20 thoughts on “How The Democrats Lost Their Way”

  1. It may not have been “about” Trump, but he had a massive impact on shaping the slate of candidates who got on the ballot. If there are a bunch of new R senators, they sure don’t owe anything to the Turtle. It might be a good time for Mitch to retire, as there seems to be the beginnings of a cabal to install a replacement. Scott of FL perhaps?

    1. It would seem, from a political perspective, it ought to be easier to replace a minority leader than a majority leader in the Senate. But the outcome of this election is yet uncertain in that regard. We shall see.

      1. From the state of Bourbon not Whiskey, Rand Paul to cast the deciding vote? Is it the Senate or the Sopranos?

  2. Democrats lost their way or they hewed closer to their chosen path? For decades, they have been working up to dropping the mask and letting their true identity be known to the public. Manipulating miners was only a means to gain power. They have to affinity for miners other than that.

    On the other link, not so long ago there were op-eds complaining that Trump was making himself the center of attention in the campaign and that he should elevate the other candidates. Then when Trump does that, he is mocked for not being the center of campaigns. Trump’s impact is similar to Biden’s. Which one do candidates want to campaign for them? Trump doesn’t have to make others’ campaigns about himself in order to have a beneficial impact on rallying support for Republican candidates.

    It is true that Democrats tried to make the election about Trump. They used him in their ads and tried to tie Trump’s lack of popularity with Democrats to GOP candidates. Most people don’t care about Democrat’s Trump neurosis but do care about Democrat’s Progressive Marxist neurosis and the real world issues are more important than Democrat’s theater.

    I don’t have much faith in the words of Erick Erickson or unnamed members of the political consulting grifter class.

  3. I agree with Wodun…The Soccie Democrats haven’t lost their way..they are executing their way. Just with a little less subterfuge.

  6. I liked this post, though I hope we have a matching one now; How Republicans lost their way.

    What could have, and should have, been a big night for Republicans, wasn’t. There were many causes for this, and some of them were self-inflicted. I’m only focusing on the self-inflicted ones here.

    BAck in the spring, I hoped like hell I was wrong, and said there would be no red wave. The overturning of Roe V Wade was reason #1. Trump backing a slew of awful candidates was another.

    I think the Republican party needs to have a good, close look at the breakdown of exit polling, to find out what went wrong.

    1. And to add: Not just exit polling data, but look into turnout issues; why, in some areas (assuming it’s true) did a lot of Republicans and Independents stay home?

      I may well be wrong on my guesses as to what happened, and I don’t care about that. My point is that IMHO it’s very important to find out, not matter what the actual causes are.

      1. Some stayed home because they bought into the “red tsunami” hype, IE “we got this I don’t have to vote”.

  7. It came out pretty much as I expected. Though I’d hoped inflation and energy prices, which are driving it, would have spurred more incentive for change. I never really believed in a red wave. We’ll just keep blundering along until some remote area of ours gets invaded and occupied or a nuke goes off in the homeland. Maybe not even then. I’m losing sympathy for us. All Republics have expiration dates.

  8. I think the Republicans were “slaughtered” by the much more massive early voting by the dems. By the time that the poll numbers in say Pennsylvania were shifting toward Oz too many people mostly dems or dem leading independents had already voted. Because of the compliant (biased) media by the time people realized they had voted for someone who had a stroke (Fetterman) and was severely struggling cognitively, it was to late. Late in the election cycle in the last day people figured that out but too many had already voted. Also Oz probably wasn’t the best candidate in the world Trump endorsement not with standing.

    1. It was important to get a lock on the Turkish immigrant Sunni Muslim celebrity vote, which is critical in Pennsylvania…

      Reportedly (by the Daily Mail), Trump ranted at Melania for getting him to endorse Oz. Maybe Europeans have less of a problem voting for fast-talking foreigners professing to identify with the locals, but I would not recommend that in a state-wide race that’s been deadlocked around 50-50 where even a 1 or 2% loss of support could be critical.

      Among Hershel Walker’s flaws as a candidate is that anyone who debates him is going to sound eloquent in comparison, perhaps even including Fetterman, because Hershel sounds like an SNL parody of an SEC football player. A whole lot of voters aren’t even going to mentally process the words being said, instead just going off verbal abilities as an indicator of competence.

      I would note a couple of ways various Republican leaders killed the wave. Not long after the Supreme Court cast aside Roe v Wade by declaring it a state issue, Lindsey Graham decided to try and push for a federal abortion ban. That kissed all the blue or slight pink states goodbye. Lots of women who were confident their state would never pass tight restrictions suddenly had to worry about putting more Republicans in Congress. According to exit polling, that’s why many of them voted blue. Lindsey took a non-issue and turned it into a major Democrat strong point.

      Then on October 18th Kevin McCarthy comes out and declares “No blank check for Ukraine.” All my Ukraine War feeds exploded with folks saying Republicans were going to cut off Ukraine and hand victory to Putin, and McCarthy left me almost nothing to work with to try and combat that narrative. He dropped it like a dog-poo on a porch and walked away. Later, just days before the election, Marjorie Taylor Green declared that when Republicans take back the House, Ukraine would not get a single dime. Despite her not having the power to do any such thing, the Ukraine feeds again exploded in panic and outrage.

      There are plenty of moderates and independents who were leaning Republican who are also emotionally invested to varying degrees in the largest war in Europe since WW-II, pitting a likeable underdog against a brutal Soviet regime bent on expansion and genocide. Many of those folks might have happily voted Republican over crime, inflation, energy, and the border except for the part about stripping soldiers in the field of critical supplies during the middle of a shooting war. Even if they were only 2% of the voters, that’s more than the Democrat’s margin of victory in a couple of Senate races. In contrast, I doubt there’s a single Democrat who would switch to Republican because their totally opposed to funding Ukraine. They might scream pacifist slogans at AOC or Bernie, but they’d never dream of voting Republican. And of course no hard-right isolationist Republicans would switch an vote Democrat over Ukraine aid.

      So all loss and no-gains from McCarthy’s statement, a totally self-inflicted wound and an example of gross political incompetence. And he followed it up by saying “no impeachments”, which was sure to wipe out staunch Republican enthusiasm because it meant just more business as usual in the House, with group hugs on Capitol Hill instead of erecting gallows out back.

      So if anyone is wondering what wrecked the red wave, I’d point to Graham, McCarthy, and Trump for acting like complete political amateurs, handing the opponents key issues, and emotionally powerful issues for many, right before the election.

      1. “And he followed it up by saying “no impeachments””

        I knew about the Ukraine aid statements but didn’t know he had blundered that badly also on impeaching Biden:

        “House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is downplaying the prospect of impeaching President Biden if Republicans take control of the House next year, throwing cold water on the efforts of some in the GOP who have been clamoring to impeach the president and others in the Biden administration.”
        And:

        “I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all,” McCarthy (R-Calif.)”
        https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/19/mccarthy-impeachment-biden-gop-midterms/

        If they (the dems) didn’t want it (impeachment) used for political purposes than maybe they shouldn’t have used it for political purposes; guess what law works on precedent. Like it or not that is the new precedent would think any competent politician would know that.

      2. As far as Lindsey Graham’s proposals guess his “calculation” was the saying he was pushing for a federal abortion ban would bring out the Right to Life voters in mass and that would offset the surge in women voting against..see how that played out. Even if they had passed it probably be stricken by SCOTUS; their argument was that the right to Abortion isn’t in the Constitution so Congress has not authority to wade in one way or the other.

  9. The Democrat party is and has always been the party of slavery. It just took them awhile to realize that slaves don’t have to be black.

    Always remember: whatever the Dems charge the Republicans with, they are in fact doing themselves, only worse. Vote Republican, and democracy dies? Ha! It’s really, Vote Democrat, and the republic dies.

    Never assume the Democrat leaders are stupid. They are not. Everything is happening exactly according to plan.. Proles are so much easier to control when they’re hungry, cold, fearful, and shivering in the dark.

  10. In a way, I bet we’ll find this was about Trump, sort of. Republicans have been divided into Trump and non-Trump factions. 90% of the two factions get along fine, but 10% refuse to vote for the other side and so Republicans are losing more than they should be.

    1. Which tells you that candidate quality was not a major factor causing the red ripple this time around.

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