According to Simon and/or Garfunkel (Who are we kidding? It was Simon), darkness is my old friend. Well, I don’t know if darkness was ever truly my friend, but reality is absolutely, unquestionably my oldest enemy.
Especially when I was in my 20s and single.
“Reality” ruined everything. It prevented me from dating supermodels. It’s why Pam Anderson wouldn’t return my calls. (And why that babe from “Xena” insisted on a restraining order.) Because of cold, unforgiving reality, I never got to be the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. (Never even played in a single Super Bowl!) And instead of driving a wicked-cool Ferrari, I was puttering around in a Buick station wagon with wood paneling.
Reality sucks.
Every time a cute girl rejected me, I’d fall to my knees, raise my face to the heavens, and scream at the top of my lungs, “Damn you, reality! Damn you to Hell!”
My problem, of course, wasn’t PR. Nor was it spin, ineffective branding, or off-target communications. It was reality.
I was a broke, dorky college kid with bad hair and acne. I lived in a basement apartment. I ate too much Taco Bell. What can I tell ya?
All the PR in the world wouldn’t have moved the needle for 22-year-old me. That’s because I wasn’t suffering from a PR problem — it was a reality problem.
And this brings us to today’s Democratic Party.
Bloomberg released an interesting article yesterday, “Democrats’ Protest Tactics Show Political Impotence in Trump Era.” The opening line of the second paragraph lets the cat out of the bag:
Stagecraft is, for now, Democrats’ statecraft.
Meaning that the Democrats’ “solution” to MAGA’s momentum is to double down on PR tactics: stagecraft, theatrics, content, and spin.
It’s exactly the wrong approach.
Trump is simply better at it. When you’re the opposition party, you’re almost always on the defense, because you’re responding to the agenda of the majority. To be successful, you must be a skillful, opportunistic counterpuncher. You can’t take the bait and swing wildly at everything; you must be disciplined, pick your moments, and “steal rounds” with selective flurries.
But Trump is just too busy to counterpunch. Normally, a politician will (occasionally) sleep, rest, or take a day off. Not Trump: He’s a whirlwind of manic motion, and by the time the Democrats get ready to counterpunch, it’s already yesterday’s news.
The Democrats are aware of their impotence and loss of manhood (which also extends to the DNC). The Bloomberg article continued:
Senator Patty Murray, whose position as the top-ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee in past years has given her powerful influence over federal spending, said her party’s actions amounted to “pulling the fire alarm” on an unfolding crisis.
(Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time a Democrat got in trouble for illegally pulling the fire alarm.)
The Democratic Party just can’t help itself. For its own psychological reasons, it can’t move beyond the “denial” stage of grief. Doing so would jeopardize the party’s sense of purpose, identity, and ego. Right now, the “patient” cannot heal itself because it won’t accept the diagnosis.
Instead, it rejects it: Trump is Hitler! Musk is Hitler! MAGA is Hitler! I’m the only one defending democracy!
A sane, rational actor would take a step back and consider his own role in losing three branches of government, a majority of statehouses, and two-thirds of the Supreme Court. And then they’d develop a better product.
Fortunately for the GOP, they’re just not ready for that level of introspection. Not yet. (And probably not until it’s forced upon them.)
And so, the losing losers of the Democratic Party continue to lose. They can’t even counterpunch effectively, because they overreact to every feint. They’re so ridiculously undisciplined, they’re chasing shadows, following the champ around the ring like a puppy dog — eating a buffet of rights, jabs, and uppercuts.
Meanwhile, the most-vocal members of the liberal alliance are pleading for more theatrics, more fireworks, and more enraged opposition:
And it’s exasperated activists who expect a stronger Democratic response. Progressive Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Politico her colleagues in the Senate should “blow this place up,” including “a halt on all Trump cabinet nominees.”
The Democratic Party is like a patient that’s dying of cancer. But instead of chemo, they keeping on upping the dosage of Midol. It’s exactly, precisely, 100% the wrong remedy.
And that’s the reality of it.
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