Democratic party

The New York Times recently announced that Democrats face a “voter registration crisis.” With its delicate, frilly font, the Times story agonized over younger voters, Latinos, and men, especially young black men, who appear to be drifting away from the Democratic party. The Times diagnosis? It’s an accounting problem: The party isn’t signing up enough people. Its cure, predictably, was more money, more organization and more clipboards.This is the answer you’d expect from a bureaucracy. If the shelves are full of unsold tins of beans, the problem is obviously the warehouse. In truth, Democrats don’t have a logistics problem. They have a product problem. Americans don’t want to buy the party they are selling.

In the pantheon of American bureaucracies, none have guarded their prerogatives more jealously – or become more allergic to reform – than the State Department. And so, predictably, when the Trump administration moved in recent weeks to cut the agency’s workforce by 15 percent, Washington’s political and media class protested in unison. But strip away the histrionics, and something else emerges: a much-needed effort to realign the State Department with the America it’s supposed to represent. No one celebrates the pain of sudden job loss. Many of the terminated employees were sincere public servants (some of whom I count as personal acquaintances).

It’s not fair that all the Great American mayoral discussion revolves around the coasts. Sure, Los Angeles has the one who oversaw the burning down of the nation’s second most populous city from halfway across the world. And New York City has been bleeding money as if it were the star of a sequel to “Brewster’s Millions,” but without the promise of a massive payday at the end. Right in the middle of the nation, tucked into the banks and headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River, is Minneapolis: the little city that could, chugging its way full speed ahead – right off the cliff of Midwest sensibility, prudence and normalcy. Woke came to town, and it’s got a bone to pick with common sense.

Before I’d established my tiny crew of fellow local moms, I aggressively befriended – or tried to befriend – any woman with a baby who looked vaguely friendly. I’d try my luck in cafes, playgrounds, baby classes, yet with only minimal success (one find, a Cambridge-educated Irish lawyer, "forgot" her wallet on our date, leaving me to pay for her expensive glass of wine).So I clung gratefully to one of my café pickups, Marta, with whom two or three pleasant playdates (or rather: mommy walking dates) had taken place. I had rosy hopes for more as her kid was cute and reminded me of my own. But one day, strolling along the dark and wintry main drag that connected our two adjacent neighborhoods, things took a turn for the ominous.

Even amidst a news cycle full of Republican infighting, the Democrats are finding new and exciting ways to cut through the noise and announce their own impotence. According to a new survey from Echelon Insights, former Vice President Kamala Harris remains the favorite to reprise her role as the party’s presidential nominee in 2028, boasting the support of 26 percent of likely Democratic voters in a hypothetical primary field. Never mind that Harris blew through $1.5 billion during a 15-week campaign that ended with her falling short in every swing state. Never mind that she didn’t make it to Iowa the last time she had to compete in a presidential primary.

“The old ways of doing business just aren’t cutting it” for the Democratic party, the New York Times wrote. Democrats are acting like a bloated, out-of-touch corporation that has no idea why it’s bleeding customers. The Times article talks at length about several PACs, activist groups and nonprofits that are trying to inject fresh ideas into the Democratic machine. These ideas add up to: knocking on doors and creating targeted digital ads. One functionary from a group called Priorities USA says that he wants the group to function “more like a venture capital firm, making a number of smaller bets on a wide range of initiatives and funding only the best performers – and using the incubation process as a way to learn about what works and doesn’t.

Voters often pay a premium for socialism. It’s the modern-day equivalent of free-range eggs or an electric car. Zohran Mamdani, a self-described “democratic socialist,” embodies that premium. In New York’s Democratic mayoral primary election, he got blown out of the water with lower-income voters – but won overwhelmingly with young, white, college-educated idealists desperate for the revolution. He would be the furthest left mayor New York City has ever seen if elected in November. While his policy prescriptions – city-run grocery stores, higher taxes on the wealthy and a diminished police presence – are radical proposals, it is his deep devotion to socialism that truly defies convention. There is no question that Mamdani loathes the West.

Lee Greenwood may be “Proud to be an American,” but the same can't be said for a growing number of his countrymen and women. Those who identify as “extremely” or “very” proud to be American has dropped from 87 percent in 2001 to 58 percent in 2025.  In 2001, Republicans, Independents and Democrats were all within six points of each other in their reported national pride. But now there's a 56-point divide between Republicans (92 percent) and Democrats (36 percent). Republicans stay patriotic regardless of the presidency, while Democrats have dropped 24 percent since Trump's inauguration this year. Beyond political affiliation, it seems the younger a generation is, the less American pride its members have.

Women in Britain will soon be able to kill their baby at any point during their pregnancy, even if the child could survive outside the womb. Infanticide is set to be the law of the land after British MPs voted 379 to 137 in favor of an amendment to end the criminalization of abortion after 24 weeks. The natural consequence of a slouched, “you do you” morality.  Donald Trump called attention to the issue of unlimited abortion during his 2024 presidential debates, much to the media’s chagrin, who interceded desperately to disprove his claims about Democrats supporting "executions after birth." But he was right.

As I write, the time is 10 p.m. in New York City and the temperature is hovering somewhere around unbearable. It’s a nice respite from the 100 degrees the city hit on Tuesday afternoon, as voters flocked to the polls to cast their ballots in an unusually heated mayoral primary. Polls closed at 9 p.m., and a town famed for its impatience was given the gift of a clear front-runner. Improbably, against all odds, all common wisdom, the vast majority of polls and even the betting markets, the night ended with Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old state assemblyman and proud “Muslim democratic socialist” as the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor. “I’m very proud of the campaign that we ran,” Cuomo told his supporters as Mamdani’s lead proved insurmountable.

Barack Obama has reemerged, stepping back into the national conversation with all the gravitas of a tenured Ivy League professor who just remembered the country exists beyond Martha’s Vineyard. In a conversation with historian Heather Cox Richardson, the former president offered a dire warning: America is “dangerously close” to slipping into autocracy. He didn’t mention Trump by name – but he didn’t have to. The implication was clear, and so was the posture: the wise elder statesman cautioning the republic from the comfort of his $12 million estate. But here’s the problem: Obama’s sermon rings hollow. Not because his warning about eroding democratic norms lacks merit, but because the messenger has long since traded credibility for cultural applause and Netflix contracts.

How could the Democrats be in any more disarray? Long-time, high-ranking Democratic National Committee members Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders turned down offers to remain in their positions, citing dissatisfaction with the current DNC chair, Ken Martin. Their announcement to leave the DNC came a week after former vice chair David Hogg was booted from the committee. Hogg was pushed out over a complaint from Native American Kalyn Free, 61, that the election results "violated the DNC Charter and discriminated against three women-of-color candidates,” per Semafor. This procedural problem followed Martin's vocal disapproval of Hogg's $20 million plan to primary older incumbents in safe seats running for reelection.

Congratulations David Hogg: the youngest ever DNC vice chair has earned the honor of serving the shortest term in the committee's history. Though his tenure was brief, Hogg managed to rattle many cages. After his election, the 25-year-old announced a $20 million plan to primary older Democratic incumbents in safe seats running for reelection. This plan quickly generated backlash within the party: veteran Democratic strategist James Carville called it "the most insane thing" he's ever heard. Hogg stood his ground and suddenly the DNC deployed its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion requirements. That included one more woman and one fewer Hogg. Cue various facile jokes about his name: https://twitter.com/rachelmillman/status/1933214625442787772?

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s incendiary speech last month calling on Democrats to organize massive civil unrest against the Trump Administration caught me off guard. “It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” he urged an assemblage of New Hampshire Democrats, “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. The reckoning is finally here!”Let those words sink in. Mass protests. Like the 2020 George Floyd riots with at least 25 deaths and $2 billion in property damage? Mobilization. It’s a military term, like the Army convoys I saw on highways and heavy equipment on trains when I drove cross-country in 2002 as Bush prepared to invade Iraq.