Writing in The Atlantic, Molly Ball has an interesting piece on the future of the Democrats. Her focus is on the reaction in the party to the major defeat they suffered in the midterm elections. Ball compares the reaction to the one that came from the Republicans after president Obama won re-election in 2012. As with all of the punditry that analyzes an entire party, it is a vast oversimplification, but nevertheless, Ball does manage to get the essence correct (at least in my opinion.) Here is the core of what Ball says:
Democrats today are convinced there's nothing wrong with what they stand for—if anything, they just need to stand for it louder and more aggressively.
There is a great deal of truth in this sentence. Democrats see no need to change their policies, and that is shocking since those policies have been clearly rejected by the electorate. The Democrats, however, are confident that they know better than the voters what is good for America. Indeed, this outlook from the party is further proof of the viewpoint expressed by Jonathan Gruber, that Democrats think the voters are stupid. In fact, the Democrat view is that voters are too stupid to even know what is best for them.
Think about this. Two years ago, there was non-stop heckling from the media about how the Republicans had to change their positions and become more moderate or risk disappearing. The media today says nothing about the Democrats changing positions. Why is that? The answer is that the media is one of the principal components of the Democrat party, and it sees no need for change despite the loss. Or how about this? President Obama won't even say in public that he and his party were soundly trounced in the election. Instead of considering any change of course, Obama's reaction has been to move ahead in an unconstitutional manner to grant amnesty for illegal immigrants, a move which all the polls say is unpopular with the voters. Or consider the reaction to what senator Schumer said the other day when he announced that it was a mistake for the Democrats to have focused on healthcare after winning in 2008. There was a firestorm of protest in response and it was wholly from within the party. One former White House staffer even denounced Schumer for not caring about sick people.
Let's put this all together. Will the Democrats stop pushing Obamacare and help repeal it? No, even though the public still votes by 3 to 2 against it. Will the Democrats end the moves to fight non-existent global warming even though those moves cost America hundreds of thousands or even millions of jobs? Here too, the answer is clearly negative despite falling public interest in the claims of climate change. Will the Democrats start promoting economic growth? Amazingly, the answer here remains NO. Just this past week, Obama killed off chances to get a bipartisan deal in Congress that would have changed the tax code to provide important stimulus for America's economy.
It is amazing to watch the hubris of the Democrats in action. The party is so certain that it knows better than the American people themselves what is good for the country that they are following a course that the voters have clearly disavowed. This could all change by 2016 when the next president is chosen. Nevertheless, if the outlook of the Democrats remains unchanged, their hopes of victory will be substantially reduced in 2016.
Democrats today are convinced there's nothing wrong with what they stand for—if anything, they just need to stand for it louder and more aggressively.
There is a great deal of truth in this sentence. Democrats see no need to change their policies, and that is shocking since those policies have been clearly rejected by the electorate. The Democrats, however, are confident that they know better than the voters what is good for America. Indeed, this outlook from the party is further proof of the viewpoint expressed by Jonathan Gruber, that Democrats think the voters are stupid. In fact, the Democrat view is that voters are too stupid to even know what is best for them.
Think about this. Two years ago, there was non-stop heckling from the media about how the Republicans had to change their positions and become more moderate or risk disappearing. The media today says nothing about the Democrats changing positions. Why is that? The answer is that the media is one of the principal components of the Democrat party, and it sees no need for change despite the loss. Or how about this? President Obama won't even say in public that he and his party were soundly trounced in the election. Instead of considering any change of course, Obama's reaction has been to move ahead in an unconstitutional manner to grant amnesty for illegal immigrants, a move which all the polls say is unpopular with the voters. Or consider the reaction to what senator Schumer said the other day when he announced that it was a mistake for the Democrats to have focused on healthcare after winning in 2008. There was a firestorm of protest in response and it was wholly from within the party. One former White House staffer even denounced Schumer for not caring about sick people.
Let's put this all together. Will the Democrats stop pushing Obamacare and help repeal it? No, even though the public still votes by 3 to 2 against it. Will the Democrats end the moves to fight non-existent global warming even though those moves cost America hundreds of thousands or even millions of jobs? Here too, the answer is clearly negative despite falling public interest in the claims of climate change. Will the Democrats start promoting economic growth? Amazingly, the answer here remains NO. Just this past week, Obama killed off chances to get a bipartisan deal in Congress that would have changed the tax code to provide important stimulus for America's economy.
It is amazing to watch the hubris of the Democrats in action. The party is so certain that it knows better than the American people themselves what is good for the country that they are following a course that the voters have clearly disavowed. This could all change by 2016 when the next president is chosen. Nevertheless, if the outlook of the Democrats remains unchanged, their hopes of victory will be substantially reduced in 2016.
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