Is the death of the Democratic Party greatly exaggerated?
I keep reading that the Democrats are finito, on the ropes. My question: then why is the right fighting so hard to hold onto the House in 2026?
And why do I not know a single Democrat who has abandoned the party recently? I know it’s just anecdotal, but I know a great many Democrats, and not one has changed his or her mind or considers Republicans anything but racist and homophobic fascists who are bent on destroying Medicare and the like.
Now, granted, the majority of these people are in the older age category, which seems to be the most pro-Democrat demographic in the US (I can’t find where I read that, but I know I did recently; perhaps it was in some article discussing one of these polls?). But I also know quite a few middle-aged Democrats who haven’t changed their minds, either.
Democrats now do especially poorly among young men. Well, duuuh, they’ve had an anti-man message for quite some time now.
One thing seems to be true, though: a great many Democrats are unhappy with the party. But will they leave it? If they buy the demonization propaganda about the right, I doubt they will. For example, see this quote:
A major Democratic donor was more scathing: “Our party sucks. Our leadership sucks. Our message sucks. Why would anyone want to be a Democrat?”
Why, indeed? And yet he’s described as “a major Democratic donor.” Not a former donor or a former Democrat. He says “our” party, so he clearly considers himself a member. Can he answer his own question? If he were to do so, I bet it would be that Republicans are so very awful/evil that the Democrats must be supported no matter what.
The Democratic Party has a lot of institutional heft and getting control of it would be worthwhile. I think that’s what all this finger-pointing and doom-spiraling in legacy media is intended to promote, one faction getting control of it and making use of it to win elections and award patronage and spend taxpayer money.
Maybe because they know that the Democrats can make votes appear whenever they want during and after an election, especially in smaller congressional races.
Who is saying the Democrat Party is dead? It’s in trouble and everyone knows that. If it keeps following its current trends it could be dead.
But I sure don’t count it out.
It’s true Democrats are panicking and for good reasons. There’s plenty of bad news. They have no clear leader and no clear strategy. I suspect money is going to be another big problem. The DNC, I heard last night, only has $13 mil, while the RNC has $300 mil.
Republicans seem to be enjoying the spectacle but trying not to jinx it with celebration.
The demonkrat party – the political party that is a terminal cancer, a deadly plague inflicting our constitutional republic – is not dead; it’s just in a “remission” phase, subsequent to which it will emerge as strong as ever.
We all have seen this movie before.
Just look at who the next mayor of NYC will be.
And don’t for one minute think that Gavin Newsom, who is already running for president , cannot win. He is just a far more polished bullshit artist than the Cackler.
As far as his record in destroying Calif, it means nothing at all to about 50% of all voters. If he ran again for governor of Calif., he would win.
Calif voters couldn’t even drum up enough support to “evict” him from the governorship !!
Recall that the dumbest, stupidest moron candidate for president in the history of the USA – Kamala Cackling Harris – garnered over 48 % of the popular vote in the last presidential election.
Dumbpublicans had better stop wasting time talking about the state of the democrat party and concentrate all their efforts in defeating them in 2026.
And far more difficult will be overcoming the 24/7/ 365 propaganda emanating from the anal sphincters of the demonkrats propaganda organ, the MSM.
It’s reasonable wager they’ll take Congress next year. I’m fairly pessimistic, so my wager is that a crisis in the bond market will be the equivalent of the COVID lockdowns for DJT’s second term.
==
Newsom was recalled and probably was saved from removal by MF dem election fraud. The donks have vowed revenge against people, companies and countries. They rigged the census. That alone is grounds for civil war. No one in their right mind would serve in Trump 2.0 if the rat bastards aren’t destroyed.
The donks want to dox ICE to unleash their brown shirts on them and their families. They have vowed to do it.
Factio Democratica delenda est.
The Trump era has made inroads on the Democrat coalition. From 2016 to 2024, Trump gained support among Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, and lost support among Whites. From 2020 to 2024, the most significant loss of support for Trump came from college-educated white women( Biden +9 to Harris +17).
The Democrats are far from dead, but their traditional massive support among minorities is eroding. Harris won 48% of the vote. Not dead at all, though a snarky Republican might say that Harris voters were brain-dead.
https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2024/politics/2020-2016-exit-polls-2024-dg/
Politics is downstream from culture.
–Andrew Breitbart
IMO 2024 marked a decisive turn in American culture. Americans have thrown off the cruel yoke of wokeness. That evil spell is broken. Sure there is still work to do but the tide has shifted, even stronger than in 1980 when Reagan won.
It won’t stay this way forever, but Democrats didn’t win back the White House until 1992.
I’m optimistic about 2026. But what do I know. I was optimistic about 2024.
You don’t have to be a democrat to be a never-republican.
Yeah, they’re not really dying, just going through a lot of stuff. They’re now purely the Anti-Republican party, or the Anti-Trump party which is essentially the same thing these days. I’m not expecting the Democrat party to die.
As far as I can tell they have this dense core of largely elderly, white voters who will never, ever vote for anyone who is a Trumpian Republican. Perhaps they’d vote for a RINO as long as they’re openly anti-Trump. This block of voters in intractable in their beliefs. They’re set in their ways and are too old to change now. While it’s certainly true that they’re not particularly happy with the current state of the Democrat party, they’re pretty far from abandoning it.
And they’re hoping for a charasmatic leader to emerge, another Obama with the thin veneer of a moderate who can charm middle-of-the-road voters. But given the current crop of potential 2028 contenders, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. But who knows?
“Who is saying the Democrat Party is dead? It’s in trouble and everyone knows that….”
We assume everyone knows that because the internet sites we visit provide evidence. But, not everyone reads these site, and amazingly, not everyone is on the internet.
There are many normal people who are ignorant of what is happening. Best thing for our side is for the left to keep promoting trans for kids, no bail for crimes, protests blocking freeways.
Deportation is also good, however, picking up moms and dads who have been working here for years and being normal is def bad optics for the administration.
Every illegal mother deported and broadcast all over the net and MSM, cancels 50 bad guys that media and leftist net does not cover.
I am in SF bay are, near San Jose Ca, and honestly, most people know where the gangsters, drug dealers, and criminals hang out. East side after midnight easy pickings for immigration. Better optics than waiting outside school or Walmart.
Another thing, when doing round-ups at Home Depot, the right needs to emphasize how many people they did not arrest , to counter the few they do.
It’s getting to be that legals will hang at Home D, and contact their illegal friend or relative to join the work crew if possible.
But, not everyone reads these site, and amazingly, not everyone is on the internet.
fullmoon:
But I assume everyone, or just about everyone, noticed that Trump won the 2024 election decisively, that Biden was in cognitive decline and that Harris was a poor candidate.
they will spin things every which way with more samizdat press, one goes over the
kabuki press, the fairfax man, noted in another thread, was screaming like a banshee, thats the script for all of them, the dems seem to full of ‘theatre kids’ performative characters,
if they throw enough carp against the wall, maybe some of it will stick, now
Gotham is a little concerning because they haven’t learned a thing in the last three years,
is there a plurality of stoned persons in the electorate,
Democrats are not viable? A “burden”?
Planned Partyhood (PP) and a gay old time in the Republic. Karma.
@fullmoon:Deportation is also good, however, picking up moms and dads who have been working here for years and being normal is def bad optics for the administration.
Strongly disagree, as do many of the legal immigrants–that’s exactly what they voted for, those who have spent time and money to comply with the laws and jump through the hoops. If people who broke the law and didn’t follow the rules get off the hook just because they didn’t become violent felons, then where do legal immigrants, who also didn’t become violent felons, go to get their time and money refunded?
On top of that every single well-behaving, working illegal is suppressing wages for the rest of us, natural born citizens and legal immigrants alike. There is no job Americans won’t do, if paid what it’s worth to us to do it. And that’s it right there.
“But I assume everyone, or just about everyone, noticed that Trump won the 2024 election decisively, that Biden was in cognitive decline and that Harris was a poor candidate.”
Yep, Trump def won, although some credit Russian interference both times.
As for accepting Biden’s decline, and Harris,s poor job, seems Neo has oft mentioned die hard Dems, intelligent friends of hers that are not likely to accept those facts.
“Strongly disagree, as do many of the legal immigrants–that’s exactly what they voted for, those who have spent time and money to comply with the laws and jump through the hoops.”
I am talking about the optics. And, let’s face it, kinda pathetic looking with 6 bad ass fully armed immigration guys handcuffing a mom waiting for her kids.outside of school. Better to send one or two agents to her home after dark in plain clothes. Makes immigration look weak.
And, while we’re at it, speed up the immigration process.
Its the only way it can be done, with all the ngos and hawaiian judges and every thing else ultimately this a movement driven by evil motives they will vandalize and murder as they stand for murderers and vandals and terrorist
Neo has oft mentioned die hard Dems, intelligent friends of hers that are not likely to accept those facts.
fullmoon:
Disagree.
neo has said that her mostly white, professional, Boomer friends haven’t changed their support for the Democrat Party.
She hasn’t said they don’t accept that Trump won decisively, Biden was in cognitive decline and Harris was a lousy candidate.
That’s the position of many Democrat supporters today who are now panicking for good reasons.
A great many Democrats are unhappy with the party but, …
The question for me is not whether they would leave the party (maybe because I’m a pessimist in this regard) but rather, how would they like to change it? I’d guess that a great many of them would move in the direction of a Bernie Sanders or a Mamdani. Be afraid of that dissatisfaction… Be very afraid. (To borrow a movie cliché.)
One can talk about the Dem party machinery being dysfunctional, or the party’s policies leading to dysfunction in society, but the only thing their base seems to care about are the intentions displayed by those policies. They seem to be oblivious to the objective consequences of policies. Of course, many reject the idea of objectivity on its face.
This was slightly amusing. I Bing searched “The road to hell is paved” and got this from Co-pilot:
The dichotomy here is action versus inaction. What do political activists often says? “We want change!” Nothing about what kind of action.
When you click on the Co-pilot paragraph (I think it is a ChatGPT thing) it takes you to Wikipedia, which does discuss bad actions versus good actions right at the top.
Anyone who believes-even for a moment- that Russia would prefer Trump; who had just about bankrupted them with OUR domestic energy production and economic sanctions, over ANY D knows nothing, literally nothing about the subject.
Full and all the way thru waxing and waning.
Nothing.
https://twitchy.com/dougp/2025/08/21/new-sheriff-in-town-guess-whos-reportedly-going-to-join-the-dc-patrol-tonight-n2417682
fullmoon; huxley:
I think they accept that Trump won and that Biden was in cognitive decline. I don’t think they accepted that Harris wouldn’t have made a good president. After all, she would have implemented Democrat policy. Do they accept that she was a poor candidate? Well, she lost to Trump, which made her a poor candidate, but I believe they would attribute her loss to racism and sexism and all the isms. I doubt they understand how ditsy she seemed in her interviews because they didn’t watch her interviews. They watched the debate – where she did okay – and they supported her, so why waste time watching her interviews? I believe that would be their position, although I only discussed the question of watching the interviews with one person (who isn’t a Boomer, by the way, although most of the people I know are).
The only way
https://redstate.com/streiff/2025/08/21/federal-judge-declares-appointment-of-trumps-personal-lawyer-as-us-attorney-illegal-n2193081
If they are as misinformed as cnn reporters
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S0_5F1M695M
To be fair, the NYT article was mostly about shifts in new voter patterns, not loss of established patterns.
Bigger problem for the D’crats is population shift. People who have voted D for decades are not going to change, but internal migration will give TX and FL more congress critters and, more importantly, electoral votes; conversely, CA, IL, NY will lose critters and EVs.
CO is a lost cause, but I don’t see any other states transitioning from safe Red to purple or blue. TX had a scare when Cruz almost lost to Beto, but there has been a rebound effect and we are now safe, esp with Hispanics seeing the light and voting right.
neo states, “why do I not know a single Democrat who has abandoned the party recently? I know it’s just anecdotal, but I know a great many Democrats, and not one has changed his or her mind or considers Republicans anything but racist and homophobic fascists who are bent on destroying Medicare and the like. Now, granted, the majority of these people are in the older age category…I also know quite a few middle-aged Democrats who haven’t changed their minds, either.”
All in all the boomers and their children grew up in “good times”
“Democrats now do especially poorly among young men. Well, duuuh, they’ve had an anti-man message for quite some time now.”
Plus, barring fortunate inheritance, that same age group despairs of ever owning a home and having a family, as young women are the most loyal demographic on the left. So in their young adult years they’re experiencing hard times.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times. Good times create weak men and weak men create hard times”
“The fundamental things apply
As time goes by…
It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die”
Planck’s observation has universal application:
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it …
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
See Wikipedia for a summary of Eric Hoffer’s commentary on the principle.
That said, life tends to be full of special cases and it is difficult to find general principles. In the case of the Democrats, I think they actually believe that Trump is a horrible person, a wanna be dictator, a narcissist, a fascist, and no evidence will suffice to convince them otherwise. Hence Planck’s principle likely applies.
I agree, Neo. Republicans should not be celebrating just yet. The worst are filled with passionate intensity, as Yeats said. The left will come out in droves to defeat Trump. Democrat right now are like a wounded, cornered animal.
I’m in a blue bubble in a very red state, but in my social circle, I can’t think of a single soul who has left the democrat party in the last ten years. And my friends and I are in the millennial cohort, for reference.
People here have posted about a “preference cascade,” perhaps such that Trump beat Harris in the popular vote. Perhaps there is also an “aircraft carrier ” effect, where a body politic can’t turn on a dime. This aligns with Chuck’s post at 8:30 pm.
“…A hell of a lot of people, Dutch, just can’t stand to be wrong.“
@ miguel – new sheriff in town.
Let’s hope that there are no opportunistic assassins reading Twitchy.
I bet the Secret Service is having heart attacks.
Follow-up on the New Sheriff:
https://redstate.com/beccalower/2025/08/21/president-trump-remarks-while-visiting-with-dc-law-enforcement-national-guardsmen-n2193082
Vintage Trump: praise the troops, and bring hamburgers and pizza for them.
One of the reasons the Democrats are losing some of their “permanent coalition” – nothing like insulting one of your former core constituencies: black women.
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2025/08/21/the-appalling-racist-sign-that-greeted-winsome-sears-as-she-spoke-out-against-trans-agenda-in-schools-n2193090
And these events are not going to help the Democrats either.
Sadly, the closed-minded older voters will never see the stories like this.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/08/21/national-guard-action-in-dc-n2193085
“Alert National Guard Members in D.C. Stop ‘Potentially Life-Threatening’ Situation (and That’s Not All)”
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/08/21/dc-video-comparison-n2193059
“New: Vance Levels Another D.C. Protester as National Guard Shows Surprise Benefit to Their Presence”
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2025/08/21/karoline-leavitt-torches-mealymouthed-nyt-journo-n2193087
“Karoline Leavitt Torches ‘Mealymouthed’ NYT Journo Who Got It Spectacularly Wrong on D.C. Cleanup”
(Wasn’t it only 10 and 20 years ago that Seniors were the most reliable Republican voting demographic?
What changed? Is it just the Boomers, the newest of the old?
The only explanation that’s solid is the elders fast info dependence on the legacy propaganda media that hates Trump.
One standard check I need to do is get a look at the issue by issue polling broken by age cohort. It can get around labeling bias.
Meanwhile, since last weekend found us sharing other online news sources.
I use a small noncommercial ind news aggregator based in Omaha. http://www.newsammo.com
It posts five daily long headlines from roughly 30 rightside web sites. Thus, its very comprehensive. But nothing graphical or flashy.
I scan most headlines for content and note my (dis)interests and then pick two or so links to read. Newsammo only gets 60,000 unique views in a month, and 2,000 per day.
CHECK IT OUT.
With leaders like these…
https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2025/08/21/gavin-newsoms-imbecilic-response-to-bed-bath-and-beyond-news-prompts-smackdown-from-executive-chairman-n2193088
The 2026 midterms are a different question from the death or dying of the Democrat Party. Historically midterms are a tough bar for the incumbent party to clear and the dying of the D party is longer-term. See:
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/seats-congress-gainedlost-the-presidents-party-mid-term-elections
In 2010 Obama himself received one of the all-time “shellackings” — losing 63 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.
In 2002 Bush 43 managed to gain in both houses, but that was right after 9-11.
I’m optimistic that Trump will beat the odds in the 2026 midterms, but holding the House (currently 220-215 R-D) will be difficult. However, since I consider Trump’s 2024 victory cultural, not just political, I think holding the House is possible.
Trump is doing a lot of smart things to weaken Democrats — for instance redistricting. As well as cutting funds for NGOs, some of which go to Dem activists and organizations, and hitting media and academia, which function as megaphones for Democrats, hard. Hollywood remains on its woke/broke trajectory.
Finally, Democrats continue to take the wrong sides on everything.
Fingers crossed.
AesopFan:
It’s bizarre how Newsom is playing Mini-Me to Trump.
_____________________
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has figured out the best way to get under President Trump’s skin.
Act like him.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5460581-newsom-trolls-trump-social-media/
_____________________
Dems seem to like it. I doubt this transfers well to independents.
Ed Morrissey’s explanation for the decline of the Democrats in national politics.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/08/21/was-2024-the-toughness-election-n3806016
“Our friend and leading philosopher Andrew Breitbart always warned the Right that “politics is downstream from culture.” Did the 2024 election prove that — and does that explain the accelerating collapse of the Democrat Party?”
I have come to believe, for every action there will be a reaction. There will always be two sides ( or more) to every question. If one side is successful in dominating the other then the struggle for power becomes internal, which means a terrible downfall ( re: the French revolution). Also never ever discount boredom of the electorate.
I wonder at times if Trump’s plan was to get these people (Democrats) to talk about things they didn’t want to.
The wise Victor Davis Hanson addresses the components of Democrat Party collapse, HERE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRkALBj8qIw
20 minutes. VDH explains multiple trends like the big shift in party affiliation, out with illegals, Red/Blue state differentials in fertility, the fact that Universities are now no longer liberal but socialist, and elite driven character of D-Party leadership and influence — far away from the median voter class.
Dems used to own the Black vote by 90%, but a quarter of Black men went R, last November. Even more, the Hispanic men went Republican by half!
Hansen thinks only a 1972 McGovern loss will drive the Democrat Party to re-examine their faithful commitments.
Except they didnt they just put a figurehead like carter who enacted their anti american agenda caddell the infant terrible who would later be a prophet of populism in his later days ran both campaigns
Are independents really that stupid to not look at the underlying mountain of carp that newsom haa left
The Democratic Party is a manifestation of an abiding set of cultural threads. It’s not collapsing and its electoral floor is higher than it was 15 years ago. Nearly all of the Democratic Party’s policy preferences are a manifestation of the hostility one part of the base has for a social segment the Democratic Party cannot corral. The clanking assemblage of antagonisms is such that they’ve all persuaded themselves that their opponents must be kept out of office by any means necessary and be thwarted in office by any means necessary. (The most widely read Substack is by one Heather Cox Richardson, a spinner of social fantasies employed by UMassAmherst). This will not end well.
I think the Republicans are fighting so hard because they’ve finally realized that complacency is their biggest enemy. They went out and got Latino and Black voters in 2024 and they know they have to keep them with prosperity and paying attention to them.
Look at Scott Presler. He’s STILL trying to flip Pennsylvania red by registering voters at various events. He’s tireless, and he’s got his sights set on New Jersey next.
But I think the fast, relentless, disruptive actions over the first few months are going to thwart the conventional wisdom regarding midterms. Why? Because this is government as entertainment. Let’s face it, some constituencies want their bread and circuses, and seeing the most holier-than-thou members of our society (woke white liberals) getting their comeuppance is entertaining. The fact that things are getting better at the same time is gravy.
Look at D.C. Union Station is clean and free of vagrants and drug dealers. It doesn’t smell like a restroom anymore. They haven’t had a homicide in a week. The criminals who have been terrorizing the citizenry (read: law-abiding black people) are getting arrested and thrown in jail. Black people can lift their heads and breathe again. You think that’s not going to encourage them to vote for the party whose leader has a mug shot?
Also, Republicans are not acting like they’re the Establishment, because even though they won the election and control all three branches, they know they’re not the Establishment. That doesn’t change with elections. Ripping out the roots of the Establishment via USAID, redistricting, pursuing leftist criminality, that’s what changes the Establishment.
I’m cautiously optimistic.
@AesopFan: “Our friend and leading philosopher Andrew Breitbart always warned the Right that “politics is downstream from culture.” Did the 2024 election prove that — and does that explain the accelerating collapse of the Democrat Party?”
That’s been the quote and my argument for months.
Being old enough to remember the obituaries for the Republican Party after Goldwater’s run, I doubt that the Democrats will not eventually find a winning formula.
@ Sennacherib > “I wonder at times if Trump’s plan was to get these people (Democrats) to talk about things they didn’t want to.”
Indeed.
That seems to be the effect even if he isn’t doing it deliberately (although I think he is).
Just for the record, a few more posts on how the Democrats might be destroying themselves, and how they can stop.
The lexicon of Democrat elites’ jargon in this post is stupefying, and pretty complete. Either their supporters simply aren’t listening to it (as in, “why watch interviews of Kamala when I’ve already decided to vote for her?”), or they are so used to it now that they don’t even notice how stupid it sounds.
https://www.deseret.com/politics/2025/08/22/45-words-democrats-shouldnt-say-politico-memo/
I think Kudlow’s overly optimistic, but if Congress would codify some of Trump’s EOs, it would help maintain the collapse.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/08/22/kudlow_you_are_witnessing_the_collapse_of_the_democratic_party_and_the_deep_state_forces_against_trump.html
Vance is correct, but that line has been used before, the Democrats did crazy anyway, and still won.
But what can’t go on eventually won’t go on, as shown by the shift of many (not yet enough) traditional Democrat voters to the GOP in 2024.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/08/20/vance_to_democrats_stop_sounding_like_crazy_people_that_really_is_all_it_is.html
The Democratic Party is fine. The issue is who is going to control the Democratic Party.
The insane Left has controlled the Party since Clinton left office, and utterly dominated it since 2004. They get away with it because the GOP (until Trump) flatly refused to take advantage of the opportunity.
The public was dismayed by Democratic Crazy, no question. But the GOP kept offering the Business Agenda as an alternative, and the Business Agenda is a permanent non-starter.
The Dems were vulnerable on immigration, on gender, on religious and traditional grounds, on national sovereignty and national security grounds. The GOP responded with ‘I can work with Democrats!’ McCain and ‘unleash Wall Street!’ Romney.
The problem was that the GOP elites had no issue with most Democrat positions, they just wanted more immigration and ‘free trade’ and whatever else the Chamber of Commerce demanded. So the Dems could survive being dominated by their craziest factions, and even win.
If the GOP starts taking heavy advantage of those vulnerabilities, the Dems will eventually be forced to backbench the crazies. But the Party will be fine, it’ll be the current dominant factions that lose out, if that happens.
But it’s a slow process. The risk of losing Congress in 2026 is real, even if the Dems are losing ground. There’s a natural tendency for the out-of-power party to gain ground in off-year elections, because people respond to the negative by instinct, and thus the unhappy voters are usually more motivated than the ones whose party is in power (and thus having to make compromises and deal with practicalities).
But it’s not a law of nature, either. George Bush II led the GOP to 3 upset wins in a row (2000, 2002, and 2004). The GOP gained seats in 2002, in part precisely because the Democratic crazies were especially loud and proud that year (remember the Wellstone funeral?)
If Dubya had stayed on course after his 2004 upset win, he might have repeated his wins in 2006. But after 2004 he started trying to implement the stuff his family had taught him and that the GOP business wing wanted, and it wrecked him (especially Amnesty).
So far, Trump hasn’t repeated Dubya’s second term error.
What this suggests nay indicates is that Democrats still believe in whatever is at the core of being a Democrat. Which I think is an ideology perhaps even a religious ideology.
Oh Democrats can complain about how the party is doing, about its leadership, about how poorly it communicates its “message”. But they don’t leave, they don’t disavow the Party, because there is a Something a je ne sais quoi exactement at the heart of the Party which they cannot relenquish.