And it was what many Americans had considered to be a real possibility, and what many democrats had feared. But the Party/Administration, really one entity at this point, had basically been telling everyone, including their own friendly detractors, to fuck off, because like in 2016 and 2020, they knew what was best.
Well, it was such a fucking disaster that they then changed their minds. Time for Joe to go! Except… their hubris had kept them from making any real plans for an alternative. The writing had long been on the wall for the average American, but not for the Party. So what had they been doing to prepare for this potential outcome? Scouring the Democratic Party ranks for a potentially popular stand in? Certainly not. Getting Vice President Kamala Harris out in the limelight more, seen as an individual, maybe even a separate entity from the Administration - working on her image with the American People? No thanks. Instead, everyone was told to shut the fuck up and circle the wagons, until the Party just suddenly walked out of the defensive circle and said, “Whoops!”
Whoops indeed. Well, we then saw the ruthlessly efficient Party Machinery spring into action, and in record time and with a record lack of public detractors we had Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party candidate. As a cold and aloof political analyst I was actually impressed - the Machine moved quickly and efficiently and unimaginatively to a publicly presentable outcome that seemed to stave off the potent sense of absolute crisis. And the initial honeymoon phase that followed for her candidacy seemed to affirm what the Party had been telling us all since 2016 - shut the fuck up and let the real adults handle it. We’ll come out on top. Let the Democratic Party be a little undemocratic, internally, and we’ll give you democracy externally in the end. YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE BOYS AND GIRLS - JUST EAT WHAT YOU’RE SERVED!!!
Yeah, well, it turned out that running a previously entirely sidelined generally unpopular Vice President from the incumbent administration, a well-known frequent allergy of average Americans, with an unknown Minnesota governor didn’t whip up enough voting fervor across the populace. The initial pitch was “Joy!” to a seething populace full of the aforementioned cheap and simple anger and fervent contrarianism. And while there was an initial pivot from previous Democratic Party strategies - i.e. be careful about being seen as too cozy with Hollywood and celebrities; perhaps don’t focus too much on making Trump and his supporters out to be fascists on the move, instead just call them weird - as momentum waned, the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront. Kamala Harris performed very well in her debate with Donald Trump, creating a stark contrast to Joe Biden and even making Donald Trump look, well, careening and unfocused and petty. But then what? Well, hard to say. So again, it was back to the same 2016/2020 playbook, and the ole reliables were brought back to the forefront as the campaign marched on to Voting Day.
And so we had another winning strategy from the wizards of the Democratic Party Machine - anoint a candidate who lacks the organic popularity, and then use the same previously defeated/narrowly won strategies to try to get them across the finish line. If there was ever a time for trying a dramatic, if risky, shift in strategy, in messaging, even in policy - this was it. This was a candidacy born out of a political crisis against a candidacy that we were told could be the end of democracy. But instead of some kind of bold pivot to meet the moment, we ended up with more of the same, sleekly packaged by the Party Wizards with the same gift wrap used in 2016 and 2020 with a loss and a lukewarm win as track record. The Democratic Party has still not learned how to read the room. And when they do a bit of reading, and they don’t like the message they receive, they run from it, rather than try to learn how to harness it.
Now this is a tough line, and I have mixed feelings about it, but I have to ask - when it comes to politics, what’s better - avoiding and denying that which you find unsavory, labeling it as reprehensible and untouchable, taking the moral stand - and losing? Or to see reality for what it is and find a way to harness it - play in the dirt and win. Well, politics is a game of power, so let’s check back in in a year and see where we’re at, eh? See what lovely changes have been made…