The Dem's identity politics
President Trump’s brief quarrel with former ally Elon Musk was an unfortunate distraction. Disagreements are inevitable between strong-willed leaders with unique visions of who they are and what they want to accomplish. Democrats wish they had a clear idea of who they are.
Party officials recently spent $20 million to run a focus group to find out how, despite having the corporate-owned media in their pockets, Democratic candidates got clobbered in the 2024 elections. Polling data confirms that men, particularly the young ones, have been fleeing to the Republican Party.
The cause ought to be obvious. Straight, White males have no place in the liberal hierarchy of grievances. Generation Z grew up watching Hollywood films and TV shows where once-beloved characters were race- and gender-swapped to meet diversity quotas. Today’s Tinseltown permits only women to play the hero.
Men in these morality tales are universally portrayed as effeminate or incompetent, lest they overshadow the female lead. Entertainment became theology, and the Zoomers are tired of it. They understand that many of the basics their parents enjoyed, such as a house of their own, are beyond reach.
Democratic dominance in Congress, the judiciary and the White House during the presidencies of Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden allowed more than 20 million illegal aliens to flood into the country. The influx distorted the jobs and housing markets, depressing wages for entry-level workers while propelling the costs of starter homes and apartments skyward.
Uncle Sam’s reckless expenditures triggered runaway inflation throughout the great COVID-19 freak-out. An entire generation lost what should have been the best years of their lives to government lockdowns and school closures. Older teenagers and younger 20-somethings recognize that Democrats and the teachers unions were the driving force behind the insanity.
Grasping the threat, two-term Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel intends to throw his hat into the ring to take on whomever the Republican Party advances in the 2028 presidential contest. That’s why, earlier this year, he began saying his party needs to tone down its obsession with identity politics.
“In my view, not only did we look like we were on the cultural periphery, we look like that was front and center for us,” he said. “Stop. The bathroom, the locker room, it’s not more important than the classroom. … We got totally sidetracked.”
Mr. Emanuel is a savvy political operative who knows what to say to get what he desires. As Mr. Obama’s former chief of staff, however, he shares much of the blame for creating the financial and cultural crisis America faces right now. It seems rather unlikely he has repented of his big-government ways.
Young men will see through the insincerity and decline to embrace to the party that slid the Overton Window so far to the left that illegal aliens can register for a D.C. driver’s license with “neither” or “X” as their gender. Nor are they likely to accept Mr. Emanuel, a former ballerina, as a champion of manliness.
The rest of the blue state luminaries in the Democratic rainbow coalition are even less likely to be confused for alpha males. This includes former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, former Democratic National Committee co-Chairman David Hogg and former Transportation Secretary Pete “paternity leave” Buttigieg.
Democrats won’t recover their standing among young men until they ditch their fascination with Hamas, their fixation with transgenderism and the tax-and-spend agenda that drove the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.
If they do jettison the nonsense, they might as well just become Republicans.
— The Washington Times