Another political changer shunned by friends
It’s an old old story, but one that continues to interest me. Evan Barker writes that at the beginning:
I’d worked in politics nearly half my life, starting out as an intern on Barack Obama’s campaign when I was only seventeen years old, then as a field organizer for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Before Obama won the primary in 2008, I was an alternate delegate for Hillary in Kansas’ third congressional district, one of the youngest ever in the state of Kansas.
After a series of disappointments with the establishment, I eventually found my way to the Bernie side of the party …
So she’s established her Democrat bona fides and even her leftist bona fides. However, something happened to her on the way to the 2024 election, and that something can be summarized as Kamala Harris (although certainly not just Kamala Harris):
A lot of people have asked me what the exact moment was at the DNC that made me realize I wasn’t on board with the party I’d worked for nearly half of my life. The truth is, it was everything. The crowd that mindlessly chanted “joy”, the vasectomy van offering free tacos, the coronation of a candidate with zero policies or platform available, and the final straw: Oprah Winfrey. Her tone deaf lecturing turned me off so much, I left the building, getting an uber straight to my hotel, where I booked a flight home a day early, not even staying for Kamala’s acceptance speech.
I wouldn’t agree that Kamala had zero policies or platform, but although she certainly seemed unable to discuss her platform coherently, the platform she did have was IMHO pernicious. That doesn’t appear to have been Barker’s problem with Harris, because even though Barker technically qualifies as a changer she’s certainly not on the political right even now.
Nevertheless, she’s been shunned for having been unwilling to vote for the empty Kamala:
In the past year, nearly all of my old political friends have stopped speaking to me. One of them said: “fascism doesn’t look good on you”, another said “why couldn’t you have waited until after the election?” The social ostracism has trickled out into my non political life, too. I’ve lost friends I’ve known for fifteen years. My toddler stopped getting invited to birthday parties. He was rejected from preschool. We even had to move to a new town.
Now that we are more than half a year into a second Trump presidency, I’ve been asked numerous times if I regret my decision to ditch the Dems, or if I’d publicly say sorry for what I did.
The answer is NEVER.
In fact, more Democrats should’ve had the courage to speak out about Kamala’s candidacy, and the direction of the party in general. …
If the Democrats want to become a winning party again, they need to recognize that policy, and not messaging has led them to defeat. This means they need to stop only defining themselves against Trump, and decide what they are going to stand for. The days of mealy mouthed corporate speak are over. What the public craves more than anything is authenticity.
Besides this, Democrats need to come to terms with accepting more heterodoxy within their own party. Throw the purity tests in the trash can. It isn’t a moral failing to have a different opinion when it comes to immigration, gender ideology, or identity politics. If the Dems want to truly be the party of diversity, then diversity of thought must be included.
Good luck with that, Evan. Those days are gone. Will they ever come back? Can they ever come back? I doubt it, although of course I could be wrong. I certainly don’t think it will happen in my lifetime. I don’t even think it will happen in Evan’s lifetime, and she’s pretty young.
Nevertheless, Democrats might win the presidency and/or Congress (and certainly the House) again, and rather soon. Someone such as Evan is still in the minority in her party, and many Democrats are still very energized to vote against the GOP.
Ostracism speeds up the changer process.
By 2028 she may have worked her way up in the Vance campaign.
It’s more than interesting how many ex-Dems are now on Team Trump
Signs you might be in a cult: Sign number one…
She would be about 34. Not sure about her family situation. If she hasn’t a husband or children, it would be agreeable if something came together for her in the next few years. Your biological clock is a challenging constraint.
==
It would also be agreeable if she could find a vocation outside of politics. I suspect part of our collective pathology is politics-as-a-life rather than as interludes within a life and I suspect that’s true of staff positions and elected officials alike.
Art Deco:
In her essay she mentions that she has a toddler son. It’s even in one of the quotes I posted.
It would follow that if her friends were in the dem activist category they’d bail. That’s different from friends of the normal type who espouse dem policies.
Maybe she was too busy with the first batch to have any time for the second…..
“ He was rejected from preschool”
This is yet another reason why the left must be crushed.
She showed sense like john morgan who warned people not to waste their money or time of course kamala was totally artificial not having won a primary
Neo, I think the word ‘available’ after ‘zero policies or platform’ is intended to convey something similar to your evaluation of Harris. It wasn’t that she had no policies or platform but that since she didn’t campaign in any real way for the 2024 nomination she never had to put any forward under her own name.
Cults are intolerant of those who stray, even in the slightest. The evil ones react with cruelty, even to preschoolers.
Are Democrats primed to win the House in 2026? I know they hope so.
Newsom’s gerrymandering scheme doesn’t seem to be going over so well. At least not anecdotally. It was a ‘question of the day’ in the Opinion section of my paper and people were not happy about it. Independent redistricting was voted on in 2018 (iirc), passed overwhelmingly by the voters, and was inscribed to the State Constitution. Newsom just wants to temporarily overturn that edict for the next 3 election cycles.
Democrats continue to take the wrong side of every issue it seems. Now after yesterday’s rampage in Minneapolis, they are pushing “gun control”, again.
The critical question is how is it that they were able to see what so many others have failed—or REFUSED—to.
+ (dumbfounding, exasperating) Bonus…
“Democrat Catelin Drey wins Iowa Senate special election, breaking Republican supermajority”—
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/26/democrat-catelin-drey-wins-iowa-senate-special-election-defeats-republican-christopher-prosch/85819325007/
The Dems lost in 1980 because Carter was hapless and hopeless. Mondale was crushed in 1984 because he was too left when the country was in a temporary rightward tilt because of Reagan. When they lost to H.W. Bush (who didn’t exactly dazzle anyone, they started to moderate somewhat. Clinton (with help from Ross Perot) defeated H.W. and the era of GOP domination was over. For 8 years.
Reagan carried the GOP on his back for 8 years. The Dems were leftish but not bats..t crazy. Then an uninspiring H.W. Bush won and the Dems took stock. With help from Ross Perot they won in 1992 with a more moderate platform.
Now Trump is playing the part of Reagan. Will the Dems moderate as they did in 1992? I don’t think so. There are too many of them who think it’s “liberating” or “self realization” for a 35 year old man to shower with 12 year old girls. This is just E. Pluribus Unum. They support just too darned many crazy positions. Big changes won’t come this soon. Just my opinion.
I struggle to imagine what a political audience chanting “Joy, Joy, Joy” would seem like. It is not a pleasant image. There was an episode of Doctor Who featuring Sylvester McCoy involving a society that enforced expressions of happiness; it reminds me somewhat of that. Creepy.
“I struggle to imagine what a political audience chanting ‘Joy, Joy, Joy’ would seem like.”
Life of Brian: “You are all individuals”
https://youtu.be/KHbzSif78qQ
The Dems will not moderate as they did previously because they successfully changed and polarized the culture. Breitbart was correct: politics is downstream from culture, and the normie-but-liberal Democrats have mostly vanished or been replaced by radical children and grandchildren.
I see this is Jewish American circles – there was always a red-diaper contingent, but many liberal-minded, patriotic, family-oriented 60s liberals were shocked to see how feminism wrecked their children’s families, and now are shocked to discover their grandkids are anti-American Marxists…
“What the public craves more than anything is authenticity.”
She still talks like a liberal. Liberals talk in abstractions and act as if those abstractions are real.
“… many Democrats are still very energized to vote against the GOP.” The question of the day is, “Why?”
Democrat Belief System
Cultural Marxism + Economic Marxism + Islam + Eco-Fascism
Messaging isn’t their problem
I’d hope her toddler did well to escape a pre-school that would turn him down because of his mother’s impure politics. Maybe he now has a slightly more sensible mother to raise him, too.
@ Philip > “a society that enforced expressions of happiness;”
Reminded me of “A Wrinkle in Time,” where the people of a world covered in Darkness are under control of a telepathic Evil Being who doesn’t allow dissent, and IIRC that includes not being happy.
I wonder if its timeless message of the fight between Good and Evil is still being read? The books have been in print continuously since publication in 1963 (it was rejected by 23-60 publishers, L’Engle gave different accounts). Probably not being assigned in the Woke schools.
@ Wendy >”I’d hope her toddler did well to escape a pre-school that would turn him down because of his mother’s impure politics.”
I hope she found a better one (more conservative) and not just another Woke one willing to take him on for indoctrination.
@AesopFan:I wonder if its timeless message of the fight between Good and Evil is still being read?
Disney made it into a movie in 2018, starring Oprah Winfrey as Mrs. Which and with most of the main characters converted to African-Americans.