The Democrats should turn out the lights
As any parent can tell you, there is a moment every night when the adult in the room has to turn off the lights and send the kids to bed. It could be after a good movie, or a game that the home team lost, or any other event. It doesn't always make the adult popular, but it does teach the kids that it's time to sleep and put this day behind.
Where is the adult Democrat who will turn off the lights of 2016 and send his party to sleep? We don't see one so far!
Michael Barone has a little free advice for Democrats that they ought to listen to:
The first thing Democrats need to do is to end the alibi game.
Yes, it's a shattering experience to lose a presidential election that, until the 9 o'clock hour on election night, you seemed sure to win.
But alibis don't help you win next time. Don't blame "fake news" when your candidate had lots more money to spend delivering her message.
Don't blame the FBI director when your candidate violated criminal laws and the attorney general had to disqualify herself after revelation of her secret meeting with the candidate's husband.
Don't blame the "racism" of an electorate that twice elected the first black president.
Don't blame the Electoral College when everyone knew beforehand that you need 270 electoral votes, not a popular vote plurality, to win.
![]()
Blame instead the Clinton campaign's "ascendant America" strategy -- to reassemble the 2012 Obama coalition of nonwhites and millennials, on the assumption that the attitudes of other voters, notably white non-college graduates who cast critical Obama votes in the Midwest, would remain static.
Exit polls showed that Donald Trump, supposedly toxic to nonwhites, ran slightly better among them than Mitt Romney did in 2012. Their apparent regression to the mean, to voting more like the national average, undercuts the theory that nonwhites, tormented by oppression and seething with grievance, will remain overwhelmingly Democratic forever.
Losing is hard.
We understand that Mrs. Bush told Bush 41, who was apparently down, to get over the 1992 defeat.
It's difficult to come so close and walk away with the "L" rather than the "W," as any Rangers fan will tell you.
Nevertheless, it's time to move on. It's over.
It does not do the country any good to continue talking about an election the Democrats lost. It does not help the Democrats, either, especially when one looks at the state of the party from coast to coast.
So turn off the lights, go to sleep, and let's move on!
P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- The Fruits of Trump’s Audacious Policies
- Will Trump’s Tariff Ambition Strangle MAGA in the Cradle?
- Navarro Tariffs are Too High
- Will Musk’s Nightmare Come True?
- From Mayberry to Mayhem
- We Didn’t Start the Trade War—We’ve Just Finally Joined It
- Greenland: How Trump Can Deal with the Raging Danes to America's Advantage
- Greenland at the Crossroads: Why U.S. Leadership is Crucial
- How the Death Penalty Should Work
- Mr. Schumer — You Make No Sense!
Blog Posts
- Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth understand that war is about winning while minimizing American casualties
- From hero to zero in 75 days?
- Again, the times that try men's souls
- How is the U.S. the bad guy on tariffs?
- An easy explanation of this tariff tiff
- A tribute to Val Kilmer
- ‘Free trade’ is not as great as you think it is
- Trump’s tariff idea is consistent with every human society ever
- Jasmine Dixiecrat
- RFK Jr. wants scientific analysis of autism, but maybe society is the problem
- As the House is about to grill Biden’s doctor, Biden’s chief of staff admits the truth: They always knew
- California: Second Amendment foot dragging
- DOGE: the Baier interview
- The unravelling of our Western Judeo/Christian civilization
- Chief Justice Roberts, Norm Eisen, and the appearance of impropriety