Dems’ Titanic fail: They still don’t see the iceberg

On April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic in the dead of night, the passenger liner RMS Titanic sank. The ship’s lookouts – who were without binoculars – only spotted the iceberg 30 seconds before the collision, denying the massive vessel time to maneuver away from it. There has never been any question as to the cause of the Titanic’s sinking.

On the evening of Nov. 5, 2024, Democrats were politically experiencing a Titanic moment. The fact that their party’s presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, was sinking fast would be confirmed later as the Republicans’ nominee, Donald Trump, eventually tallied 312 electoral votes along with 50.2% of the popular vote. If that were not a sufficient indicator of the devastation dealt to the Democrats, Republicans also winning the House and Senate drove the message home.

In the days since the election, Democrats have tried to rationalize how and why they loss so big. Ironically, their senior leadership has offered a number of reasons in an effort to try and explain it but most fail to mention the iceberg that was the major cause – probably because they helped create it. Interestingly, this has resulted in them pointing the fickle finger of blame at various sources who played on their own team.

One example of hypocrisy was Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who, along with former President Barack Obama, forced President Joe Biden to withdraw four months before the election – deceptively claiming at the time he was a great president who chose to withdraw voluntarily for the good of the party – only to then blame him for not stepping down earlier. All this time, voters had been assured by Democrat Party leaders that Biden was mentally competent, so why should he have stepped down earlier? And, if so, why didn’t they take an active role earlier to force his withdrawal? To dodge any personal responsibility, Pelosi ignored the iceberg.

A finger was also pointed at Hollywood’s George Clooney for an op-ed he wrote that first drew attention to the fact that all was not well with Biden mentally, suggesting other options be explored by Democrats. Although Clooney’s suggestion was welcomed at the time, after the election it was blamed for being part of the problem rather than the solution. He has now vowed to remain silent about politics.

Democratic critics also fingered a group of always faithful (until now) Democrats whose support for Harris waned in the lead up to the election. This segment of voters – black males – had been identified before the election. But in trying to convince them to remain loyal to the party, leaders such as Obama spoke down to them, encouraging them to vote for Harris rather than to think independently about who represented their best interests. Such “child” lecturing did not go over well with this segment of the electorate, reflected by the fact black male support for Democrats dropped 17% between Obama’s election in 2012 and Trump’s in 2024.

Michelle Obama contributed to the above dialogue as well. ESPN host Stephen Smith criticized the former first lady’s comment in a speech aimed at black males, that a “vote for (Trump) is a vote against us.” He shot back with, “If we don’t agree with you, we’re against you?” He added, “How do you think the men felt about that? So we have to do what you tell us to do; otherwise, we’re anti-you? You thought that worked? Do y’all know anything about most men? You think that’s going to work?”

Another possible cause cited for discontent was the decision by party leaders to use an undemocratic process to anoint Harris as the Democrats’ presidential standard bearer when she had failed earlier to even muster a single delegate’s vote when she ran for the position in 2020. Instead, she embraced a system of backroom deals that cheated Democrat voters out of selecting a preferred candidate; instead, they were simply presented with the party leadership’s preferred narrative.

So what was the iceberg the Democratic leadership helped create but then ignored as the cause of the party’s sinking political ship? It was the four year culture war the Biden/Harris administration had put America through – warfare that sought to fundamentally change the nation’s traditional values.

Trump’s campaign put the spotlight on this change. It pointed out it was change that forced biological women to share facilities with biological males simply because the latter claimed status as transgender females. It was change that left a U.S. Supreme Court justice nominee unable to define what a “woman” is. It was change that enabled underage children to exercise their own determination to undergo transgender conversion without parent notification and paid for transgender surgeries for prison inmates desiring same. It was change that opened our borders to millions of illegal immigrants who began financially challenging the budgets of the cities housing them. It was change that gave priority housing to such illegals over homeless veterans who had earned such a priority. It was change that took money away from FEMA to help American victims of natural disasters, giving it instead to these immigrants violating U.S. laws. It was change that so adversely impacted upon the economy that many Americans were living paycheck-to-paycheck. It was change that – in a danger to our personal safety and national security – implemented programs by which priority for employment opportunities were given based on race while ignoring personal merit.

While the pointing of blame continues, few Democrat leaders seem willing to accept the telltale message of truth: It is your political ideology, stupid!

A line from a Trump campaign ad briefly but correctly summed up the stands taken by the two presidential candidates in this culture war, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”

It is estimated the first snowflakes that eventually formed the iceberg that would sink the Titanic began falling over 15,000 years ago. It would take that long to materialize and then tear loose from its land anchor, eventually sending the unsinkable vessel 12,500 feet down to the ocean bottom in a tragedy that lives in infamy. Sadly, during only four years in office, the Biden/Harris administration has imposed a tragedy upon America, the depths of which will give it a similar legacy.