Here’s the thing: Trump was and is deeply unpopular. That unpopularity would have flowed downballot to the rest of Rs except for Ds have ALSO made themselves deeply unpopular through the fringe’s habit of jumping on every hot take policy slogan they can.

The voters that make the difference aren’t on Twitter, and they don’t want to eliminate police, expand the courts, destroy all corporations, or add 5 to 10k to their annual tax bill. There is no silent majority of revolutionary socialists.

The silent majority wants steady calm good governance. It supports fighting climate change and making billionaires pay their fair share and it supports police reform. It’s HOW you argue for those things that matter tho.

You do not win by “heightening the contradictions.” That’s how you lose. The online fringe chose to run around all Summer, encouraging the burning of communities. Don’t be shocked now that those communities want none of it.

Unless you are the type of person that’s so insufferable that no one speaks their true mind to you, you’ve heard murmurs of doubt about Democrats. Unless you’re that weird person, you’ve probably seen friends/acquaintances whisper about how they hate Trump but also hate lefties.

It’s pervasive. People wanted to get rid of Trump and have for 4 years. What they wanted in exchange tho was a return to normalcy. Biden won because he offered that. Over the last year, people stopped seeing anything normal in the Democratic Party, though.

The evidence has been sitting in front of our faces. I should have listened to my worries over the Summer more tbh because my gut did much better this cycle than my poll-polluted mind.

Democrats have looked unwilling and unable to confront the lefty fringe. Now that the lefty fringe looks increasingly unhinged and overly focused on forcing policies that are deeply unpopular, that dynamic kills.

This is the reason Rs ran on Biden as a puppet for the Left! There’s a truth hidden under the lie that resonates with voters.

Here’s my recommendation for Ds: focus on popular policies (and no if you get a good poll result cuz you left out the tax increase part that doesn’t count) and stop thinking of activists as sacred (most activists suck tbh). In fact, be willing to tell activists to shove it.

America now wants grownups that are committed to healing the country. It doesn’t want black box revolutionaries or cancel culture twitter warriors armed with slogans seeking out extrajudicial means to force their agenda.

Thank god that Biden is none of that and voters knew it. If the rest of the party ever wants to actually change things for the better, it need to do the same: dump the slogans and dump the crazy.