From former Rep Joe Cunningham (D-SC) during a South Carolina gubernatorial race in 2022:
Some might say that a Democrat such as Cunningham isn’t electable in MAGA-red South Carolina, where President Donald Trump is still the endorser in chief. Cunningham admits that campaigning was often tough. In Trump strongholds such as Goose Creek (near Charleston) or even Hilton Head, people don’t want to hear a word from Democrats, he told me in an hour-long conversation Wednesday. At least Cunningham was hearing people out as he tackled a tour of the state’s 46 counties before the governor’s race. He heard what voters cared about — not the Democratic Party’s green energy tax breaks, but grocery prices, affordable housing, education and health care. The mayor of one small town told Cunningham that residents just wanted a grocery store.
These days, Cunningham is less frustrated by his defeats than by the sorry state of the Democratic Party — the hypocrisy, disingenuousness and disconnect from what Americans generally care about. He detailed his observations in a recently self-published book, “Life of the Party,” an easy-to-read autopsy of his beloved party’s departure from reality. He takes no prisoners in these pages, as he nails and names Democrats for “chasing causes and issues that affect a very small percentage of Americans.”
“The Party’s gaze has drifted beyond the basic needs … and has settled on a culture war that includes gender identity, racial quotas, DEI, and bathrooms,” he wrote. “It has cost them swaths of voters who may never come back.” [Kathleen Parker, WaPo]
My bold. This is why I have suggested, and will keep suggesting, that the Democratic Party is, like the Republican Party, a good bet for replacement in the near future. The Republicans are, to an overwhelming extent, a bunch of fourth-raters who love power more than they love wise governance. The Democrats will, as third-raters, celebrate their victory in November, blame voters as bigots for not voting for them in greater numbers as an example of CYA, and mistakenly claim that their victory is a mandate for all the out-there positions they’ve taken.
And either the Republicans win the next election, or one of the Parties will be reduced to minor Party status. Or, at least, so I hope. Many Republicans know this is coming, and so we get report aggregations such as Professor Richardson’s report today, suggesting President Trump is trying to befoul the midterm.
Things could get dicey if Congress doesn’t dump Trump’s ass out onto Pennsylvania Ave. And then put a harness of VP Vance.
