|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Order Daniel Greenfield’s new book, Domestic Enemies: The Founding Fathers’ Fight Against the Left: HERE.
A recent poll showed current Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who had worked in Cuba with the Marxist Venceremos Brigade trailing Councilwoman Nithya Raman, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. Only 24% of Los Angeles residents approve of the job that Bass is doing, which included the worst wildfires in the city’s history, while 47% disapprove.
If disappointed voters replace Bass with an even more extreme version, that will be in line with what happened in New York City where a widely despised former Mayor Bill de Blasio was, after a one term break to make room for former Mayor Eric Adams, swapped out for Zohran Mamdani, who described him as a role model. Even only 100 days into his term, usually the political ‘honeymoon’ period, Mamdani’s approval rating is at only 43%. And the majority of New Yorkers believe that the city is headed in the wrong direction.
In Chicago, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, widely hated by voters, was replaced with Mayor Brandon Johnson, who made Lightfoot seem responsible, civil and moderate. Johnson’s approval ratings have recently been in the twenties, but the extremist teachers’ union hack may well be replaced by someone even worse. Possibilities include Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez who spoke in front of a burned American flag at a pro-terrorist rally, and would move the city even further leftward.
Democrats are in a downward spiral towards further extremes even as their poll ratings sink.
In Maine, Democrats may well find themselves stuck with Graham Platner, a rich kid pretending to be a fisherman, who boasted of being a Communist, had a Nazi tattoo and praised a Hamas attack. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim who called for abolishing ICE and ‘choking out’ political opponents, who claimed that many in Dearborn mourned Iran’s Jihadist leader, and who has been campaigning with Hasan Piker, a social media influencer who celebrated Hamas and mourned the fall of the USSR, is running neck and neck in the Democrat primary.
This is less of a reflection of the state of the country than of a party stuck with a base of extremists that is pushing into adopting wildly unpopular radical positions.
The party bet everything on two prongs, hating Trump and going far leftwards, but there’s no evidence that voters are responding to either one. President Trump’s approval ratings may be low but even CNN polls are showing that Democrats are trailing Republicans in party approval ratings. Democrat election victories remain largely confined to blue areas and special elections.
Meanwhile, Democrats are rapidly mainstreaming calls to abolish ICE and support for Hamas, as if there were any backing for these destructive agendas outside the farthest of the far Left.
Unfortunately that now includes their own party.
Even when Democrats run as moderates, they soon pivot to their extreme agenda items.
In Virginia, newly elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger, chosen by the bedroom communities of Northern Virginia, who won by pretending to be a moderate, had her approval rating sink after she mistook the victory as a mandate for supporting illegal alien criminals, forcing men into women’s locker rooms and gerrymandering the state to eliminate the political opposition.
Zohran Mamdani, hyped as the new leftist face of the party, is already down to a 43% approval rating into the first 100 days of his political ‘honeymoon’ as most residents believe the city is on the wrong track. But Mamdani wasn’t elected by New Yorkers, but a minority coalition between urban leftists and Muslim occupants, while native New Yorkers mostly sat out the election.
That larger trend of voters sitting out elections in places has worsened extremism
Democrats aren’t winning over voters, they’re convincing voters who might otherwise support them that there’s no point in even bothering because there are no good choices anymore. Gerrymandering provides them with political control while eliminating even the illusion of democracy or choice leading to corrupt one-party states and cities in a state of freefall.
The political failure cycle of urban politics isn’t just making cities worse, it’s making politics more extreme. Voters elect increasingly radical politicians running on the same old promises of affordability and higher taxes, as if the two were complementary rather than mutually opposed, the equally paradoxical pledge of equality through equity, along with endless free government services. The DSA and other socialist groups are in ascendance, cashing in on the frustration of voters, rather than bearing the brunt of the backlash for the woke misery they made.
The urban political failure model, what some used to call the failed ‘blue state model’ is driven by three entangled causes. Politically competitive areas have been disappearing as politics consolidates its cultural control over entire areas. Between gerrymandering, demographic identity politics cracking and voter harvesting, once Democrats seize control of a local political system, it’s rarely competitive again. And Democrat primaries tend to trend leftward as the voters most likely to show up for primaries lean further leftwards.
This isn’t just the fault of Democrats, who have surrendered their party’s identity to socialists and marxists, but Republicans, who have forgotten how to talk about these issues.
Republicans who run for office in blue areas have also forgotten most of the lessons learned by their predecessors in the Reagan era who actively made the case that left-wing policies were bad. Instead they either veer between trying to run as apolitical moderates and promising to do a better job of fixing homelessness, creating jobs and running public schools, or virtue signal strictly rightwards without connecting the conditions that everyone hates to the policies that everyone keeps voting for.
Affordability isn’t a problem in New York City because of the rich, but because a vast regulatory bureaucracy has set out to make all aspects of life, including housing, more expensive to squeeze out the middle class and replace economic independence with government dependency. Homelessness isn’t a problem because of the high cost of housing, but because leftists rebranded mentally ill drug addicts as victims of the high cost of housing, fought all efforts to institutionalize or imprison them, and instead built a social services machine that has made billions from promising (and always failing) to get them off the streets.
Most voters don’t identify homeless programs, criminal justice reform or housing affordability as leftist policies. They may be able to identify higher taxes as a socialist position, but since these are aimed at the ‘rich’ and are presented as necessary for solving the assorted manufactured social problems, like homelessness, or funding the free government programs, like free childcare, that they are tempted by, they decide to side with the Left. Hapless conservative candidates get into arguments about the impact of taxing the rich on the economic base and thereby play into the hands of the socialists, fighting the fight on their terrain.
Meanwhile, crime, affordability and education continue to worsen.
Even more conservative Republicans fail to make the case that their leftist opponents didn’t fail because they were “naive”, a term they still apply to the likes of Zohran Mamdani, and incompetent, but because they are radicals who deliberately set out to make things worse to profit from the ruin. And until they make that case, they won’t be able to connect with voters.
Unless these people are taking power via armed tanks, it most certainly IS a reflection of the state of the country. People are voting for people who represent their values.
Stop making the voters seem gullible or misinformed.
This should be the guideline in all serious debate of current politics. And the same holds true even more for the actions of the elected officials themselves. Doing this obfuscates the problem and makes it impossible to hold anyone accountable.
I find it laughable that commentators treat people as dumb or naive when their actions don’t seem to make sense to a civilized mind. While there is a general human stupidity, that is not a valid defense in a court of law, and neither can it be when putting people on the trial of public scrutiny.
All adults are responsible for their actions unless proven to be mentally incapable of discerning reality. Corollary: those who destroy the country via their votes or executive actions, do so with some level of malicious intent.
A critical mass of voters are gullible because they’re poorly educated, lazy and uninformed. Moreover, they’re addicted to social media outrage machines and susceptible to peer pressure. Combined, these facts enable the far left.
You’re wrong if you think the only way to take power is via a literal coup d’état.
I didn’t say that was the only way to take power. I said it is the only way to take power without the vote of the populace.
If people are electing these leaders – and every one of these extreme candidates was elected – then it is 100% the fault of the voters. They had a choice and chose according to their values, even if you don’t like those values. Therefore, the voters are not at all innocent.
If people are too lazy to learn about candidates. Or if they change their minds five minutes before election day because of a commercial they saw while they were distracted by pop culture garbage. Or if they give no more thought to who they vote for than what socks to wear today. Or if they don’t vote at all, even for third parties. Then THEY ARE THE PROBLEM
I can explain it for you, but I can’t understand it for you.
You had me until the last smarmy comment.
Here’s mine: do a better job of making your point instead of hiding behind an insult when YOU don’t explain your point clearly.
The hate factor creates votes for these mayors and others. Media and education system pumps out hate, Media features (organized) protests as grass roots. So, people think they should agree with the protest. Protest because you hate Trump so much you will vote for anyone who hates him. Same for hating Jews. Hate hate hate.
Entire classrooms of kids with their teachers rushed out during school time to protest Jews and support the Hamas rape-murderers.
ICE wants to remove murderers and rapists but we hate ICE and again we like rapists.
Why is anyone surprised about what type of trash gets elected?
Most people don’t know that our young people (even kindergarteners) are being indoctrinated to believe that America is an evil rotten country founded on the backs of slaves.
Our schools don’t teach competency in reading, writing, math, or history (not to mention geography, science, and the rest of the studies that make a well-rounded and educated person). History classes are lessons in all the wrongs America has committed around the world.
The curriculum, especially in public schools, consists of learning about sexual orientation, gender equality, trans rights, how-tos about sex, and lectures about the evil United States.
In fall 2022, about 49.6 million students were enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in the United States. That’s a whole hell of a lot of kids being intentionally soured on their own country.
The graduates of our public schools and public and private universities ARE stupid and uninformed. They aren’t taught about civics, how our government operates, or the magnificent history of our country. They are taught to be activists for all the wrong issues.
These people, when they become adults, make bad voters. It’s undeniable.. We must fix our education system if we have any chance of surviving in the future.
And whose fault is THAT? I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the theory that the all-powerful schools teach this crap in a vacuum.
Where are the parents? Do they take any interest in what is being taught? Or do they see it as “not their problem” and accept stupid explanations like “nobody else has complained.”?
A teacher or administrator can get terminated in days for a racist comment or inappropriately hitting a student because the parent will be up in arms, but they don’t also demand the scalp of teachers and administrators who design these curriculua?
Bullshit. They are too lazy and/or don’t want to get mean and run these America-hating scumbags out of town. As for most parents, as long as they can use the schools as glorified daycare centers they don’t care what happens in them.
Yes, sorry, the voters ARE gullible and misinformed … As ‘Exhibit A’, simply ask yourself: why do so many clueless Americans flee blue state strongholds and then vote Democrat once they’ve resettled in Texas or Florida?
As Winston Churchill once said, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter …
All of these far Left politicians have been transparent. Mamdani didn’t hide anything about his intentions. He was more than transparent. Yet, the low IQ NYers voted him in anyway. If the majority of native NYers stayed home because they were too lazy, or indifferent to get off their asses then it’s on them.
Half the country is ignorant about candidates and their policies.
Is it possible that those who don’t vote are voters who’ve lost faith in the election process or in the integrety of the candidates?
That the SAVE Act remains unpassed tells me the problem is the Uniparty.
The Stupid Party hung DJT out to dry in his first term and, other than the team DJT put together this time, is doing no better to support what we voted for.
Thune, Tillis, Murkowski, Collins, Graham… all useless. Why is McConnell still allowed by the Party to remain an embarrassment?
The Parties are the problem.
It appears that in many cases, far too many cases, the voters are beyond learning. That is partially why Dems want them to concentrate in big cities, live in the “hood” as it were..
But they are gullible and misinformed. Why else do they keep voting democraps in, in spite of the evidence that it’s a really bad idea?
Somehow the Republicans can’t figure out a way to beat a party that has a stated platform of taking away your children by force to chop body parts off them and replace you with foreigners while unleashing a horde of crazed murderers on the population,
Exactly! If they can’t see through any of that it’s already game over … Your country is gone and she ain’t comin’ back, folks …
It is highly troubling. Possibly, too many rino types have the same values.
It’s difficult to know what to do about it. There are so many. Now even whole states have acquired that thinking.
It may be simply be the case that we, as a civilization, have begun our death throes.
Many, many have gone through such in the past.
A superb piece and on-point, Daniel, as all of yours always are.
Here in Massachusetts, 40% of the voters are registered as “Republican,” yet not ONE of our 9 Congressmen and 2 Senators is. And those 11 include some of the most infamous, notoriously Hard-Left TDS “Democrats,” e.g. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Ayanna Pressley, and Seth Moulton.
I show up at my local polling place (usually the local high school gym) to vote ON ELECTION DAY in every election, Federal, State, and even Local, and will continue to; but it makes no difference at all.
The first time (I was already Registered, of course, at City Hall), I started laying out my Mass. Driver’s License, my Birth Certificate, my U.S. Passport, and my current gas and electric bills with my name and address on them on the folding card table to prove my I.D. and eligibility.
The old lady poll worker waved them aside with a smile. “Oh, I don’t need to see any of that!” and just handed me a ballot.
In another election, I asked for my ballot and was immediately handed to me. Almost none of the incumbent Democrats even had a Republican challenger. I laughed out loud when I saw that and showed the ballot to the poll worker. “It’s quick and easy to be a Republican–we don’t have anybody to vote for!” And both of us burst into laughter.
Another time and year, my phone rang. The (by the sound of her voice obviously an old lady) campaign worker asked me to vote for so-and-so (I forget his name now) for the School Committee.
I was interested, and listening…but when I asked her what his policy positions were for the Lynn Public Schools, she couldn’t give me EVEN ONE OF THEM. I laughed, thanked her for the call, and hung up.
There’s been just one election that I’m happy went The Wrong Way: Karoline Leavitt’s when she ran for Congress in New Hampshire. I’d sent her a modest campaign donation, and was disappointed when she “lost.” But as things turned out, she’s much more powerful and influential as Trump’s SUPERB Press Secretary than she ever could have been as the junior Representative from New Hampshire’s Second Congressional District!
Yes, I’ll continue to vote–EVEN THOUGH IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE HERE AT ALL. Am I a fool for bothering to?
You’re not a fool. Giving up on voting is what they want.
Even in socialist San Francisco, 3 blithering idiot flamers got booted out due to gender bending madness.
Register as a Democrat & help Rush’s “Operation Chaos” antics live on.
(Excellent post, by the way. 🇺🇲)
Mr. WhiteHunter, no you are not a fool. You merely recognize the obvious while holding onto your excellent values. We have a slightly similar circumstance here in Arizona. Lots of Republican voters but the big city majors and councils, and our two senators are rad Demorats. Actually, this is probably attributed to people fleeing California. Lots of CA plates running around here. I bet a dollar to a donute the vast majority of people fleeing the failed state of California still vote Demorat. When we were in Nevada in the very early 2000’s, many locals despised those coming in from California because they continued to vote Demorat and also drove up housing costs immensely. When we moved there for some construction projects, the DMV already had started issuing voter registrations without proof of citizenship or even residence. We are experiencing the first symptoms of a decline of a major civilization. Hang on.
By everything that can be measured as righteous or good, Democrats are EVIL. Case in point: You CANNOT get to Heaven unless you are a “Born Again” Christian believer in Jesus. You CANNOT be a “Born Again” Christian and vote for a Democrat! WHY? Glad you asked – it’s because your “elected Democrat” will vote in Congress (or whatever body they’re elected to) for ABORTION (even “Postpartum“ Abortion) as a Human Right – the virtual offering (child sacrifice) of the unborn to Moloch. Voting taxpayer funds for “Planned Parenthood – and let’s start calling it what it is, “Planned Abortionhood”! And you think your body is “YOUR BODY”? NO, it belongs to GOD who made it for you to reside in while you decide where you want to spend Eternity!!
Good post. And whether you believe in God or not, once you stop believing in the dignity of life your society begins to crumble. Today it’s that inconvenient baby, tomorrow it’s your aged inconvenient self in a walker and a pension. Eventually it’s civility and finally civilization itself that disappears.
“In Virginia, newly elected Gov. Abigail Spanberger, chosen by the bedroom communities of Northern Virginia, who won by pretending to be a moderate, had her approval rating sink after she mistook the victory as a mandate for supporting illegal alien criminals, forcing men into women’ s locker rooms and gerrymandering the state to eliminate the political opposition.” I doubt that CIA-trained color revolutionist Spanberger “mistook” the victory as a mandate. She practiced deceit throughout her campaign, and the feckless Republican campaign treated her the way Mitt Romney treated Barack Obama – with velvet gloves. Just as Romney stood on the debate stage with evil incarnate and failed to call him out, Winsome Earle-Sears made no case against the insidious and patently malicious U. S. Representative from Virginia 7.
This is a microcosm of the problem facing citizens in Democrat influenced districts. The handful of genuine conservatives who oppose leftist candidates lack the fortitude and possibly the finances to lay bare the evil of the Democrat candidate in terms that cross the threshold of voter indifference and media political bias.. It is as if no Republican will ever learn that Barry Goldwater wasn’t defeated by the Daisy commercial or by a better candidate.
And when the venal and duplicitous Spanberger moved on from the House, she left her seat in the hands of the despicable Eugene Vindman. Truly the Democrat Party is in the hands of America’s enemies, but the unwillingness of Republicans to act decisively to defeat them is just as big a problem.
Voter turnout is s huge problem. I believe the country is at least at least a small majority conservative, but conservatives by nature are not as politically motivated as liberals (now Leftists). The Left is highly motivated to elect people who support their agenda, and have better voter turnout, especially with gimmicks like mail-in voting and ballot harvesting. IMHO that’s how these unpopular, Leftist candidates keep getting elected/ reelected. We on the Right must get much better at getting our folks to vote, and to inform the voters about the damage of Leftist policies.
Voter apathy is an issue here in Canada too. Many are too lazy to get off their tush to vote, but will complain incessantly about “politicians are all the same” or “my vote doesn’t count”. Really?
Yet, a vast percentage of brainwashed, stupid, gullible, and clueless Americans keep voting these democraps in. What the heck is the matter with these voters?? They get what they voted for and then disapprove of their elected mayor’s performance. Duh…