How the Democrats Became the Party of Puppets

“There’s nothing new under the sun” is found in Ecclesiastes 1:9. But if the statement is correct, then the idea itself must be older than Ecclesiastes; otherwise, that would be something new under the sun.

(Right? Or is my Vulcan-like grasp of logic experiencing carpal tunnel? Yeah, I think I’m right.)

For the statement “There’s nothing new under the sun” to be truthful, by definition, someone else must’ve already made a similar observation. Which makes sense: Life gets tedious after a while. We all get into ruts of the same-old, same-old. Life is cyclical. If you live long enough, it’s pretty easy to identify all the different cycles.

So maybe there really is nothing new under the sun. Heck, as one PJ Media reader pointed out, even my (seemingly original) idea to relocate the Palestinians to Greenland was a blatant rip-off of “The Golden Girls”:

pic.twitter.com/VXE8s0pDQR https://t.co/ZCMyBjPqBH
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) February 5, 2025

(My apologies to Ms. Rose Nylund and/or all the good people of Saint Olaf.)

Perhaps it’s the monotony of life that gives older folks a nagging, unavoidable sense of “been there, done that.” Like Jerry Seinfeld noted, once we realized we could make our own people, we lost interest in the rest of you:

But political parties don’t have the luxury of avoiding the real world. Nor do they ever get to suspend operations for a few months and try a soft reboot. They’re always on, always engaged, always connected to current events.

It’s less like a play — with actors, actresses, and a well-written script — and more like a never-ending conga line. New faces appear when old faces exit, but the choreography itself never changes.

Too much institutional momentum.

They’re not the only ones, of course. The GOP has its conga line as well; all political parties do. If politics can be analogized to a dance, then D.C. is a crowded, competitive, cutthroat dancehall.

But the difference today is, the Democrats want us to lead.

This hasn’t happened since the early days of the George W. Bush administration, nearly 25 years ago. It’s a generational opportunity for the Republican Party.

Usually, even when the Democrats are voted out of power, they shamelessly push their own agenda, manipulating the mainstream media to reframe every news cycle in pro-Democratic terms. They never interpret an electoral defeat as a repudiation of their ideas; instead, the culprit must be misinformation, or Russian interference, or the racist, sexist, homophobic voters.

And so, they double down and keep on pushing forward.

Not anymore. Not since Donald Trump walloped them in 2024, capturing an electoral landslide. They’re simply too shell-shocked.

It won’t last forever but right now, they’ve given up on their agenda. All they can do is follow Donald Trump’s lead: whatever he supports, they oppose.

Which means, Donald Trump has a generational opportunity to rebrand the Democratic Party.

Part of their rebranding is already underway. Because Trump is such a kinetic whirlwind of manic activity, he’s firing ideas and initiatives at a million miles a minute. (Those poor Democrats are drinking out of a firehose!) And because they don’t know what the heck else to do, the Dems are kneejerk opposing EVERYTHING.

This might’ve worked if Trump moved as slowly as Biden, but Trump is still the Great Disruptor. There’s more “breaking news” in one day of Trump than six months of Biden. Team MAGA is churning through news cycles faster than a jackrabbit on Red Bull.

For the audience at home, the volume and content far exceed their bandwidth. They have lives of their own and can’t keep track of everything. So, from their perspective, Trump is constantly trying SOMETHING… and the Democrats are opposing EVERYTHING.

And there’s a whole lot of “everything.” Which is why the Democrats are being rebranded as the party of pearl-clutching.

WAH! They’re the party of crybabies.

Whatever Trump says or does, Democrats cry and scream and soil themselves. Every molehill is a mountain; every Republican is “literally Hitler” and “a threat to democracy.”

There’s more Democratic “hysteria” than anything Def Leppard did in the 80s.

Knowing this, Trump could do one helluva troll move: He can turn the Democratic Party into his puppets. By structuring his agenda specifically and methodically, he can pull their strings and walk them off the cliff. Trump can get ‘em to do whatever he wants — simply by doing the opposite.

They can’t help themselves. They’re just too proud and stubborn to change.

Once again, the Bible was eerily prescient: “Pride goeth before the fall” (Proverbs 16:18). So maybe there really isn’t anything new under the sun.