Hello and welcome to June 16, 2026. I have some good news to relate to you, but first, let’s do the usual daily data. Today is, among other things, National Fudge Day, Fresh Veggies Day, Arborist Appreciation Day, National Cannoli Day, and National Cherry Tart Day.
1745: British fleet occupies Cape Breton on the St. Lawrence River.
1779: General Anthony Wayne captures Stony Point, N.Y., inflicting heavy losses on the British.
1858: Abraham Lincoln says, "A house divided against itself cannot stand" while accepting Illinois Republican Party's nomination for the Senate.
1879: W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan's comic opera HMS Pinafore debuts at the Bowery Theater in NYC.
1903: Ford Motor Company incorporates under Henry Ford.
1944: King George VI visits General Montgomery's HQ in Normandy.
1949: Gas turbine-electric locomotive demonstrated at Erie, Pa.
Birthdays today include: Adam Smith, Scottish economist (Wealth of Nations); Geronimo, Apache leader; Stan Laurel, English comedian (Laurel & Hardy films); Nelson Doubleday, publisher; Jack Albertson, actor (Chico and the Man, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory); Katharine Graham, newspaper publisher (The Washington Post); Bill Cobbs, actor (Night at the Museum, The Color of Money, I'll Fly Away, Star Trek: Enterprise); Billy "Crash" Craddock, country singer ("Rub It In"); and Lamont Dozier, American songwriter and producer (Holland–Dozier–Holland - "Heat Wave," "Where Did Our Love Go," "You Keep Me Hanging On").
If today’s your day, have a great one.
* * *
Morning coffee: the one sacred window of the day before breakfast has done anything useful for my disposition, when every joint in my body takes its turn in lodging a formal complaint, and my snark meter runs hot enough to blister paint. This is also when I do most of my writing lately — including these daily dispatches — so you, dear reader, usually catch me at my most authentically charming.
Now throw this on top: After several days of temps pushing 90 degrees where my AC barely kept up, I woke up this morning to 48 degrees outside. And because I apparently run a mental maintenance schedule somewhere between "optimistic" and "delusional," I never did shut the heater off for the season. The thing roared to life this morning and jolted me awake — and I sat there in the dark like an idiot, running through possibilities. Intruder? Mechanical failure? My home automation gone berserk? Poltergeist? Nope. Just my own heating system, faithfully doing its job and counteracting the cold of a season that supposedly ended over a month ago.
So, fair warning. I'm operating several needle-widths past my usual snark baseline today and being even more charming than usual today. I make no apologies for what follows.
Yesterday afternoon, Bloomberg — a source I drag out maybe twice a year and usually regret — decided to grace us with an electoral strategy assessment. Specifically, whether weaponizing Trump hatred actually wins elections. Spoiler alert: Some small measure of Democrats are figuring out what we already knew: It doesn't. Bloomberg, characteristically, buries this revelation like it's mildly embarrassing.
Democrats running in the reddest districts on this cycle's map are warning their party not to blow a rare pickup opportunity by turning the midterms into a referendum on President Donald Trump.
And that is precisely why I almost never touch Bloomberg as a source for my writing. They print something genuinely important — Democrats in competitive districts sounding the alarm — but they frame it like a minor scheduling conflict rather than the five-alarm strategic catastrophe it obviously is. But wait, there’s more: They manage to make it even worse (emphasis added):
The party is positioned to flip the House in November, with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officially targeting 25 seats. But candidates in some GOP districts say the national message leans too hard on attacking the president, alienating the exact voters they need to win over.
Read that again, kids: Actual humans knocking on actual doors in actual red districts are begging the national party to stop torching their campaigns with an angry anti-Trump message that sends what they believe are persuadable voters racing straight back to the GOP. And the DCCC's response, apparently, amounts to plugging its ears and cranking up the Orange Man Bad content machine, which Bloomberg dutifully echoes, tacitly suggesting that the Democrats have already won the midterms. Can you beat it?
I chuckled and put the story aside, meaning to flay this graveyard whistling in the morning. Well, morning is here, and through the moans and groans, I’m still chuckling over Bloomberg’s “reporting.” What was that famous quote again? Words to the effect that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?
Why do I suggest this is a disaster for the Democrats? It’s simple enough. The reason they keep leaning on the “Orange Man Bad" schtick is that after over a decade of attacks on one man and, with him, slightly more than half the country, it’s the only recognizable platform they have left. It's a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else. Therefore, the call to eliminate that long-overhyped chant, assuming they actually are smart enough to take that advice (which I doubt), leaves them with no argument at all. They literally have nothing else to bring to the party. Maybe they could call everyone working against them racist, but they've been doing that for years, and that hasn't been working, either.
So here we stand: A small cluster of marginally less delusional Democrats has stumbled onto the radical notion that performative Trump rage doesn't flip seats — it flips voters against them. The Bloomberg newsroom, naturally, treats this as a quirky dissenting opinion rather than the blinking neon warning sign it obviously is. Some of us have been screaming this into the void for years. But sure, let's run the same play again and see how it goes.
The RNC, through its spokeswoman, Kiersten Pels, responded to Bloomberg, and Bloomberg, in turn, buried it at the very bottom of the article:
"Voters want secure borders, lower prices, safer communities, and a strong economy, not Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Pels said in a statement. “Americans are seeing through the Democrats’ tired strategy of attacking and vilifying President Trump and his supporters."
Meanwhile, PJ Media received a quote from another RNC spokeswoman, Delanie Bomar, that lays it out in even starker contrast: “Democrats have no message, no strategy, and no leader. Their Trump Derangement Syndrome is driving away working-class voters who just care about policies that improve their lives, like no tax on tips, lower costs, and safer communities.”
Then, there’s the issue that Bloomberg and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) don’t dare touch: If the past is prologue, the people they’re trying to persuade won’t be moved. The polling is pretty clear on this point. Trump approval among people who voted for him is holding, depending on the pollster, at between 73% and 87%. Those needles haven't moved in months. I remind you that the people measured here are why Trump won in the first place, and why his coattails captured both houses.
More succinctly, and perhaps a bit brutally, the Democrats are not going to convince anyone anyway, regardless of their tactics, their slogans, or their stratagem. They've already emptied their quiver. There's no catchphrase, no bumper sticker, that will repair the damage their actions and toxic rhetoric over the last decade have done. They’re headed for a loss. The only question is, by how much do they lose?
That, Gang — and I cannot stress this enough — I can only regard as good news. Shocking, I know. Try to contain your gasps. See? My day is brightening already.
Thought for the day: Stop your complaining. There are literally people living in California.
VIP members: Hit the heart, send this column to your social media accounts by way of the buttons below, and let's hear your voice in the comments.
Take care today. Make sure there's a tomorrow. I'll see you here, then.
Recommended: You Don't Know What You've Got 'Til It's Gone: The Tragedy of John Cleese
Editor's Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media's conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member