Are decent ordinary Democrats finally recognizing the terrible power-hungry corruption of their political party?
The Democratic Party
I have been hoping and praying for more than three decades for ordinary and decent Democratic Party supporters to recognize the rot that has permeated that party since the 1990s, all to no avail. Beginning with Bill Clinton, a Democratic Party politician could commit perjury, accept campaign donations illegally from hostile foreign powers, lie, cheat, and do all sorts of criminal acts, and ordinary Democrats would routinely and nonchalantly look the other way. “That can’t be true!” they would insist if you tried to point out any of these facts. Others would be even more closed-minded. “Democrats stand for equal rights and the poor! Republicans are fascists!”
In recent days however some anecdotal evidence, along with more firm survey data, suggests that ordinary Democrats (and some not so ordinary) might finally be opening their minds to other possibilities. Maybe Republicans (and Donald Trump) aren’t so bad after all. Maybe there is real corruption and bad policy coming from Democratic Party politicans.
For example, on the afternoon after the Supreme Court had listened to Colorado’s case trying to ban Donald Trump from the November presidential ballot, Justice Elena Kagan participated in a public event at the Library of Congress. During the morning court session it had appeared that all of the judges (including the judges appointed by Democrats) were very skeptical of Colorado’s case, with many legal analysts thinking their questions and comments suggesting they would rule against Colorado by a large majority, possibly unanimously.
At that afternoon public event, Kagan expressed these thoughts:
She said there was a role for judicial humility, for not rejecting the considered views of earlier justices simply because a new member of the court would approach the question differently. “It’s easy to kind of get on the court and think, ‘Well, what were they thinking? And that’s just got to be wrong. And my perspective is better. And so I’m going to do things my way.’”
The better view, she said, is that “there’s a kind of wisdom of the ages. … If a lot of different judges have seen something differently, you should, you know, ask yourself and then ask yourself again, are you so sure that you have it right? Maybe all those people who thought something different — maybe they were right.” [emphasis mine]
Kagan was appointed by Obama, and comes from the Democratic Party trenches, as a party player. She is without doubt very leftist. Yet, in all my life I have never heard a Democrat like Kagan ever publicly state that the other side might be right, and her side wrong. Her comments here are in this sense very unprecedented, especially coming from any Democrat in the past half century.
Then there is the New York Times, the bible of the partisan left, that for decades has generally seen nothing wrong with anything any Democrat does, and if any wrong-doing is found this paper has worked hard to excuse or ignore it. Last week however it published back-to-back op-eds condemning Joe Biden, and then twisted the knife further with its own editorial questioning Biden’s ability to be president due to his age and failing health.
The editorial board of the paper still hates Trump (calling him “manifestly unfit”), but for it to also recognize that Joe Biden could be far less qualified for office — and allow this to be said multiple times in print — signals a sea-change that is startling.
Michael Rapaport
Another data point, this time from actor and sports commentator Michael Rapaport, who admitted recently in public that he is considering voting for Trump. I saw a X clip of Rapaport saying this, as well as admitting he was wrong for condemning Trump for his Charlottesville remarks. “I was wrong. [Supposedly he had said] there were good people on both sides. When you see the full quote, that’s not what he said.”
Rapaport had discovered that the leftist media that he had been depending on to report what Trump said had been lying to him. The writer of the tweet suggested Rapaport’s new position was shocking. I however had no idea who Rapaport was. I did some research, and found that he has been a strong Democrat for years and has been almost viciously opposed to Donald Trump from day one, attacking him with curse words in ways that suggested a kind of mindless hatred. (He like many today seems to think using obscenities makes him appear honest and forthright, when all it really does is make him look like a barbarian.)
Now however he is rethinking things, especially because he has seen how bad a president Joe Biden has been. Watch Rapaport’s podcast here, cued to when he starts talking about the upcoming election. Trump might be crude, posting a lot of ugly tweets, but when he was president the economy was good, the border was secure, and there were no wars. Under Biden not only is the economy bad and the border non-existent, there are wars everywhere.
For a person like Rapaport to be considering a Trump vote speaks volumes. It says that minds might finally be opening.
These three stories are of course only anecdotal evidence. They might not represent the general population of Democratic Party voters. I might simply be cherry-picking stories that appeal to me.
However, in all these cases you have confirmed Democrats expressing these doubts. Ordinary Democrats won’t listen to such things from Republicans, but they are far more likely to hear these ideas and consider them, when spoken by someone on their side.
Cori Bush at pro-BLM rally during her 2020 campaign
We have other data points that actually suggest this phenomenon is actually happening. Polls in Missouri now suggest that Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-Missouri), a proud member of the radical communist and anti-Semitic Squad in Congress, is losing badly in her upcoming primary to her Democratic Party challenger.
Half chose Bell as their candidate of choice, followed by 28 percent who said Bush and four percent who chose Nadal. Nearly one in five, 18 percent, remain unsure. While the Hill noted that the survey did not identify Bush as the incumbent, Bell continued to best Bush among several demographics, leading 43-35 percent among black respondents and 60-20 percent among white respondents.
In other words, in a congressional district considered the most partisan Democratic Party district in Missouri, the incumbant is being rejected by half the voters.
Cori Bush should never have been elected to office. She has consistently shown herself to be an anti-American communist who supports Islamic terrorism. Recently she underlined her bigotry by cheering the slaughter of Jewish women and children in Israel. Yet Democrats did vote for her in 2020, and then reelected her in 2022. Like all her fellow “squad” members of the radical left, she had seemed impervious to defeat. Democrats either closed their minds to her leftist and bigoted beliefs, or simply didn’t care.
Yet, now her defeat seems possible. It appears those Democratic Party voters are finally noticing what she really stands for.
A recent Gallup poll of black and hispanic voters has found even better news.
The Democratic Party’s wide lead over Republicans in Black Americans’ party preferences has shrunk by nearly 20 points over the past three years. Democrats’ leads among Hispanic adults and adults aged 18 to 29 have slid nearly as much, resulting in Democrats’ holding only a modest edge among both groups.
Both of these ethnic groups have voted for Democrats almost universally for decades. If a Republican candidate for example was to get more than 10% of the black vote it was considered a victory. Now it appears that among blacks support for Democrats has plunged, with about one third of black voters now rejecting that party.
The poll shows the same trends among hispanics.
Another Gallup poll showed that the number of Americans who identified as Democrats at only 27%. Though that number was the same as those who identified as Republicans, it was an all time low for the Democratic Party.
The ballot box, the only peaceful recourse for
ordinary people to change things.
Are knee-jerk Democratis finally waking up to the corruption in the party they support? We can only hope so. Nor does recognizing that corruption mean these voters have to abandon their own reasonable leftwing beliefs. All that is required is to demand tolerance and a similar reasonableness from Democratic Party elected officials. But if that party instead continues to push blacklisting, censorship, and an effort to ban creditable opposition candidates from the ballot, then those voters must reject that party.
Only by voting such authoritarians out of office will there be any chance of reforming that Democratic Party. Otherwise, things can only get worse. Things might even get to a point where even ordinary Democrats won’t be able to change things, because the power-hungry politicians in their party will decide to prevent them from doing so. And based on everything that party has done in the past four years, it is entirely reasonable to expect such things from it.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Minor edit – the second photo caption states “Mark Rapport” instead of “Michael Rappaport”
Andi: Fixed, though the last name is spelled “Rapaport.” Thanks.
“… trying to ban Donald Trump from the November presidential ballot”
Technically, the only ballot they’re trying to ban him from at the moment is the Republican primary ballot. Not that anyone, including me, thinks it would stop there.
And I don’t read anything into the NYT turning on Joe Biden except a realization that Biden is turning into a political liability for the Democrats.
Here in the Frisco Bay area I can see the swing to less left. I doubt if it’ll result in more Republicans being elected but at least it’s a step in the right direction. Pun intended. As this article points out it did result in the Soros district attorney, Chesa Boudin and three radical left members of the school board being recalled. In Oakland there are recall campaigns against their Soros district attorney, Pamela Price, and the leftist Asian mayor, Sheng Thao.
“Tech Millionaires Take On Politicians in a Fight to Fix San Francisco
“For years, the tech industry largely stayed away from San Francisco politics. Not anymore. Silicon Valley investors, executives and CEOs are banding together to host fundraising events for local candidates, pouring money into city ballot initiatives and using their influence to try to sway public opinion.
“Silicon Valley leaders say they want to make the city a safer and more hospitable place to raise families and run businesses. They also want to halt the exodus of some of tech’s most talented workers and reverse the doom loop narrative that has haunted downtown since Covid-19.
“The industry says San Francisco’s problems stem from its current establishment having swung too far left on the political spectrum. They believe progressive Democrats are too soft on drugs and street crime, and too woke on issues like public education.
“Their big goal is to elect a less liberal slate of candidates to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, half of whom are up for re-election in November. The board controls the city’s budget and can block policy proposals by Mayor London Breed, who has the backing of the industry.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/tech-millionaires-take-on-politicians-in-a-fight-to-fix-san-francisco/ar-BB1i0pZr
The only reason the likes of NYT (and even CNN) are turning on Biden is because they can no longer hide what he is, mainly cognitively but criminally as well. The party will find someone it thinks is ‘electable’ and that person will be untouchable.
Kagan was a bit surprising, but she is a progressive marxist first, Let’s see what they write in the decisions. I think they realize what Colorado is claiming is idiotic and damaging to the party overall.
The public is the wildcard. Is it bad enough? Is there enough free speech left in platforms like X? Is there any election integrity left? Trump is also a wildcard, can he refrain from being a . ooopss.
Bob – thanks for finding my typos! Can’t believe I misspelled it twice in one sentence, in different ways too! :)
Eric Hunley / Mark Groubert
America’s Untold Stories (2/13/24)
“The Real Gangs of New York”
https://youtu.be/DOzJlw8UJm8
1:22:04
I would not be surprised to find out executives pay for the most extreme candidates to soil the DNC to poison the brand–so the Rick Scotts can sneak in and go after wages and raise the retirement age to 130.
Short answer: no. You wrote about this yourself several months ago.
The election victory by Suozzi in the Long Island district on 02/13 is not a good omen.
Tom Suozzi has establishment name recognition and elected office experience while the republican
opponent, Mazi Pilip, is a newcomer. However, with all the bad news brought to you by democrats
and the fact this was previously a republican seat says the imminent rescue of the good old U.S.A. is
not a done deal.
(Wayne: Writing this before looking at your attachment. I’ll look later, thanks.)
“Now however he (Rapaport)is rethinking things, especially because he has seen how bad a president Joe Biden has been.”
Okay, let me know when some Dems start rethinking things because they have seen how President Joe Biden has been a crook, selling out his country, for his entire career. Don’t worry – I won’t be holding my breath.
370H55V I/em/mine: Yes, I know. I however cannot help being forever hopeful, even when so much evidence says I am being a fool.
Related:
“Let’s do the math: $50 per hour X’s 8hrs a day X’s let’s say 50 weeks for the really ambitious equals: $100,000.00 per year for a MINIMUM WAGE WORKER!”
Read this and share it with someone who you know needs a political checkup from the neck up…..
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/50-per-hour-pandering-or-just-stupid
Mr. Zimmerman:
I regret that I believe that you are starting with a bad premise, and anything following that will also be flawed. You wonder if “ordinary and decent Democratic Party supporters” will change their minds when being presented with facts and data.
This presumes facts not in evidence, particularly that there even EXIST “ordinary and decent Democratic Party supporters”. I’ve never met one, and I used to live in the Heart of the Hive™ of Murderapolis.
Nope. What we’ve got on the other side are:
– The brain-dead, for whom no amount of facts or data will ever change what’s left of their minds
– The government parasites who are utterly dependent on “earning” a living on the taxpayers
– The non-government parasites who live on government largesse handed out in every-increasing quantities
These are the useful idiots completely controlled by the elitist wanna-be’s currently taking power.
We are living out the end-game of a Randian dystopia in which the virtues of the productive are used as weapons against them. I do not see it ending well once we hit the hyper-inflation that government spending and debt will create, just like Weimar Germany did. The end result will be exactly the same, whether it’s the National Socialists (Nazis) or Communist/Marxists that end up taking over.
Blackwing1: I mostly agree with you, very sadly. As I noted in another comment above, I cannot help being forever hopeful, even when so much evidence says I am being a fool. My essay however does give examples of several very partisan Democrats who are actually reconsidering their positions, which is a real sign of hope.
Everyone especially should listen to Rapaport (if you can tolerate his obscenity-filled diatribes). He really is rejecting Biden and the Democrats, including Gavin Newsom, and is considering a vote for Trump. If he can do this, than others can as well.
Cotour
California is its own little island of inanity.
It took a few years but those who I have talked to now understand a few things about minimum wage.
First off as soon as you increase mandated minimum wage inside of a year later all other prices go up at the same rate.
Second off as wages go up automation and less employment follows. Just look at the push fast food is making in California to automated cooking and assembly.
And finally. Doesn’t it get a little tiring that as soon as you work hard and get a raise and start to move ahead, along comes some idiot who proposes raising the minimum wage and in essence takes your raise away by making everyone else the same as you. Now it all starts again.
And they only want the increase in the minimum wage to gain your vote.
Californians who own a home do not care what the cost of living is. As soon as they retire they move out of California to someplace cheaper and either sell their property or rent it our. Either way they are way ahead of everyone in the area they move to.
The Democratic Party is a very broad group with various wings that don’t always agree on policies and philosophies. It’s a feature of the party that most Democrats accept. This post cherry picks a handful of examples and posits broader trends that might not be there. It’s a departure from most posts that point to one extreme example or another and paints the entire party with the same brush. This is undeniable. A search of this site brings up attacks on Democrats with the words thugs, goons and fascist in the headlines.
“This post cherry picks a handful of examples and posits broader trends that might not be there.”
The same could be said about every article ever posted on the internet against Republicans.
Trump zombies
Racists
Misogynists
Violent Anti LBGT
So even knowing and admitting the left does the same thing I have never seen a single one defend the right against any of those accusations.
Yes, and then they ban automation? It is all a way to take away and redistribute the wealth of the “white man” so that everyone has “equity”.
A “progressive” responded to my $50 minimum wage story, they ask:
Them: “What, to you, should the minimum wage afford? In your opinion.”
Me as a business person: “In my opinion a minimum wage for an introductory employee today…………I would say today realistically probably around $15.00 per hour more or less, lunch and some perks. To start. And then see where it goes, depending on what kind of business that you are running.
You want to engage someone, especially if they are young, at the introductory level to give them a chance to learn, gain experience and grow and have an incentive to advance and stay for at least a time.”
Them: “I did not ask how much you thought it should be. I asked what you thought it should afford. What do you think a minimum wage salary should afford. 40/hours a week.”
Me: “Not really my concern. Now you are into social engineering and involving yourself in individuals’ lives, and that is what I object to.
It is up to the individual to raise themselves from a minimum wage job up to afford whatever it is that they deem necessary for them to afford and have a good life. And that takes struggle and time.”
Them: “Well if we’re just arbitrarily choosing numbers, why not $50? If we are to have any concern with a worker and how they, at minimum, should be able to live, why should we have concern with the business owner?”
Me: “I am not arbitrarily choosing a number. I am establishing a number based on a rational business model and the market for hiring an individual in the real world.
You shouldn’t have a concern for the business owner or the individual.
Who told you should have a concern?
And I know well all about how much it costs to exist in NYC. Been there, still there.
Q: How did you get to where you are?
Did someone else worrying about you get you to where you are today?
And might I say I think you have done very well for yourself. Gold star.”
I await the next response.
Short answer: hell, no!
https://redstate.com/benkew/2024/02/15/the-number-of-democrats-who-want-donald-trump-banned-from-running-is-absolutely-shocking-n2170150
Related:
“This special class of American proposal to me and I am certain to many others, especially many of the fine, hardworking and patriotic Americans who happen to have an increased amount of melatonin in their skin that I know is a divisive insult!”
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/black-culture-low-standards-is-no-standards
Extension: https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/black-culture-low-standards-is-no-standards
Is this the “Black Culture” we are instructed to embrace to create a “special class” of American citizen we are now to surrender our Objective in theory American law and justice system to? Illinois ‘super mayor’ Tiffany Henyard uses cops to harass enemies, puts face on posters across town (nypost.com)
And this? He Was Hired by Fani Willis to Prosecute Trump. Now He’s Accused of an Affair With Her. – WSJ
Other interpretations are more likely.
If you re-read Kagan’s remarks. “She said there was a role for judicial humility, for not rejecting the considered views of earlier justices simply because a new member of the court would approach the question differently.” What Kagan is saying is that the Dobbs decision (returning abortion policy to the states) is incorrect. She is not recognizing the corruption of the Democratic Party.
The NYT’s promotion of retiring Biden is also not a change of heart. It is simply a perception that Biden may well lose the next election. If the NYT has its way, Biden will be replaced with someone even more venal.
I know nothing about Rapaport, but will note that a number of dyed-in-the-wool Dems seem to have been red-pilled of late. Matt Taibi, Glenn Greenwald, Jonathan Turley and Elon Musk spring to mind. Are these “ordinary Democrats” rebelling? No, they are extraordinary Democrats. Ordinary Democrats are true believers, and are unable to question their beliefs (and they are beliefs, not thoughts). I know a lot of them. Thinking Democrats have long since left the party.
Nietzsche: On the Tarantulas
(1885)
“Behold, this is the hole of the tarantula. Do you want to see the tarantula itself? Here hangs its web; touch it, that it tremble!
There it comes willingly: welcome, tarantula!
Your triangle and symbol sits black on your back; and I also know what sits in your soul.
Revenge sits in your soul: wherever you bite, black scabs grow; your poison makes the soul whirl with revenge.
Thus I speak to you in a parable—you who make souls whirl, you preachers of equality.
To me you are tarantulas, and secretly vengeful.
But I shall bring your secrets to light; therefore I laugh in your faces with my laughter of the heights. Therefore I tear at your webs, that your rage may lure you out of your lie-holes and your revenge may leap out from behind your word justice. For that man be delivered from revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms.
The tarantulas, of course, would have it otherwise. “What justice means to us is precisely that the world be filled with the storms of our revenge”—thus they speak to each other.
“We shall wreak vengeance and abuse on all whose equals we are not”—thus do the tarantula-hearts vow.
“And ‘will to equality’ shall henceforth be the name for virtue; and against all that has power we want to raise our clamor!”
You preachers of equality, the tyrannomania of impotence clamors thus out of you for equality: your most secret ambitions to be tyrants thus shroud themselves in words of virtue. Aggrieved conceit, repressed envy—perhaps the conceit and envy of your fathers—erupt from you as a flame and as the frenzy of revenge.”
———————————————–
Jordan Peterson & Akira The Don
“Tarantulas” (October, 2018)
https://youtu.be/7zIkUkRLJAM
7:59
“When they call themselves the Good and the Just, do not forget that they would be Pharisees… if only they had – power!”