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The Party of the Living Dead, Part Two
Here are the headlines in The Daily Mail:
Clinton leaves leaderless, rudderless and talentless Democratic Party in crisis – with only pensioners Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to turn to
- Defeated Democrats are in crisis after humiliating defeat of Hillary Clinton and a Republican clean sweep in both houses
- Senior figures admit they have no shining new talent to step into the breach
- Only stars are Elizabeth Warren, 67, and Bernie Sanders, 75, while leaders in Senate and House of Representatives are both pensioners too
- Chairs of the Democratic National Committee have either quit in disgrace or been branded ‘disgusting’ for unethical conduct
- Hawaii senator Brian Schatz warns navel-gazing got party into mess and says: ‘We need to open our minds and expand our Rolodexes.’
Need I say more?
Published in Politics
If they reelect Pelosi as leader in January, they will be seen – correctly – as not serious.
The Democrats will almost certainly nominate a black candidate. This community has shown they will come out in large numbers for a black candidate, but not for a white one. There is a word for people who vote based on skin color.
Someone once had a dream.
Guys, wasn’t this election the end of the Republican Party? I thought I was hearing that.
The current condition of the Democratic party is a direct result of the Clinton family’s 30-year drive to consolidate power. When Obama beat Hillary in `08, he was an upstart who failed to respect that it was “her turn.” The Clintons spent the last 8 years eliminating strong competitors within the party (see DNC email hack) and ensuring that the 2016 nomination process would be a coronation, and their efforts on that front met with great success.
Now that the Clintons are useless and obsolete (to the Dems; I am aware that on a fundamental level they have always been useless and obsolete), expect a hungry new generation of young(er) Democrats to fill the power vacuum. It will be chaotic (as such things always are), and it’s difficult to know what the tenor of the new candidates will be, especially given the rogue variable of how Trump and the GOP do in their first 2 years.
Socialism, (or the Democrat Party take your pick) is like the TV show “The Living Dead”. Freedom is not the default state of the human species. Being taken care of is. Changing human nature is next to impossible.
With the loss of their charismatic president and the “inevitable” Madame President, the Dems are left with a huge leadership mess. Bernie and Pocahontas have socialist cred, but the critical energy driving the party is racialist. The Dems don’t seem to have a strong leader capable of holding the factions together, regardless of who emerges as the candidate.
Both rosters have plenty of young talent. Why they are still on the bench? I suspect we will find out VERY shortly.
Michele Obama.
I’m predicting in the wake of Trumps success an influx of celebrity candidates on the left.
and I’m not joking, who’s been making the bloviating speeches and twittering “issues” and outrages for the past few years?
Kanye will run. The next Democratic presidential ticket will be West/Gaga 2020. I bet he’ll win too. Jon Stewart will be Secretary of State. George Clooney will be Surgeon General. Lena Dunham as Attorney General. Billy Joe Armstrong as Defence.
Maybe they need binders full of women.
For the record, these headlines were not an obituary. The Democratic Party will surely come back. But they have a problem — next to no bench. Very few Governors, no Senators of note apart from the “pensioners,” and a civil war likely to erupt within the party. Top-Bottom coalitions are hard to holder together, and Barack Obama turned the party into an instrument for radical transformation. The hedge-fund managers are going to be unhappy with what he has hatched.
It all depends on whether a Trump administration will be a huge disaster for the country or a blessing for the country or something in between.
Based on the way Trump conducted his marriages and his businesses, based on the way Trump lied to the students of Trump University, the Democrats will be in complete control of all of the levers of government very soon. Let’s hope Jeff Sessions and Mike Pence can keep Trump from being Trump.
If I were James O’Keefe I would start playing the long game right about now. First, I’d research who are the charismatic, young, up and comers in the Democratic party, then I would see what I could get them to admit on tape, finally I would put those tapes in a nice, safe place and wait. Imagine if somebody gave BHO that treatment back when he ran for senate.
The very lack of bench opens things up for a charismatic, young and radical newcomer – a faux populist who can succeed if Trump stumbles badly
As several comments have suggested, Cory Booker is an immediately obvious choice. I also would not be the least surprised to see the third term of Obama in the person of Michelle Obama. The Democrats don’t need lots of candidates (how did lots of candidates work for the Republicans in 2016?), they only need a couple of good ones. Either Booker or M Obama would crank Democratic voter turnout back up to BH Obama levels and that’s all they’ll need – especially if The Donald spends four years alienating everyone.
Paul,
Let’s not overreact. This problem has been with us for a very long time.
Regards,
Jim
Wonderful. You should do a post based on this and get it on the main feed.
That is one of my nightmares.
This is a very interesting consideration.
I’m pretty sure she’s not interested in political office, although she’ll certainly clean up on the speaking circuit.
Another name to watch: Roy Cooper from North Carolina. He’s the outgoing state Attorney General currently locked in a governor’s race w/ the Republican incumbent that’s still too close to call (there are still some absentee & military ballots to count, and we may not know the final outcome for another week…or more). He’s a pretty solid guy, honestly, and has done a decent job as AG. But a couple caveats:
1. He turns 60 in June. So not as young as some of the others mentioned above, especially if the true optimal window for the next Democrat presidential candidate isn’t until 2024.
2. He’d bring that more moderate southern governor thing to the table, much like Bill Clinton did back in 1992. That sounds formidable on its face, and might make him a candidate w/ broad appeal in a national general election, but I think the Democratic Party of today has significantly moved to the left. He may not get far in the primary as a result. (Similarly, one could ask if a 1992 vintage Bill Clinton could win his party’s nomination today.)
3. Cooper’s future is of course largely predicated on his winning this current race, and it’s tight…as in, it’s going to be determined by <0.1% of the vote. That’s a few thousand ballots out of over 4 million cast.
Watch or them to try and emulate Trump with a celebrity outsider. Mark Cuban? Some Lefty actor? Also watch to see if Michelle tries to find herself a Senate seat…..
I think @spiral hits it on the head: everything, EVERYTHING depends on how these first two years go. Will it be brilliant surgical excision of red tape that is strangling business and entrepreneurship, causing a boon in economic growth and prosperity for all Americans? Or will it be score-settling and payback? Since the vast majority of us failed to predict a Trump win at all, most of us are unqualified to prognosticate what this bizarre marriage of Tea Party, establishment GOP, religious right, and our game show host-in-chief are going to give birth to.
One thing we can be sure of: the response of the Democratic party will be a function of that they are compelled to respond against.
The democratic party will rise again:Pre and post op trans-sexuals, lazy couch inhabiting whiners, mad-at-the -world unemployable idiots, garden variety weirdos, professional race hustlers and race hustlers keeping their amateur standing, sociology majors with 125K in debt. They are legion.
Because of course she is …
Oh…hell.
The Clinton Global Initiative has built up quite a war chest for darling Chelsea’s Congressional run. Now all they have to do is shop for a safe State and Congressional District for the little Princess.