Q&A of the Day – Tuesday’s Impact on the Future of the Democrat Party
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
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Today’s entry: Brian, I've been seeing the same thing you've been seeing all morning about how this is all about a referendum on Trump in these elections. And I saw, I see exactly what you see. This isn't this is quite a deflection from the civil war happening within the Democratic Party between the socialists, Islamists, and the traditional democrats. It's it'd be funny if it weren't so sad and how it's going to hurt so many people.
Bottom Line: As I’ve read, watched and listened to what I believe to be massive over reactions on both sides of the aisle, I think it’s worth drilling down into this topic for today’s Q&A. As I implied on in my Top 3 Takeaways on Tuesday - when my third takeaway was “Don’t buy the narratives”... was that Republicans were set to have a bad day and there would be overreactions but that the only two things that matter outside of the jurisdictions where those elections took place going forward were the implications behind Mamdani’s win and California’s Prop 50 win. I elaborated on those points in my takeaways yesterday when I said... You don’t play with fire. That’s true in your house, that’s true politically. But the Democrat Party has done just that and now they’re set to be burned. The key for the rest of us will be damage control for our country. No, Abigail Spanberger, an uninspired generic Democrat who will be the next governor of Virginia isn’t the future of the party. Nor will Mikie Sherrill, another wholly unimpressive generic democrat who will be the next governor of New Jersey.
I followed that train of thought up by pointing out that the Schumer wing of the Democrat Party would describe the two new milk toast unimpressive white female governors as moderates (which they’re not) and attempt to take a stand on running similar candidates across the country going forward. Meanwhile, the AOC-Mamdani wing of the party was celebrating while plotting the future takeover of the party. The related thought I shared was... This is the Democrat version of what Republicans went through after being routed in 2008 – which led to the insurgence and success of the Tea Party which eventually coalesced into Donald Trump’s success in taking down the Republican establishment. What we’re seeing play out is the progressives’ version of this too. Newsom will likely prove to be their Romney and then the politics of Mamdani and company will likely take over from there.
Today’s Q&A picks up on this point, which is the most important point. Democrats are now in a full-fledged civil war. It’s one that’s likely to become immediately clear with how the partial government shutdown is handled from here. The AOC-Mamdani insurgent wing has already influenced Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer’s actions on this – for it to have gotten this far and its possible it could lead to this dragging out far further from here, as that wing doesn’t believe in compromising on anything. They will demand the full COVID-era Obamacare subsidies be made permanent (which means 92% subsidies) and the elimination of the recently reenacted Medicaid work requirements.
Those on the right will remember how these battles played out for years between the establishment wing of the Republican Party and the insurgent base of the Tea Party (until President Trump arrived on the scene remaking the party in his image). It was a constant battle that even included some politicians pretending to be something they weren’t. Remember for example when Paul Ryan was thought to be a conservative member of the Tea Party? This is what the Democrat Party is now in store for.
Many on the right are lamenting the losses from Tuesday, but that doesn’t make any sense for these two reasons. First, the opposition party to the party in power in Washington, D.C. almost always outperforms in the following year’s elections (and for that matter midterm election cycles too). The states with elections that were closely watched on Tuesday were all blue states. California with Prop 50 and Virginia and New Jersey which Kamala Harris carried just last year. Consider that for a minute. What would it take for a base of voters who voted for Kamala Harris by wide margins last November to vote for Republicans for statewide offices today? It’s a very basic concept, but it’s not one that you’ve likely heard discussed that way. It’s why, independent of polls or anything else, I framed things the way I did on Tuesday. The bottom line is that Democrats broadly performed the way you’d expect them to perform in blue states with a Republican president and Republicans in control of congress.
To further put this into perspective, consider this. What was the last year that the state of Virigina (which elects a new governor every four years because they can’t serve consecutive terms) elected a governor of the same party as a newly elected president? The answer is 1969. It hasn’t happened in 56 years...and counting. The bigger story is the battle for the soul of the Democrat Party, which just as it took Republicans seven years to sort out, is also likely to take seven years to sort out. And just like the reformed base of the party won with Trump in the end, the insurgent socialist wing of the Democrat Party is where all of the energy is and demographically where the party is heading.
That’s the bigger story going forward.