Two of the top conservative thinkers in America are Ben Shapiro, the head honcho of The Daily Wire, and Morton Blackwell, the lead dog of the Leadership Institute. Shapiro is more famous, but Blackwell is probably more influential: The Leadership Institute has been around since the late 1970s, training tens of thousands of conservative activists. Included amongst its alumni are GOP senators, congressmen, governors, cabinet members… and at least one PJ Media writer (Hi!).
As for Shapiro, he’s matured into a leading voice for conservatism. His proficiency with social media is widely admired (and often copied), but seldom equaled. Of all the voices in media, he’s the closest thing we have today to a Rush Limbaugh: A bold, unapologetic voice who powerfully communicates complex conservative principles. He lacks the humor, gleeful irreverence, and “panache” of Limbaugh, but he’s tailormade for today’s information age, and The Daily Wire is now the media outlet of choice for millions of young Americans.
That’s a hell of an accomplishment.
Blackwell and Shapiro have gotten a lot right, but there’s a key area where they’re absolutely wrong — and it ties into the existential challenges facing the Democratic Party.
Shapiro’s famous catchphrase is, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” And I know what he means: There’s an objective reality that exists independent of your personal desires. That’s true. Feelings and facts aren’t identical.
But for marketing purposes, Shapiro has it completely backwards: Feelings don’t care about your facts!
Like it or not, humans are emotional decision-makers. We “lust” emotionally and then justify intellectually. It’s why the most successful marketing campaigns are all built around emotional triggers instead of intellectual arguments: Emotions ring registers! Intellectual arguments do not.
As for Blackwell, he developed “The 45 Laws of the Public Policy Process.” It’s a very cool list with lots of great, highly relevant info: Check it out.
But Law #23 is just plain wrong. It says, “In volunteer politics, a builder can build faster than a destroyer can destroy.”
It’d be nice if it were true, but sadly, it’s not: Building is hard! Destroying is easy. In just one afternoon, a destroyer can destroy EVERYTHING you spent years building.
Got it?
That’s the preamble: It’s far easier to destroy than to build, and feelings don’t care about your facts. With this in mind, here’s how to destroy the Democratic Party in four easy steps.
First, divide the Democratic Party from its base. STATUS: IN PROGRESS.
According to Rep. Sean Casten (D-Il.), after a town hall meeting, a Democratic colleague called him in tears, crying, “They hate us. They hate us.”
Right now, you have the independent senator from Vermont, socialist Bernie Sanders, touring with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). They’re drawing huge crowds. And in the process, they’re mainstreaming a new vision of liberalism — one that will thrive in liberal Vermont and in AOC’s far-left New York district, but wouldn’t be competitive in red or purples regions.
The Democrats are long overdue for an ideological overhaul. Eventually, they’ll coalesce once again, but a divided liberal base would allow MAGA to run the country with a mere 45% approval rating. Hopefully, they’ll stay divided for the rest of Trump’s term.
Second, capture left-leaning libertarians. STATUS: NOT YET.
The excesses and overreaches of liberalism have already pushed most right-leaning libertarians into the MAGA camp, and that trend won’t change. Indeed, much of the male-focused blogosphere is more right-leaning libertarian than actual conservative, yet they’ve all found a home in the Republican Party.
Don’t look now, but the Democrats are on the verge of losing left-leaning libertarians, too.
Check out this clip of Bill Maher bemoaning the crazy regulations of the radical left (some NSFW language, so FYI):
BILL MAHER -- IT MAY BE 'GAME OVER' FOR DEMOCRATS.pic.twitter.com/ZHXVRULHE7
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) March 23, 2025
With political polarization at an all-time high, there aren’t many subgroups left in play. Left-leaning libertarians, who generally wanna be left alone, but support lots of liberal policies, are still loyal members of the Democratic coalition. Sure, they recoil at the pronoun insanity, but they’re still reliable, dependable lever-pullers for Donkey candidates.
At least, they used to be.
Yet here we have left-leaning libertarian Bill Maher — who donated seven figures to Barack Obama just 13-years ago! — excited about visiting Donald Trump in the White House.
Hey, even left-leaning libertarians have limits.
Third, push the Democrats into increasingly radical positions. STATUS: IN PROGRESS.
This ties into the item above, because one way to split left-leaning libertarians away from the Democrats is to “encourage” the Donkeys to oppose policies that left-leaning libertarians support.
Like DOGE.
Look, if the Democrats want to define themselves by adamantly opposing the elimination of government waste, we shouldn’t stand in their way. (Stopping DOGE is exactly what AOC and Sen. Sanders are fighting so hard for!) But it leaves the Dems in a Faustian bargain: If they attack DOGE, their liberal base will be giddy, but left-leaning libertarians will walk. If they do nothing, they’re enabling Trump.
Exasperating these inner-party tensions is a smart play for the GOP.
Longterm, the Democrats will side with the anti-DOGE forces, abandoning the libertarians entirely. They have to! And it’s all because of reason #4:
Fourth, eliminate the Democrats’ raison d'être, and thus discredit their existing leadership. STATUS: IN PROGRESS.
All organizations have a reason to exist — a specific, desired functionality. The reason the Democratic Party exists is to promote liberal beliefs, stop conservatism, advance liberal candidates, and create a more-liberal world.
That’s it!
If the Democratic Party cannot fulfil its functionality, there’s no point for it to continue. No reason for anyone to give it money. It serves no purpose. So they gotta fight for something.
And we seem to be moving in that direction:
Charlamagne tha God, co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show “The Breakfast Club” — and often one of the most aware, sane and needed voices in our country — had this to say about the Democratic Party: “If I was a Democrat, I wouldn’t even speak for the party right now because the party is in shambles. The party is in disarray. The party has no leadership. The party has no messaging. … We all have eyes and we all have ears, and we can see that they don’t have any direction.”
We even have pundits predicting the Democrats are about to be swallowed in a liberal version of a Tea Party uprising:
The numbers are clear: No longer satisfied with the status quo in their party, Democrats are on the verge of a Tea Party-style, intra-party revolt.
The Democratic approval data is unlike any in recent history — and it isn’t a case of bitter, disaffected partisans reacting to a loss in the last election. The first time Democrats lost an election to Donald Trump, their congressional approval ratings within the party actually ticked up, as Democratic base voters largely approved of the ways that party leadership resisted the Trump administration in early 2017. The same phenomenon surfaced among Republicans in 2021 when, despite Trump’s defeat and the subsequent chaos of Jan. 6, Republican voters remained generally positive regarding their views on the congressional GOP.
The closest partisan parallel to the level of anger currently gripping Democratic voters would be roughly a decade ago, when Republican political unknown Dave Brat toppled House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a shocking 2014 primary upset.
Good. When they’re fighting with each other, they’re not fighting with us. Let ‘em destroy each other:
There is no more room for weak leadership, no more time for calculated political inaction. Schumer must go, and Democrats must replace him with a leader who understands the existential stakes of this moment.
If we don’t mobilize now—if we don’t demand real resistance—we won’t just lose another election. We’ll lose our democracy. [emphasis added]
The facts don’t matter to the left; only their feelings do. And, as we’re witnessing in real time, a destroyer can destroy faster than a builder can build. The left is acting emotionally instead of tactically, and their hysteria has trapped them in a series of no-win situations. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
And now they’re just damned.
One Last Thing: The Democrats are on the ropes, but make no mistake: The donkeys are still dangerous. 2025 will either go down in history as the year we finally Made America Great Again — or the year it all slipped through our fingers. We need your help to succeed! As a VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to all our family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, Bearing Arms): More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING! And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount!
Thank you for your consideration!
Join the conversation as a VIP Member