Ever since Joe Biden’s brain decomposed during his 2024 presidential debate, the Democrats have wandered aimlessly in the political desert, desperately searching for salvation.
And while wandering in the desert, they became Sand People.
We’d best get indoors. The Sand People are easily startled, but they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers.
—Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars
“Easily startled” has become part and parcel of the Democratic brand: They’re the party of hysterical, over-the-top fearmongering. Every issue and every problem is now “an existential threat” with “democracy dying in darkness.”
But after years of nonstop fearmongering, the Democrats have talked themselves into a corner: At this point, anything less than “an existential threat” is anticlimactic to their base.
Which is why they’ve gotta keep the hyperbole at a fever pitch for EVERYTHING, including the current government shutdown:
If [we] don’t mount a stand right now, on behalf of democracy, there won’t be another opportunity. … I actually don’t think that people will join this fight unless they think the stakes are actually existential … whether or not the polls tell us that everybody in the country believes that democracy is at risk…
—Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)
It’s a stunning acknowledgement: The Democrats are rhetorically locked into this “existential” hyperbolic PR blather — even when the polling data tells ‘em point-blank it’s a losing position!
That’s the twofold PR problem with constantly crying wolf: Not only does it destroy your credibility, but if you cry wolf long enough, anything less than a wolf is… well, boring.
You can’t promise your base the big bad wolf, and then show ‘em a sheepdog.
They don’t want a sheepdog. They want the big bad wolf.
Which is why the Democrats’ paranoia and fearmongering will continue: They literally don’t have anywhere else to go.
But paranoia isn’t an easy switch to turn on and off. Once you enter a paranoid state, it tends to bleed over into other areas, making you distrustful of everyone.
Including your own team members.
Remember David Hogg, the DNC wunderkind? In April, he promised to use his political action committee, Leaders We Deserve, to elevate progressive challengers at the expense of “status quo” Democratic incumbents by pouring $20 million into Democratic primaries.
The Democratic Party flew into a tizzy, hastily “reinterpreting” its rules for gender qualifications, forcing Hogg to vacate his newly elected position as vice chair of the DNC. And in the process, the Democrats ate a ton of negative press, further branding themselves as uncooperative, gender-obsessed weirdos who dislike men.
In retrospect, it was a spectacular overreaction — the kind of PR mistake made by “easily startled” people.
Because of the $20 million Hogg promised to spend in Democratic primaries, his PAC spent less than $455,000.
So far, Leaders We Deserve has spent less on finding “leaders” and more on the promoting itself and enriching DC swamp creatures.
Campaign finance records show that the PAC spent only about $455,000 on candidates, and two of three got creamed.
The one success was Gotham’s own Zohran Mamdani, who pulled in about $300,000 of the PAC’s $455,000 in candidate spending, but raised millions elsewhere so didn’t really need Hogg’s help.
Meanwhile, Leaders We Deserve blew $2.5 million on consultants, $1.1 million on its own digital ads, $965,000 on donor lists and nearly $5,000 on a fitness class subscription.
A smarter, saner DNC would’ve rolled their eyes at David Hogg’s claims: Sure, kid! You’ll be raising $20 million! Yeah, we’ll believe it when we see it!
Instead, they overreacted, accepting Hogg’s grandiose, $20 million pledge at face value. In their manic pursuit of “existential stakes,” they failed to differentiate between overhyped PR drivel and cold, hard reality.
It’s an important political lesson: You can’t build your political strategy on PR claims, because PR claims are exaggerations.
Instead, you must focus on reality.
But not only Democrats have an aversion to reality.
The Telegraph released an eye-opening story today, “Ted Cruz lays groundwork for presidential run.” What makes it so eye-opening is that it certainly reads like a story that either Cruz himself or people close to him deliberately placed:
Analysts and allies see a plan. [Cruz] is laying the groundwork for a possible 2028 run, positioning himself as the small-government, traditional conservative candidate to take on JD Vance, the vice-president, or Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, from the more populist wing of the party.
And it puts down a marker for the debate that will follow Mr Trump’s departure from office when Republicans will have to decide where the party goes next.
Vin Weber, a Republican strategist and former member of Congress, said it was never sensible to offer outright opposition to Mr Trump.
“The way I see it is that Senator Cruz has taken on a couple of positions which, in the very short term, are at odds with the president of the United States, but in all likelihood will age very well within the Republican Party,” he told The Telegraph.
But Cruz’s strategy depends on a Republican backlash to MAGA:
“[Cruz is] really perceived as a very powerful intellectual leader on the Right,” [Weber] said. “I think that’s important to a lot of Republicans. It may become more important going forward as we redefine what it is the Republican Party means in the post-Trump era.”
His best chance, he said, was that some of Mr Trump’s policies become unpopular. If tariffs on imports get blamed for pushing up prices, then Mr Cruz’s position may come back into fashion with Republicans.
Sen. Cruz is a smart man, but that strategy is asinine: President Donald Trump has won the loyalty of the Republican Party lock, stock, and barrel. For three straight national elections, Trump’s name was on the GOP ballot. The base loves and adores him with near record-high party approval.
The 2028 Republican primaries will be all about building on MAGA — not dismantling it. In all probability, the only way the GOP would ever turn its back on MAGA would be if something so calamitous transpired that it had no other choice: The public uproar became too loud to ignore.
And if that were to happen, it wouldn’t matter who the Republicans nominate anyway, because the Democrats would win in a landslide.
This means that if Sen. Cruz positions himself as the anti-MAGA candidate in 2028, he wouldn’t just lose; he’d diminish his own stature within the Republican Party. Not unlike Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2024, he’d limp away less respected, less influential, and less important.
And Cruz is still only 54 years old!
It’d be far wiser for him to bide his time and wait for an opening to emerge in 2032 or 2036 than to force an opening where one doesn’t exist. Otherwise, this will be one of the most foolish presidential trial balloons in recent memory.
Ted Cruz, David Hogg, and the Democratic Party: They don’t have much in common, but they’re all harboring political ambitions that are entirely untethered to reality.
It’s kind of startling.One Last Thing: The Schumer Shutdown is upon us. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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