Democrats Should Act More Like Republicans

A blind strengthening of will would do Democrats some good

by Jeremy Novak

Remember the scene?

June 2024. Joe Biden looks strangely disoriented and nonverbal at the presidential debate versus Donald Trump. Democrats panic. Pundits pounce. The media becomes laser focused on the fallout from this flub for months as the Democratic Party becomes fractured and demoralized.

We all know what happened after that.

But consider an alternative reality.

Picture this………………

Democrats pull together in support of Joe Biden, with the rank-and-file attending his rallies in unprecedented numbers, donning Biden paraphernalia and Dark Brandon masks.

Recognizing the threat Trump poses to America, prominent pundits shift from both-sides reporting to expounding on the dangers of another Trump term.

Nate Silver argues in his overly technical and tedious style that after Biden’s temporary mishap he actually performed very well in the debate, was in control of his faculties, and is ready for the challenge of another four years.

Chris Cillizza says that a bad debate is irrelevant to the future of our country, that Biden successfully staved off fascism in his first term, and should be given the opportunity to continue to lead America and the free world.

Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries, and Chuck Schumer all state loudly and often they are unequivocally backing Joe Biden, as he is the smartest and most experienced president ever and the best candidate to move America into the new age.

As you may have noticed, in this alternative reality, Democrats are behaving like…….Republicans.

Stand by your candidates

Would anything have turned out differently in that alternative universe? Maybe nothing. On the other hand, maybe everything.

We won’t ever know, of course. But there is a greater than zero chance that things might have been different had Democrats taken a page from the Republicans’ playbook and been a little cultish for 4-6 months in 2024.

Democrats are not prone to be in a cult; which is part of their problem. Perhaps a little temporary cultishness would be good for a victory every now and then.

Consider what the Republicans did to get Trump elected. They ignored or vociferously defended every lie, misstatement, embarrassment, criminal indictment, and felony conviction that Trump incurred. They behaved as though they are in a death cult.

And they won. And now they are in power.

Democrats chose despondency, consternation, and fear. And key leaders chose to smear their own candidate into withdrawing from the campaign. Not exactly a winning strategy. Democratic leaders could have offered unmovable support for the obviously sane, competent, and non-fascist candidate.

Think for a moment if Biden had gotten the same support from Democrats that Trump got from Republicans. Sure, Democrats don’t want to be in a cult. But maybe being in a cult every now and then would help their chances and save the future of democracy. Seems worth it to me.

Threaten your own members

Democrats are also not prone to want to shake things up down the ballot to keep the party strong and vibrant.

DNC vice-chair David Hogg has been ruffling some feathers for starting a Political Action Committee that will support primary challengers to many Democratic incumbents. Unsurprisingly, incumbents and the old party faithful don’t much like the idea.

There’s been so much of a panic about this that the DNC chair, Ken Martin, had to write an op-ed in Time magazine about it, in which he did exactly what Democrats are good at: weakly being all things to all people at once.

He wrote that he worked for a Senator that “angered a lot of powerful people”, and was a young kid that “wanted to burn down the institutions that maintained the status quo”; therefore, by God, he’s a “reformer”.

But…..”Let me explain”, he said, ….and proceeded to explain why we shouldn’t encourage such competition to the Democratic party.

He made some good points about the voters losing trust in the DNC after being perceived as putting their thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But the irony of this situation is that David Hogg was elected to his position by members of the Democratic Party. Did anyone think he was elected to maintain the status quo?

Republicans put the fear of God into their incumbents by constantly threatening to primary them. A simple tweet by Donald Trump or Elon Musk can bring them into line faster than a piece of debris from an exploding Space X rocket flies through the atmosphere.

While I don’t love their tactics, I do think the Democrats could learn from them and put similar pressure on their members if they don’t comply with the party’s agenda.

Pass the laws you want

Mike Johnson and House Republicans are passing laws and floating legislative ideas that are generally extreme and unpopular, and doing so while strong-arming their more moderate members into cooperation.

Democrats could learn from this approach and boldly push their own ideas and pass their own laws with conviction.

Pack the Supreme Court? Go for it.

Legalize abortion nationwide based on Roe v Wade terms? Sure, why not?

Make Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico a state? Yes!

Take advantage of the power you have and pass the laws you want. If Republicans don’t like it and are lucky enough to be back in power within the next 100 years after their Trump debacle, they can repeal whatever they want.

Never doing anything bold and different will not create any excitement or reason for regular people to vote for you.

Harass the media

Democrats should learn to be comfortable insulting members of the media. I mean, they do sometimes ask really stupid questions and focus on the wrong things. They need to be called out on it.

Trump does this regularly. Admittedly, he takes it a bit too far; his language is often too harsh and personal (see Trump’s anti-NBC rant at his joint press conference with the South African president).

But a few strong pushbacks now and then wouldn’t be a bad thing. Perhaps some form of the following examples would be useful:

“Why would you ask about that, when we have a dictatorial madman in office at the moment?”

“My God, that’s a stupid question. Do some research and then get back to me. Thoughtful questions only, please.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening, I was too busy thinking about the low-income rural people that won’t have jobs or hospitals within the next year due to the [Republican budget/Trump executive order/Supreme Court decision]”.

Stop playing nice and legitimizing every question reporters ask. Part of the reason we’re here is because reporters gravitated toward legitimizing Trump and his style of politics. Don’t play that game with them. Emphasize how weird and off-putting it is that America is becoming a dictatorship now after 250 years, and how you’d hardly know it from watching the legacy media.

Battle of wills

Republicans have figured out a formula that works for them. But it works largely because they need it to work. They don’t have the more popular policies, so they need to force their wills upon people in an attempt to bring them into existence.

Democrats should behave with similar urgency. Their policies are not the problem. But their will is. It’s time to strengthen their will, and the country will follow.

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