Pandemonium in the Smoke-Filled Room

In a smoke-filled room in the bowels of Mordor Washington D.C., a group of Democratic National Committee Party Hacks (DNCPHs) are meeting to discuss their strategy for the upcoming Presidential election:

DNCPH #1: “Presuming he doesn’t wander off before November, it looks like our nominee is likely to be Joe Biden. After all, no incumbent President has lost renomination since 1884, and President Biden did win over 87% of the vote in our primaries just a few months ago. We all know that his intellect has gone from, um, less than ideal to, um, much less than ideal. Which is fine. We can run things for him, of course. But now it seems that even our friends in the media can no longer hide his dementia from our subjects. Er, from the American voters. So we may want to consider other options. Chamiqua, you met with President Biden the other day to ask if he might consider stepping down. Could you summarize his response for us?”

Chamiqua: “Um, no, I’m afraid not.”

DNCPH #1: “Why not?”

Chamiqua: “Because," he said, (pause – consults notes) "um, here we go – he said, ‘Americans will stand up for, um, Americans will not stand for, I’m not kidding here, you know, the thing, because MAGA Republicans are second fiddle back scratchers who, you know, want FDR to put y’all back in chains with the American clean black dream MAGA crash…’”

DNCPH #1: “Ok, ok. Thank you. That’s quite enough…”

Chamiqua: (Looking peeved) “Would YOU like to summarize that, sir?”

DNCPH #1: “Never mind. Look, I know that some Trump supporters keep bringing up the 25^th Amendment. This is when we should be thankful that Trump is not President, and we have actual adults running things. The Vice President is in somewhat of an awkward position here, as she’ll need to delicately balance her self-interest of wanting to be President versus the interests of her political party.”

DNCPH #2: “…and the good of the country…”

It was dead silent in the room for 10 seconds, with everyone looking at each other awkwardly, before everyone broke out laughing hysterically like that scene from Goodfellas. They laughed and laughed, until they couldn't breathe.

DNCPH #1: (Wiping tears of laughter from his eyes) “Whew! You really had me going there, for a minute!”

DNCPH #2: “We’re all stressed out here – it’s good to lighten things up a bit, from time to time.”

DNCPH #1: “Anyway, my point was that we’re fortunate that Trump isn’t President, because he’d have some airheaded inexperienced sycophant as a Vice President. Anyway, has anyone approached Vice President Harris about how best to handle this dilemma?”

DNCPH #3: “Yes, I saw her yesterday, and asked if she saw any graceful and dignified way to avoid a Trump landslide in November.”

DNCPH #1: “Could you summarize her comments for us?”

DNCPH #3: “Um, well, no. Probably not.”

DNCPH #1: “Let me guess…”

DNCPH #3: “Right. She said, um, (consulting notes) here it is – she said, ‘It’s past time for us to do what we’ve been doing, and that time is…”

DNCPH #1: “OK. PLEASE! You don’t have to, um, ok look. (closes his eyes for a second to collect his thoughts) Look. We’ve got to remember a couple of things here. First, it doesn’t matter who wins this election, as long as they’re a Democrat. Policies and so on will be the same whoever it is. Second, as long as we have mail-in ballots and computer counting systems, a Democrat WILL win the election. So what we’re really talking about here is trying to keep this at least somewhat plausible, to avoid questions and conflict after the election. And if Trump keeps attracting tens of thousands of enthusiastic supporters to his rallies, and leading in all the polls, it will look bad if he loses to someone whose record is horrifying, is an international laughing stock, and looks to be near death. If this election looks too weird, then those crazy conspiracy-minded Republicans might begin to suspect that perhaps the election was fixed. Even though we’re just trying to represent the will of the people here, obviously. Well, what the will of the people ought to be.”

DNCPH #4: “The past four years have been a disaster for the American people. Everyone is much worse off. We've got increasing violence domestically and internationally. We went from surpluses to shortages in nearly everything. And Democrats don’t have anybody in our top 10 possible candidates who isn’t openly mocked or loathed by the American people. So how do we make this upcoming electoral win look sort of plausible?"

DNCPH #1: “We need to work on our messaging. Look – we need to find a way to connect with Blacks, union members, and lower-class whites.”

DNCPH #3: “That shouldn’t be too hard for us. We’re Democrats. Those are our people.”

DNCPH #1: “No, they’re not. All of those groups value family and traditional gender roles. They work manual labor jobs and barbeque on the weekends. Heck, a lot of them even drive pickup trucks.”

DNCPH #3: “So?”

DNCPH #1: “Well, no offense intended to any of my colleagues here, but we’re a bunch of gluten-intolerant vegans who drive Priuses to yoga class. Heck, this isn’t even a real smoke-filled room. We’re all vaping fresh mint essential oil THC. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – who wants to be a knuckle-dragging deplorable, right? But still. I mean, c’mon – this may be a tough sell, right?”

DNCPH #5: “We could push policies that the American people in the heartland really want, like trans-sexual rights, abortion on demand, open borders, shutting down the energy industry, men in women’s sports, publicly acknowledging that America was never good and should be knocked down a couple pegs, requiring everyone including children to get their 14^th COVID booster, teaching Critical Race Theory in public schools, mandating…”

DNCPH #1: “Um, excuse me – ah, I appreciate your enthusiasm for ethical policies, but I don’t think that any of those things will connect with Americans. At least, not with any Americans who live more than 5 miles from a major city center. And probably not even them. Perhaps we might want to just think about pretending to consider centrism, sort of like Bill Clinton did. Of course, just like President Clinton, we could drop it as soon as…”

The meeting descended into absolute pandemonium after that. Screaming, yelling, crying, slapping at one another and missing. The delegates would have lit the furnishings on fire to enhance the riot, but none of them had a lighter. Eventually, they all wandered down to Starbucks for $8 lattes. Charged on their government AmEx cards, of course.

Perhaps their next meeting will be more fruitful. Perhaps this is all a simple misunderstanding.

Perhaps a popular statesman with a simple philosophy of unity and powerful leadership skills could emerge. Someone like Pete Buttigieg or AOC. Perhaps someone like that will lead Democrats to stability and national respect.

Perhaps.

NOTE: This may come as a surprise to some of you, but I just made all that up. I really don’t know what’s being said in Democratic leadership meetings.

But oh my goodness – I’d love to be a fly on the wall in THOSE meetings. Wow. Talk about pandemonium. I suspect it’s worse than what I portrayed. After all, Democrats are becoming impossible to satire. Despite my best efforts.

Just imagine…