The Democratic Party is in a state of self-destruction. That’s no exaggeration. Party leaders aren’t just reeling from Donald Trump’s stunning victory earlier this week—they’re turning on each other, casting blame in a way that signals a deepening internal divide. With accusations flying and no clear direction forward, it’s clear that an intraparty civil war may be brewing.
And frankly, I’m experiencing a bit of schadenfreude watching it unfold. Trust me, it's about to get really ugly.
Honestly, I don't think this is garden variety post-defeat introspection. For starters, there are Democrats who blame Kamala Harris for running a terrible campaign and for her poor choice of running mate.
"I would've liked to see the Harris campaign – especially the national campaign – coordinate with us a little bit. Talk to us a little bit. Give us a little bit more resources. Show us some respect. Didn't happen," Philadelphia Democratic chair and former congressman Bob Brady said.
“She let the GOP define her,” a senior Democratic operative told Time Magazine. “She could have left the convention and tried to reach out to voters from across the political spectrum, but she and [running mate Tim] Walz went inexplicably into hiding and didn’t do interviews for weeks.”
Some are convinced that picking Josh Shapiro would have helped.
"I know a lot of people are probably wondering tonight what would have happened had Shapiro been on the ticket," Lindy Li, a political commentator and Democratic National Committee member, told Fox News. "And not only in terms of Pennsylvania. He's famously a moderate. So that would have signaled to the American people that she is not the San Francisco liberal that Trump said she was."
And of course, Kamala's failure to distance herself from Joe Biden was another problem.
There are some who are willing to acknowledge that the Democrats have become too radical, particularly with their embrace of gender ideology.
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“The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left,” Rep. Tom Suozzi, (D-N.Y.), told the New York Times. “I don’t want to discriminate against anybody, but I don’t think biological boys should be playing in girls’ sports.”
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) agreed.
“Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I’m supposed to be afraid to say that.”
But the real sign that this is about to get really ugly is that now even former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying that the Democratic Party would have benefited if President Biden had withdrawn from his re-election bid earlier, allowing for a competitive primary process to choose his successor. In an interview with the New York Times, Pelosi expressed what many suspected at the time of Biden’s exit: she believed Biden’s departure would lead to an internal party contest for a new nominee, rather than an automatic elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”
“And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”
Blaming Biden for not dropping out sooner is absurd, especially when Pelosi and other leaders were part of the cover-up of Biden's poor cognitive health. But now that Pelosi is blaming Biden, you can expect this civil war to really ramp up.
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