Too many fishing lines in the same pond.
It’s so overcrowded that even James Comey, the insufferable, holier-than-thou ex-FBI director, just tried his hand at it. And still, the great Trump whale eludes them.
It beckons the self-righteous description of another failed fisherman, Captain Ahab: “all my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.”
In other words, it’s the inverse of the classic Costanza-inspired breakup: “It’s not me. It’s YOU.”
Curses and drat, ye Trump!
For 10 long years, Democrats have been hunting Donald Trump. For 10 long years, they’ve done everything they could to spear the great monster of the Republic — the dreaded leviathan who is “dismantling our democracy.”
And 10 long years later, he’s still swimming in D.C., unscathed and unharmed. All their harpoons missed. Trump is still splashing about, sucking down Diet Cokes by the barrelful, telling the liberals to kiss his fluke.
The Democrats are lousy fishermen.
Which is fine: A successful politician doesn’t always need to bring home the bacon whale carcass to be popular. Sometimes, connecting emotionally is more important than demonstrably delivering.
But you know what you cannot be?
A boring storyteller.
Think about it this way: For over a decade, the Democrats have all been telling each other different versions of the exact same story. And it’s a story that’s so mind-numbingly boring by now, it’s become a cliché: Trump is the fish that got away.
“You should’ve seen the size of it! Nearly got it, too. Bigger than a country mile, she was.”
Meanwhile, not too far away, there’s another fishing pond. It’s practically empty… and a big, fat, juicy fish is floundering near the surface, just begging to be caught! No, it’s not quite as big as Trump, but it’s still enormous.
Easily large enough to feed an ambitious politician’s short-term interests.
Over the past two weeks, there’s been a national PR shift: The Democratic Party has turned on Joe Biden. The one-two combination of Biden’s incoherent media appearances on the BBC and “The View,” plus the shocking allegations in the book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,” have pushed the party’s base from denial to anger.
But not just at Biden: The party’s base is furious with all the politicians who lied to them about Biden’s condition. Over the past week, there have been so many anti-Biden articles in the mainstream media — why, you would’ve thought he was a conservative:
NBC News: Can Democrats blame their problems all on Biden?
The New Yorker: How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump
Politico: ‘It’s all Biden’: Top Harris adviser blames former president for 2024 loss
The Washington Post: Democrats rattled again by fresh claims that Biden aides hid his frailty
The Hill: House Democrat: ‘Obvious now’ Biden ‘was not in a condition’ to run for reelection
AP News: Joe Biden’s mental acuity becomes a Democratic litmus test
The New York Times: How Did So Many Elected Democrats Miss Biden’s Infirmity?
Politico: The Biden question hanging over the 2028 field
USA Today: Can Democrats win in 2026? Admit they lied about Biden first
CNN: Top Democrats reckon with Biden’s reemergence as party looks to move past 2024 election
But your first guess is wrong: The Democrats aren’t pivoting to attack Biden. Sure, he’ll catch some of the shrapnel, but there’s not much political gain in kicking an old man when he can’t really defend himself. No longevity in it.
So think bigger.
According to the polls, the current Democratic frontrunner is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the socialist-loving congresswoman from New York City. Because of the intensity and loyalty of the “Bernie Bros” — and her status as Sen. Bernie Sanders’ heir apparent — she has the highest basement in the Democratic field.
Her basement is high, but her ceiling is low: Rasmussen just released a new survey on socialism, and its findings may surprise you. Not much of a “wow” for GOP voters (82% reject socialism), but 67% of Democrats — and 65% of independents — reject socialism, too.
Less than a third of Democrats (31%) favor a “democratic socialist candidate.”
So let’s recap: The Trump fishing waters are overcrowded (and unsuccessful); the socialist waters are just too shallow (and already overfished by AOC). Not enough growth opportunity in radical socialism, I’m afraid.
Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating ebbs and flows between the mid(ish) 40s to low(ish) 50s. Fox News currently has the president at 44%.
But the Democratic Party’s favorability is at just 29%!
Additionally, only 36% of Democrats are optimistic about the future of their party!
Prediction: The Democratic Party will be pivoting to attack… the Democratic Party.
A smart, ambitious politician tells the audience what it wants to hear. In many ways, politics is intellectual capitalism; when an opening appears in the marketplace, someone, somewhere, will try to fill it.
And right now, the base of the Democratic Party desperately wants its leaders to be held accountable.
They were lied to — betrayed by those they trusted. They’re outraged and out for blood. (And with good reason: If it happened to you, you’d be frickin’ furious, too.)
Liberal voters are craving an avatar who’ll carry their grievances.
The first Democratic presidential candidate to claim this mantle won’t just gain a first-mover advantage; he/she would also have a helluva campaign weapon to bludgeon their primary opponents, i.e., Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen Whitmer, etc., who all played a role in Biden’s deception.
A smart Democrat will realize this and channel his inner-Pacino:
It’s low-hanging fruit. And it’s just sitting there, waiting to be eaten.
But low-hanging fruit has a very short shelf life. It’s prone to rotting. Which means, someone’s gonna claim it over the next 10 days.
Save this column and check back. You’ll see what I mean.
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