Long ago, Republican acolyte and political strategist extraordinaire Lee Atwater (one of the people responsible for the Nixon and Reagan Administrations) allegedly stated that “perception was reality” in terms of how the American public viewed politics. He was entirely correct, and under his guidance the Republican Party successfully framed Jimmy Carter as a weak, fearful, indecisive man afraid of his own shadow, contrasted with the Ronald Reagan who would wrestle bears and outshoot John Wayne while seducing starlets and crushing Communism. It was a lie, of course, but it was good enough to win three presidential elections in a row and define the Republican Party forever.
There’s a lot to say about Donald Trump’s 3/5/25 speech to Congress and the nation. That’s the subject of a future post, but in all honesty, it’s not important. Donald Trump is an authoritarian narcissist who wants to use the powers of the presidency to cause harm to his enemies, enrich himself and his family, and guide the nation to his whims in pursuit of his goals. In millennial terms, he’s a griefer- the kind of player on an MMO game who is entertained by the chaos that he causes. Sucks, but that’s an entirely different topic. Short version: Trump is actually taking on important, broad challenges, is broadly popular for now, and is squandering his unprecedented political strength by starting a trade war that will be economically ruinous right around the time of the 2026 midterms.
What I’m talking about today is the Democrats. And how they totally suck.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_AdOzZ9bq0
Notice a theme here? It’s impotence. It’s weakness. It’s fear.
Donald J. Trump is perhaps the least surprising president we have ever had. Steven Smith was exactly right- the man literally announces exactly what he is going to do, how and when he is going to do it, and even why he is going to do it. To the world, on social media, and without filters or Obama-esque subterfuge or coding. Everything he does is telegraphed, anticipated and publicized to a massive extent, to include leaks that I’m sure he would rather not come out. We, as Americans, have known about that for a decade, since his ride down the escalator and his first term. We literally had an entire four-year trial run of Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, to figure out who is he is as a man, a leader and a person. That is perhaps the most intensive interview ever. And the Democrats took copious notes, beat him in 2020, and probably kept disaster at bay for a few years before they forgot how to read those notes. So, on Tuesday night when he stepped up to that podium and began to spew inaccurate facts, lies, bullshit and bold new policy proposals ranging from the scarily plausible to the fantastical, there were no actual surprises from him. Instead, the (expected) surprises came from the Democrats.
Al Green was the most vibrant resistance the Dems could muster. An old, deeply-corrupt Houston Democrat shaking his cane. Wooooooooooo.
Look at these idiots. What the fuck is going on? This isn’t even cohesive. What are they protesting? Is the most effective way to protest this farce of government to wear fuschia, hold crappy little ping-pong paddle signs and pick the top twenty focus-group issues to bitch about (and that’s what it is, because bitching is defined as complaining when there is no viable alternative plan. If the plan was to present an alternative to Republican leadership, this wasn’t it. This was a petulant temper tantrum from the Degrassi drama squad, for the cameras, neatly packed in an episode.
What else would you expect from the team that picked Hakeem Jefferies to set the message and puts Chuck Schumer on the podium to tell Americans what we want? Fuckin’ A, bros. These dudes are literally falling asleep themselves, kept awake only by their reflexive resistance masturbation about how “effective” their “restrained” resistance was and their assurance that “Americans are noticing” and that they’ll eventually do something, or that the Republican caucus will collapse, or that Trump will experience the consequences of his decisions. All of these things are true. But that’s ignoring the point. Americans are noticing because we have no choice and because the Democratic Party has nothing that it seems willing to do in order to forestall these destructive changes. Letters demanding information, protests in front of the Treasury Building, and some screeching on MSNBC? Color me impressed /sarcasm. There are plenty of maneuvers the Democrats could be employing. Filibusters, coordinated messaging, careful coordination of votes, pressure on Republicans at all levels, and a focus on good government in contrast to Republican chaos are starters.
We saw that exact same strategy used by the Republicans back in 2010 when they were the minority party and still managed to slow Obama’s agenda. Remember that? Mitch McConnell used a far smaller minority than the Democrats are stuck with and still routinely won power games. But he got there by picking intelligent fights, by ruthlessly enforcing the party’s agenda and staying on-task and on-message and coordinated with friendly media and the population that matters at the ballot box. Those successes cultivated the strength that let the Republicans stymie Barack, elect Trump, neuter Sleepy Joe and re-elect Donald Trump. Every win generated more perceived strength, which brought more wins.
Does anyone see the current Democrats willing to do this? Anyone at all?
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/04/oregon-democrats-trump-join-address-speech/ They can’t even be bothered to sit through an opponent’s victory lap. And yes, I know they were trying to show that it’s inherently non-serious, or invalid, or a crock of shit. That would be a great reason for a boycott, and it’s why one of the few Democrats with a spine didn’t show up and instead chose to live-stream her reactions. She sent an effective message- the speech was bullshit and she wasn’t going to waste her time sitting in silent support, but she was going to analyze it and present a plan for her supporters and constituents who are being directly affected by Trump’s idiotic policies and executive orders. That’s goddamned leadership.
Instead, we get fuschia wuss blazers and protest paddles and ActBlue demand emails. Weakness emanates from every pore of this bullshittery.
Worse than the crappy messaging though is the Democrat’s continued focus on culture war loser bullshit (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/07/newsom-trans-bills-00217527, and yes, Democrats are already criticizing Gavin Newsom, notorious super-liberal, for daring to weakly point out that some of their hobby agenda is somewhat unpopular) and pointless fear-mongering (like in Rhode Island, where Democrats are trying to pass a firearms ban https://governor.ri.gov/press-releases/governor-mckee-general-officers-state-legislators-gun-safety-advocates-call-action / https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/11/assault-weapons-ban-proposed-again-for-ri-does-it-have-support-to-pass/78414868007/). Local and state Democrats argue that these pity parties are vital to keep the Democratic voter base content, but this is the same party and voter base that just lost everything on a national level and is bleeding voters everywhere precisely because of their focus on fear and weakness. There’s a way to peddle fear as a motivator, and the Republicans perfected it with right-wing media. It’s aimed squarely at high-propensity voters and puts the onus on them to act.
Democrat fear-mongering, on the other hand, postulates that people are hapless victims of tragedy, and that only government action can mitigate that. In Democrat-world, they are the answer to fear, which means that the person is weak. Beautiful, unique, valid, equitable…and weak. So fragile that a government policy is needed to protect them and their interests and their identity. So beautiful that their most fringe interests and desires are validated and propagated, and so equitable that everyone needs to know everything about them (but not the scary, violent Others, that would be threatening!)
Why am I picking on the LGBTQ pictures? Because it’s the neatest encapsulation of the whole Democrat ethos in 2025…and most Democrats would be offended by cowboys, football, America, etc.
Anyone remember 2005? Katrina was George Bush’s fault, every health care failure is BC/BS’s fault, Trump caused the fentanyl crisis, January 6th, mass shootings, etc. That’s the party line, and the response is always more government oversight, more regulations, more bans, etc. All the Democrat needs to do is keep voting blue. But notice something? That bullshit approach does not work. Democrats lost in 2014, and 2016, and 2022, and bigly in 2024, and when they did win small victories, it was on the backs of people who were fucking enraged and terrified by the Trump Administration and voted accordingly, on their own, for the lesser of two evils. And what did they do with those victories? Squandered them, of course, on “humane” open borders and social equity and virtue signaling to make the current crop of Dems look like the prettiest princesses at the purity ball. Worse, they managed to stain their seats with fear piss and weakness, so that even when a Democrat grows a spine and takes a reasonably centrist path, the party’s odor of fear clings to them like homeless guy pee. (Same problem as sane Republicans have, for what that’s worth).
Republicans have a lot of flaws, but they look united and strong, and the Atwater Observation holds even truer today- the perception of strength becomes strength, and the perception of weakness begets weakness. Until Democrats shower off the odor of piss, they will not win another election on a scale grand enough to matter.
This isn’t to say that the Democrats are doomed. Trump’s agenda is wildly dangerous from an economic perspective, and even if the wildest fantasies of the Republican Party and Muskovites come true, systemic flaws in the economy and American society are going to start hitting hard in the Trump term as the consequences of Trump 1, the Biden Gap Years and Trump 2 all hit at once along with the earnest start of the Boomer Die-Off and whatever foreign policy debacles pop up. Republicans with their unified control of the government own those results and cannot run from it as long as Trump holds them thralls; voters have already shown that they will punish incumbents for poor results, particularly economically. A centrist, sane Democrat movement / leader could very easily capture many of the Independents and probably more than a few disaffected Republicans who pushed Trump over the top in 2024. Whether that leader will be allowed to emerge from the Democratic anxiety is an open question.
So, with that pointed out, how exactly can the Democrats wash the piss and fear out of their panties?
First and foremost, they need a complete reset of their (perceived) national and state leadership. This doesn’t need to be a total teardown, but it does need to be a break from the past. Kamala, Gavin Newsom, Kathleen Hochul, Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, etc. have driven the party that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama build and flown it straight into irrelevance for most Americans. And this has nothing to do with their personal attributes- they were the leaders in charge of the greatest mass losses in modern political history. The perception of weakness has latched onto them as national figures. They can remain party statesmen, power brokers, etc…but they lost, and lost bigly (thanks, Donald!) With this reset, the leaders of the future need to be sane, adult, moderate, centrist or even conservative leaders who are willing to prioritize good governance over flashy bullshit. I’d suggest people like Tammy Duckworth, Henry Cuellar, Katie Hobbs and AOC to take the reigns of leadership in this New Democrat Party. This needs to be mirrored on state levels and some local levels too- mayors like Karen Bass and Eric Adams have national audiences and their actions reflect on the party as a whole; they cannot be immune from the consequences of defeat.
Second, the Dems need to pick an agenda people care about and stick to it with unified messaging and complimentary policies. Time, money and public attention are not infinite, and if there’s anything to learn from Kamala’s multi-billion-dollar extravaganza, it’s that no amount of swing-state celebrity flythroughs and paid TikTok influencers are going to compel conservative-leaning independents to vote for Democrats if their self-image and economics are at threat. The horrible truth of the 2020s is that those LGBTQ+ community members, homeless people and voters-with-illegal-family-members who can be bothered to vote will almost always already vote Democrat and their numbers are not outcome-determinative in the Presidential election in terms of distribution, but pursuing those votes alienates significantly more likely voters and motivates them to show up for the Red Team. Donald Trump successfully made 2024 a referendum on changes in American society; Democrats need to make 2026 and 2028 referendums on Republican actions. They’ll likely have ample opportunities with economic dysfunction and Trump’s enablement of the worst Republican excesses.
Third, Democrats need to avoid diversion on all levels into cesspools. What’s a cesspool, you ask? It’s a topic that drinks every bit of time and every resource and every bit of energy spent on it without actual gains and usually paints those who tend to it with shit. January 6th was a gigantic cesspool; one that defined the Biden DOJ as an organization dedicated to political lawfare. Abortion, gun control and “democracy” are the perennial cries of the pissy Democrat; and they’re all cesspools- they yield minimal (if any) hypothetical benefits, no tangible benefits and paint the party with the stench of futility and weakness. Worse, they’re the things that many of the most reliably active political communities are built to suck dollars into- Planned Parenthood, Anytown for Gun Safety / March for Our Lives, civil rights advocacy organizations, aid, etc. As commendable as some goals may be in the abstract or in local settings, they are fatal for the broader ambitions of the party, particularly in high-stakes elections. Passing something like a small state gun-control act won’t protect a single person any more than any other law, but it will reinforce the impression of those critical swing-state voters that their Democrats are on the same wavelength. That perception forces the Dems to either fracture the party by disavowing the broader agenda (thus likely guaranteeing a Republican win) or to try and win in the face of the cesspool, which is once again unlikely, because they’re covered in shit from said cesspool. Notice how big drains like the economy and foreign policy are not necessarily cesspools, because good policies and effective politicians can and do make real differences in those fields that reflects positively on them.
If they do this, and with a bit of luck, the Democrats can probably win in ’26 and beyond. But I’m not holding my breath.
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