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The strangest thing happened last night: the Democratic Party, which has built its success in recent years thanks almost entirely to framing themselves as the candidates espousing normalcy versus the chaos offered by Republicans, showed up to Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress and cried havoc.
Part of this may be due to institutional decay. The sight of a weakened Nancy Pelosi murmuring to Steny Hoyer in advance of the speech served as a reminder of the strongarm tactics from the Democratic leadership class that used to restrain their far-left wing from losing its shit in public with all the restraint of a toddler denied their binky. The forced elevation of Kamala Harris may in retrospect be viewed as the last gasp of a decrepit dictatorial regime, who commanded the direction of the party from on high and was so much better at herding them within the recommended guardrails than the Republicans were with their extremists.
The fact that Trump’s speech was a masterful display of everything he does so well with these — a celebratory blend of bold ambition, theatrics and Americana — only made it worse. On issue after issue, Trump took the side of a 70-30 or 80-20 issue only to have Democrats sitting on their hands, pouting or putting on displays (featuring silly signs, dumb T-shirts, and an old ponytailed man with a hobo tie shaking a cane) that just seemed out of control.
The point is to the apolitical viewer or even one just tangentially familiar with politics, one of these things seemed normal — a president espousing things he’s run on, giving out awards both real and honorary, lauding cops and border patrol and the American military, making ambitious announcements about what’s coming next — while one looked like a total out of control freak show.
Democrats need a reality check. There’s really no path back for them from this without reestablishing a claim to normalcy that will only be possible if they rip themselves away from SKDKnickerbocker telling olds how to TikTok, the ranting frustrations of their podcasters and Bulwark artists, or the recommendations of AOC’s livestreams, or Jasmine Crockett’s guide on how to dance to save the world.
Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman branded his party’s theatrics as “a sad cavalcade of self-owns and unhinged petulance.” Too right. The most normal Democrats in the country, who now are mostly left at the gubernatorial level, will have to reassert control despite the self-destructive inclinations of the online left and the #Resistance holdouts. They need to get back to being the party of the Clintonian 1990s, or their time in the wilderness could be even longer than the next four years. This means ignoring the instincts of their “woke” flank even if it subjects them to criticism and fury from donors and Hollywood. If they don’t get back to being OK with guns, cops, soldiers, the Bible and the flag, they’re going to be stuck in crazy-town for a long time to come. And it’s Donald Trump who put them there.
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