Democrats have a serious problem. President Trump’s approval ratings maintain their status, hovering somewhere close to 50%, which is higher than they have been in nearly his entire political career.
His main policies are quite popular, ranging from crackdowns on illegal immigration — which is a very popular position — to his positions with regard to DOGE. Most Americans favor cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, and Democrats really don’t know how to deal with it.
The Democrats have missed governance at nearly every level of government. Meanwhile, President Trump is moving incredibly fast, making it very difficult for the Democrats to figure out what the point of differentiation is. Where do they want to put their chips? Where is the line of attack they can use against President Trump going to be?
Political commentator Matthew Continetti has put forward a rule, which I think is exactly right: If you are trying to scope out the future candidates of any party, the going rule for the last several decades has been that the successful presidential candidate first runs against his or her own party, and then runs for the presidency.
President Trump is an excellent example of this. He came in 2016. He ran against every aspect of the Republican Party. He broke the Republican Party, and then he took the presidency. Barack Obama did this in 2008. He overcame Hillary Clinton (who was considered the establishment pick), took over the party, and then won.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
There are a few angles that could be used to take over the Democratic Party. The first (and better) administrative angle would suggest that the federal government is actually good at certain things and then should get a lot of regulations out of the way so the government can build things again, like a Hoover Dam, affordable housing, or a bullet train.
One problem for Democrats is that they have a very bad record of administration, as demonstrated by places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit. That’s problem number one.
Problem number two is that most of the Democratic hard-core does not care about any of that. They care more deeply about the “moral issues” in the country, rather than caring deeply about being good at administration. They don’t understand that being a good administrator on the local or state level actually does have a moral component, because if you wish to alleviate poverty, for example, one of the best ways is to provide a stable and useful local government.
But Democrats have stopped believing that to be true, so they are left with a couple of other angles.
One is the DEI angle: that the Democratic Party stands for recentering the marginalized. This is the attempt to elevate candidates of color (see: Kamala Harris) or elevating people on the basis of sexual orientation (see: Pete Buttigieg, who is gay) to a presidential candidacy at the expense of other candidates who might be better qualified.
There’s a lot of support for that inside the Democratic Party. That is the angle they’ve been taking, and it has been failing. Democrats may double down on stupid. If they do, they’re unlikely to win back the presidency.
The Democratic establishment has failed the Democratic Party and they know it, which is why Chuck Schumer is under serious fire right now.
So, what are Democrats left with?
The Bernie-Sanders’ wing.
He’s too old. He’s not going to be the guy. Nevertheless, the Bernie-Sanders’ energy is the insurgent energy inside the Democratic Party — energy that is full-scale class warfare. DEI has been played out. So, they are reverting to the original Marxism from race or sex Marxism.
This is the direction of the Democratic Party. This is where the energy is.
And this is exactly what the Trump administration should be concerned about. The Trump administration has to be exceptionally good at what it does. If they fail, the next thing up on the Democratic side of the aisle is Sanders and whomever he (an 83-year-old lifelong, useless leech on the rear of society) taps on the shoulder.
It is not a coincidence that Sanders is tapping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who is appearing with him at rallies — on the shoulder. Sanders is abandoning certain issues that are tent-pole Democrat issues right now and focusing on pure class warfare.
Sanders is running around because he knows that he’s being asked to create a war inside the party. What he actually wants is for AOC to run for president.
Meanwhile, she is positioning herself against an establishment Democratic Party that is unwilling to face up to the challenges of President Trump, which is smart.
The goal right now for Democrats is very simple: to steer into full-scale class warfare.
There’s a reason they keep using the word “oligarchy.” What they’re attempting to do is craft a narrative about a group of people at the top of government, in private industry and the public sector, working together to corrupt the system.
The typical comeback to that from the conservative side of the aisle is, “If the economy is booming, what are you complaining about?”
But the reason the class warfare argument is clever is because of the way that people tend to filter politics. We talk about politics every day on my show, and if you listen to the show, you’re a member of a tiny group in the American public who watch politics at a fairly granular level. You know the players and the general arguments.
But the vast majority of people in the United States have a picture of politics that is significantly less granular.
Georges Seurat was a famous Impressionist painter. He created paintings by using thousands of dots. People who watch politics closely are like people who view a Seurat painting up close and see every single dot, every pixel.
But if you draw back from a Seurat painting, you see the painting is a picture of something. Most people wander into a room with a Seurat painting, observe the painting as people who are walking by a river, and then walk out of the room. They do not analyze a granular view.
So Democrats are counting on people seeing a picture of President Trump at the inauguration, flanked by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Neal Mohan, and all the other tech CEOs in a room together, with a bird’s-eye view — not a granular view.
What the Democrats are banking on is a close coordination between private industry and the president — and then for the economy to fail.
And if there’s an economic fall, AOC is right there, and so is Bernie.
Let’s be clear about what the threat level is: It is serious. This is why the economy must succeed.
The greatest danger to the Trump administration is an economic downturn. Anything else can be overcome. An economic downturn gets attributed to the president who is the president when it happens, whether or not he deserves it. That’s just the way it works.
Therefore, that is the great danger.
This White House being very friendly toward business is great. That is wonderful. But every image showing how friendly this White House is toward business becomes a weapon in the arsenal of people like AOC, who doesn’t understand business, doesn’t understand economics, truly hates the rich, and thinks there’s an immoral quality that adheres to you as you gain wealth and makes you immoral and bad.
That’s a Marxist sentiment that makes no sense on a moral level. Pretty much everyone I know who was at one point not rich and then became rich is the same person they always were.
I know many people who are wonderful and are not rich. I know many people who are wonderful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are not rich.
Wealth does not define character.
But for people like Sanders and AOC, there’s a flattering view they can present to the vast majority of Americans, which is that if you are rich, it’s because you suckered someone and did something wrong or corrupt; further, they contend that participating in the capitalist system makes you morally inferior in some way.
That’s why Sanders will say billionaires should not exist. He doesn’t just mean we should redistribute wealth. He means there is something immoral in being a billionaire.
But people tend to judge politics that way: walking through the room, looking once at the painting, and walking out.
If they observe the White House as being close to various industrial capitalists and tech bros who are and have been successful, and then the economy sinks, all will be tied to the sinking ship.
Which is why it is imperative that the Trump administration not let the economic ship sink.
[#item_full_content]
[[{“value”:”
Democrats have a serious problem. President Trump’s approval ratings maintain their status, hovering somewhere close to 50%, which is higher than they have been in nearly his entire political career.
His main policies are quite popular, ranging from crackdowns on illegal immigration — which is a very popular position — to his positions with regard to DOGE. Most Americans favor cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, and Democrats really don’t know how to deal with it.
The Democrats have missed governance at nearly every level of government. Meanwhile, President Trump is moving incredibly fast, making it very difficult for the Democrats to figure out what the point of differentiation is. Where do they want to put their chips? Where is the line of attack they can use against President Trump going to be?
Political commentator Matthew Continetti has put forward a rule, which I think is exactly right: If you are trying to scope out the future candidates of any party, the going rule for the last several decades has been that the successful presidential candidate first runs against his or her own party, and then runs for the presidency.
President Trump is an excellent example of this. He came in 2016. He ran against every aspect of the Republican Party. He broke the Republican Party, and then he took the presidency. Barack Obama did this in 2008. He overcame Hillary Clinton (who was considered the establishment pick), took over the party, and then won.
WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show
There are a few angles that could be used to take over the Democratic Party. The first (and better) administrative angle would suggest that the federal government is actually good at certain things and then should get a lot of regulations out of the way so the government can build things again, like a Hoover Dam, affordable housing, or a bullet train.
One problem for Democrats is that they have a very bad record of administration, as demonstrated by places like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Detroit. That’s problem number one.
Problem number two is that most of the Democratic hard-core does not care about any of that. They care more deeply about the “moral issues” in the country, rather than caring deeply about being good at administration. They don’t understand that being a good administrator on the local or state level actually does have a moral component, because if you wish to alleviate poverty, for example, one of the best ways is to provide a stable and useful local government.
But Democrats have stopped believing that to be true, so they are left with a couple of other angles.
One is the DEI angle: that the Democratic Party stands for recentering the marginalized. This is the attempt to elevate candidates of color (see: Kamala Harris) or elevating people on the basis of sexual orientation (see: Pete Buttigieg, who is gay) to a presidential candidacy at the expense of other candidates who might be better qualified.
There’s a lot of support for that inside the Democratic Party. That is the angle they’ve been taking, and it has been failing. Democrats may double down on stupid. If they do, they’re unlikely to win back the presidency.
The Democratic establishment has failed the Democratic Party and they know it, which is why Chuck Schumer is under serious fire right now.
So, what are Democrats left with?
The Bernie-Sanders’ wing.
He’s too old. He’s not going to be the guy. Nevertheless, the Bernie-Sanders’ energy is the insurgent energy inside the Democratic Party — energy that is full-scale class warfare. DEI has been played out. So, they are reverting to the original Marxism from race or sex Marxism.
This is the direction of the Democratic Party. This is where the energy is.
And this is exactly what the Trump administration should be concerned about. The Trump administration has to be exceptionally good at what it does. If they fail, the next thing up on the Democratic side of the aisle is Sanders and whomever he (an 83-year-old lifelong, useless leech on the rear of society) taps on the shoulder.
It is not a coincidence that Sanders is tapping Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who is appearing with him at rallies — on the shoulder. Sanders is abandoning certain issues that are tent-pole Democrat issues right now and focusing on pure class warfare.
Sanders is running around because he knows that he’s being asked to create a war inside the party. What he actually wants is for AOC to run for president.
Meanwhile, she is positioning herself against an establishment Democratic Party that is unwilling to face up to the challenges of President Trump, which is smart.
The goal right now for Democrats is very simple: to steer into full-scale class warfare.
There’s a reason they keep using the word “oligarchy.” What they’re attempting to do is craft a narrative about a group of people at the top of government, in private industry and the public sector, working together to corrupt the system.
The typical comeback to that from the conservative side of the aisle is, “If the economy is booming, what are you complaining about?”
But the reason the class warfare argument is clever is because of the way that people tend to filter politics. We talk about politics every day on my show, and if you listen to the show, you’re a member of a tiny group in the American public who watch politics at a fairly granular level. You know the players and the general arguments.
But the vast majority of people in the United States have a picture of politics that is significantly less granular.
Georges Seurat was a famous Impressionist painter. He created paintings by using thousands of dots. People who watch politics closely are like people who view a Seurat painting up close and see every single dot, every pixel.
But if you draw back from a Seurat painting, you see the painting is a picture of something. Most people wander into a room with a Seurat painting, observe the painting as people who are walking by a river, and then walk out of the room. They do not analyze a granular view.
So Democrats are counting on people seeing a picture of President Trump at the inauguration, flanked by Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Neal Mohan, and all the other tech CEOs in a room together, with a bird’s-eye view — not a granular view.
What the Democrats are banking on is a close coordination between private industry and the president — and then for the economy to fail.
And if there’s an economic fall, AOC is right there, and so is Bernie.
Let’s be clear about what the threat level is: It is serious. This is why the economy must succeed.
The greatest danger to the Trump administration is an economic downturn. Anything else can be overcome. An economic downturn gets attributed to the president who is the president when it happens, whether or not he deserves it. That’s just the way it works.
Therefore, that is the great danger.
This White House being very friendly toward business is great. That is wonderful. But every image showing how friendly this White House is toward business becomes a weapon in the arsenal of people like AOC, who doesn’t understand business, doesn’t understand economics, truly hates the rich, and thinks there’s an immoral quality that adheres to you as you gain wealth and makes you immoral and bad.
That’s a Marxist sentiment that makes no sense on a moral level. Pretty much everyone I know who was at one point not rich and then became rich is the same person they always were.
I know many people who are wonderful and are not rich. I know many people who are wonderful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are rich. I know many people who are awful and are not rich.
Wealth does not define character.
But for people like Sanders and AOC, there’s a flattering view they can present to the vast majority of Americans, which is that if you are rich, it’s because you suckered someone and did something wrong or corrupt; further, they contend that participating in the capitalist system makes you morally inferior in some way.
That’s why Sanders will say billionaires should not exist. He doesn’t just mean we should redistribute wealth. He means there is something immoral in being a billionaire.
But people tend to judge politics that way: walking through the room, looking once at the painting, and walking out.
If they observe the White House as being close to various industrial capitalists and tech bros who are and have been successful, and then the economy sinks, all will be tied to the sinking ship.
Which is why it is imperative that the Trump administration not let the economic ship sink.
“}]]
