Democrats — and leftists in general — love to fancy themselves as deep thinkers. In their telling of any story, they are always the smartest people in the room. Republicans, according to them, are a bunch of knuckle-dragging simpletons who blindly follow our political leaders. The only real contribution that Democrats have made to society in the 21st century is that millions of people who haven't studied a lot of psychology now know what "psychological projection" means.
Having spent most of my adult life in an industry dominated by leftists, living in cities dominated by leftists, I know whence I speak regarding the intellectual acuity of the left-of-center hive mind.
It's more hive than mind.
While I am loath to jump on board the "blame social media for all of society's ills" bandwagon, I will say that it has made the already slow thinking of the Democratic base slow to an almost imperceptible crawl. The keyboard warriors on the left get most of their "news" from memes on social media, and Jon Stewart's megalomaniacal fever dream. The last original thought any of them had involved discerning the flavor profiles of various boogers when they were children.
Gross, I know, but you have to admit that it makes the point.
As we head into these all-important, existential crisis, ZOMG END TIMES midterm elections, some of us are trying to take comfort in the hope that non-Coastal Media Bubble™ Democrats will be frightened by the commie lust of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and either sit out this election or vote for a Republican. I count myself among the people who have this hope. Well, I did until a couple of days ago, anyway.
Some things have been playing out here locally that got me thinking about Democrats I've known throughout the years who finally had big or small epiphanies about their party and changed their voting habits, sometimes for one election, sometimes forever. One common thread has been that they finally realized that the Dems had never done any of the things that they had been promising to do for them.
In late 2017, I was invited to be a panelist on a Japanese television show about American politics after the first election of President Trump. Being on Japanese television had been a bucket list thing of mine for years, so I would have agreed had the show been about goldfish grooming, but I jumped at this chance.
It was a 90-minute show featuring nine Trump supporters on one side, and nine Trump haters on the other. The host was a Harvard professor who — I kid you not — had become big in Japan. A few of the people on the pro-Trump side were lifelong union people who had never voted Republican in their lives. One was a steel industry union boss who said something to the effect of, "I finally realized that the Democrats had never done a single thing for me, but I'd kept voting for them." That was met with knowing nods from the other union Trump fans.
Democrats at the top sell a carefully curated suite of lies to the base, and the base rarely questions them. What the few Dems who aren't drooling morons really want has nothing to do with helping people, or fairness, or saving Earth, or anything else that can be found on their "Litany of Free Crap" that keeps them in business. They want power. Not garden-variety political power, but fascistic control over everyone.
The door to tyranny was opened a bit during the COVID pandemic, and Democrats did all they could to kick it open for good. It's still ajar in deep blue states like California, but the tyrants haven't won just yet. The DSA candidates out there are going to start kicking again if they're elected. The Democrats have been exposed by the DSA upstarts – I've written countless times that there are no real ideological differences between Chuck Schumer and Zohran Mamdani.
The reason that I think that we won't see too many moderate Dems freak out about this is because they live in a world where political cause-and-effect only exists when discussing Republican politicians. Citizens of urban hellholes that have been run by Democrats for decades simply cannot connect the dots between the people that they vote for and the miserable state of their lives.
Here in Tucson, some prominent business owners on Fourth Avenue have recently been making a ruckus about their businesses suffering and what they believe to be the causes. Fourth Avenue is is an enduring slice of 1968, filled with shops, restaurants, bars, and what feels like a tattoo parlor every half block. My grandfather owned a gun store there throughout the '40s, '50s, and much of the '60s. Years later, I asked him why he left Fourth Avenue. "Too many g**damn hippies were moving in," was his response.
They haven't left yet.
Anyway, I know for a fact that the business owners who are very vocal about their problems are all avowed leftists. That's because they're vocal about everything. Sure, they are blaming the city for their ills, but they aren't blaming the politics of the city officials. Tucson is firmly in the grasp of the Democrats. Small business owners have no reason to ever vote for Democrats, who are perennially hostile to entrepreneurs of any income level. That's Voting 101, but these merchants missed class that day.
Until Democratic voters wake up and figure out that the people they repeatedly elect don't want them to be successful in business or own property, the Dem elites will keep having gates flung open for them on their march to one-party tyranny. A few in the Dem base might figure it out in this election.
Sadly, most probably won't get it until there's a knock on their doors in the middle of the night.
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Editor's Note: The Democratic Party has been infected by socialism, and it's spreading FAST. Democrats are claiming there's nothing to worry about, but we know the truth.
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