The modern Democratic Party is a “playbook party”: It’s all about the power, process, and procedure of the organization. And organizations must necessarily operate sequentially.
Let me explain: It’s a radically different structure than the Republican Party, where various thought leaders ascend to the top and introduce various ideas (some sink, some swim). In this sense, Donald Trump is a traditional Republican leader because he’s championing the ideas he cares about with a single-minded purpose. Donald Trump is the organization; they’re inexorably intertwined.
In the Democratic Party, however, the organization — not the individual — is king. The party can swap Obama with Biden; it can swap Biden with Harris, yet the Democratic agenda marches on uninterrupted. That’s the secret of the Deep State: In the words of Morton Blackwell (Law of the Public Policy Process #9), “Political technology determines political success.” There’s great power in organizational technology.
And the Democrats are significantly better at it than Republicans.
So that’s the Democrats' biggest strength. But it’s also their biggest weakness because organizations must heed certain processes and procedures. (Otherwise, nothing in the organization is actually organized, right?) An individual like Trump can pivot and spin like a ballerina when the facts on the field change, but bureaucratic organizations cannot. They have to follow their playbook.
(And I’ve got more to say about ballerinas in just a sec.)
Because they have to follow their playbook, Democrats are very predictable.
Last weekend, PJ Media published an article I wrote entitled “Here’s How We’ll Really Know When Kamala Harris Believes She’s Losing.” It included a short (four-point) checklist:
- Kamala Harris will suddenly open up and do a ton of interviews — including hostile interviews.
- The mainstream media will focus extensively on how rotten and awful the American voters are, and the narrative will be planted to blame racism/sexism on Kamala’s defeat.
- Tim Walz will be taken from the mothballs and placed anywhere a camera’s pointing.
- Bold new legislation (that benefits whatever demo is slipping away) will be announced ASAP by the Democrats.
And just like clockwork, the Democrats proceeded to fulfill the entire checklist:
Today, Fox News will air its first sit-down interview with Kamala Harris. (Of course, the interviewer will be Bret Baier — not exactly a fire-breathing conservative by any stretch of the imagination.) But it’s still a landmark shift in Democratic campaign strategy.
That’s number one!
Yesterday, two flagship members of the mainstream media, USA Today and the Washington Post, published a pair of opinion pieces that excoriate the American people for being racists/sexists, “Trump concocts a racist, dystopian version of America only he can save us from,” and “Why Trump is doubling down on racism.” And just this morning, the New York Times joined the chorus with a new ditty entitled, “Trump Has Turned It Up 11” (“The former president is so dependent on racial and ethnic antagonism that without it he would be a marginal figure…” blah, blah, blah.)
That’s number two!
Also yesterday, Kamala Harris was interviewed by radio host Charlamagne tha God. The backdrop is that the Harris-Walz campaign has been hemorrhaging support from black voters for many, many months: Ultra-liberal NPR even ran the story, “Young Black voters are becoming more conservative than their parents” and none other than The New York Times wondered, “Why Is Trump Gaining With Black and Hispanic Voters?”
Kamala’s solution was to offer black voters lots of free money. And legal weed!
“On the point of reparations, it has to be studied. There’s no question about that,” Harris told the host. “And I’ve been very clear about that position.”
Plus, with all that wonderful free reparation money, black people can buy marijuana.
“My pledge is that as president,” she continued, “I will work on decriminalizing it [marijuana] because I know exactly how those laws have been used to disproportionately impact certain populations and specifically black men.”
And that’s number three!
For the finale, I’m gonna do my Babe Ruth impression and call the last item on the Democratic playlist: Keep an eye on Tim Walz. Over the next several days, he’s going to do something so astonishingly ridiculous and absurd that you’ll be spitting coffee all over your monitor. I’m thinking utterly bizarre cameo appearances, donning wacky, goofy, outlandish clothes — like, perhaps, a ballerina’s tutu.
You might think I’m crazy, but I’m not. Just wait.
I’m gonna be right about this.
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