Where do the Democrats go from here?

Losing elections is a bit like getting dumped. Often times the dumped party’s desire to overcome the heartbreak or to bounce back from the blow can result in an even messier downfall. You need a minute to get your act together, lest you make an ass of yourself in public while trying to demonstrate how well you’re doing. The Democrats are in that break-up spiral, with their latest antics exposing a lack of both direction and discretion. 

Earlier this month, Representative Maxine Waters, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Al Green (combined age: 237) gathered outside the Treasury Department and bemoaned the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader Elon Musk. According to these paragons of common decency, Musk is a “low-down, dirty, no-good person” for exposing government waste and fraud. Days later, Waters was at it again: this time in front of the Department of Education where she harassed a security attendant for his ID because he wouldn’t let her and her gang of grandstanders storm the building. (“Storm” is perhaps too strong a word — it would have been a light breeze at best.)

But it’s not just the street theater that reveals the Democrats’ embarrassing disarray. Last Monday, Senator Chuck Schumer announced his latest and greatest idea — a tip line for anyone who wants to “expose corruption, abuses of power and threats to public safety with the legal protections of being a whistleblower.” Call it DoGE 2.0: Schumer hates Elon so much that he’s copying him!

Unfortunately, the tip line was a bust. It was infiltrated by bad “MAGA” actors as right-wing media personalities and X users began trolling Schumer and turning his game of telephone against him. The horror.

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway shared a screenshot of her whistleblower complaint, in which she outlined the incident when Schumer threatened Justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch that “they would face violence if they ruled on an upcoming decision in a way that dissatisfied Schumer and other Senate Democrats.”  Other tipsters simply submitted the now infamous photo of Schumer standing in front of a grill filled with raw hamburger patties with cheese on top. 

Were Schumer genuinely concerned about threats, he might want to start by talking to his colleagues about their own colorful rhetoric. Take Representative Maxine Dexter from Oregon who last Tuesday awkwardly told a group of protesters gathered on Capitol Hill, “I don’t swear in public very well,” before blurting out, “but we have to fuck Trump.” Must we?

Later that day, a group of anti-Trumpers, apparently out of expletives for Elon Musk, opted to break out in song. Nothing says “we are essential workers” like skipping work to partake in pitchy sing-alongs!  Waving signs that read, “Save the country! Save the Civil Service,” the group sang about fighting Elon before hitting the chorus, “Which side are you on? Which side are you on?” The harmonizing, or lack thereof, was its own form of violence. 

How the mighty have fallen: the left has descended from Cardi B performing concerts for Kamala Harris to tone-deaf cane-toting grannies caterwauling about Elon Musk. This nosedive would be tragic if it weren’t so damn funny. 

These episodes are so painfully awkward to watch that even an Abby Phillip panel on CNN broke into laughter after watching a montage of one of the vigils. Democratic strategist and perpetual curmudgeon James Carville couldn’t hide his frustration over his party’s stunning lack of direction. “It’s like, there’s a plant somewhere in quote, progressive, unquote America, that just to see how many jackass, stupid things that they can embrace,” he shared on his podcast. Currently that plant is telling Chuck Schumer that he needs to embrace Iraqi Sesame Street and a transgender comic book in Peru. 

Rahm Emanuel was also perplexed at his party’s decision to die on the “we must continue to fund DEI musicals in Ireland” hill. “You don’t fight every fight. You don’t swing at every pitch. And my view is — while I care about the USAID as a former ambassador — that’s not the hill I’m going to die on,” he told Politico. 

But picking battles is no longer a skillset that these politicians possess. Dying on hills is all they know. They have lost all perspective as to which hills are mountains and which are mole hills. 

To make matters worse, at a time when self-reflection is desperately needed, the DNC’s newly elected chairman doesn’t think the party needs a new message.

“Anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong,” Ken Martin said during a forum on MSNBC. “We’ve got the right message.” 

Not according to the voters, but hey, why should the chairman of the DNC care what voters think anyway?

After all, the voters did the dumping. They looked at Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and said, “It’s not me, it’s you,” before checking the box for Trump. The daily loser parades are the Democrats’ way of sending a message back: we are doing totally fine!