One hundred years ago, President Calvin Coolidge gave a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. It included the line, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing, and prospering in the world.”
Colloquially, we’ve abbreviated Cal’s quote to: “The business of America is business.” (Shorter, pithier, and more efficient: The DOGE version of the quote.)
Same is true of politics: It’s a business, too. So, if you wanna know what’s gonna happen next, you’ve gotta follow the money.
For all the griping about the “Military-Industrial Complex,” it pales in comparison to the Political-Industrial Complex — the corporations, industries, professions, and professionals who’ve monetized the political status quo. As we’ve pointed out:
… D.C. is ground zero for America’s Political-Industrial Complex. It’s a multitrillion-dollar racket! Not only does it include the politicians, lobbyists, staff, employees, media, and everything else in D.C.’s financial wake, but its tentacles extend so deep beneath the surface, it also controls the real estate market surrounding Washington.
There’s a reason why so many of America’s wealthiest communities are centered around D.C.
Follow. The. Money.
Three stories broke over the last 48 hours, detailing the wheelin’ and dealin’ in the smoke-filled rooms of Democratic Party bosses. They’re desperate to regain power, but struggling to choose a path. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that a liberal consensus won’t be reached anytime soon: They’re too damn disorganized to coalesce.
Which is a decision in and of itself: Never forget the lessons of Rush (the band, not Limbaugh): “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”
This means there won’t be a singular, cohesive liberal strategy. Instead, there’ll be different activists trying different tactics, hoping something will stick. Obviously, their hatred of Trump and loathing for all things MAGA will bind them together, but politics is a story of tactics. It’s less about how you feel — and much more about what the hell you’re gonna do about it.
When we follow the money, the first path leads us to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). A career politician, Murphy was first elected to office at the age of 25. About 15 years later, he was the youngest senator on Capitol Hill. He’s now 51 and making a move to be the Democrats' next flagbearer.
NBC just gave him one helluva puff piece — which is always something we should keep our eyes on: Democrats telegraph their moves by coordinating them with the mainstream media. It amplifies their messaging, but the drawback is you can “reverse-engineer” their strategy by following their PR tactics.
From the article:
Sen. Chris Murphy has made a name for himself as someone willing to chase bipartisan deals on some of Washington’s thorniest issues.
But weeks into President Donald Trump’s second administration, Murphy, D-Conn., has taken steps to put himself at the center of aggressive resistance to Trump — and to let his party’s rank and file know it. Murphy is spending heavily to advertise on social media platforms and is flooding the zone on television and podcasts, positioning himself as the tip of the spear of Democratic Party efforts to oppose Trump in Washington.
Murphy is taking his new message to a variety of platforms, like the liberal “Pod Save America,” as well as hosts such as Brian Tyler Cohen and Mehdi Hasan; comedy hosts like Hasan Minhaj; legacy media outlets such as NBC News and The New York Times; and the conservative “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
And he spent more than $1 million on ads on Meta platforms in February alone, delivering his message directly to individuals. It’s more than he has spent on the likes of Facebook and Instagram in the last five years combined, a period that includes his 2024 re-election campaign, according to analysis by NBC News and the University of Pennsylvania Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies. Murphy’s aides said he has doubled his Instagram following during the last two months and seen a significant increase in engagement across platforms. [emphasis added]
Follow. The. Money.
He’s probably not the right messenger, but Sen. Murphy is onto something: The easiest way to rebrand the Democratic Party is to replace its flagbearer.
Sen. Murphy advocates fighting Trump everywhere: “There’s definitely a debate happening inside the Democratic Party: Should you reserve power, sort of hold and wait and then jump out of the bushes when the moment is right? Or should you flood the zone, just like Donald Trump floods the zone? Should you be fighting every single day? I’m of the school that you have to fight every day and that if you don’t, people aren’t going to think that it’s a red alert moment.”
Embracing the opposition mantle is exactly what liberal activists want to hear, and for his own purposes, Sen. Murphy needs to capture the AOC wing of his party ASAP, or he’ll burn through his (limited) checkbook. But smarter, cagier Democratic tacticians know better than swinging at every pitch.
Carville’s essay called for the Democratic Party to make a “strategic political retreat,” advising members of his party to “roll over and play dead” while public support for the Trump administration dwindles, before then stepping back into the fray.
“Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight and make the American people miss us,” Carville wrote. “Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) vehemently disagreed: “Democrats have been playing dead for too many years.”
Carville’s strategy is smarter if the goal is to win elections; the Sanders and/or Murphy path is smarter if you need to hit fundraising quotas this month, next month, and the month after that.
Which isn’t a trivial concern: Follow. The. Money.
The final story is about a D.C.-area gala with a few dozen left-wing political operatives and Democratic politicians. The wounded Donkeys were licking their wounds and searching for a pathway out of the wilderness. (Politico obtained their PowerPoint presentation. It’s worth your time.)
The article was called “Centrist Dem group rails against leftist identity politics and purity tests.” From the piece:
Among their takeaways:
- The party should “embrace patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery.”
- Candidates should “get out of elite circles and into real communities (e.g., tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants, churches).”
- The party needs to “own the failures of Democratic governance in large cities and commit to improving local government.”
The party, many of those gathered also argued, needs to “develop a stronger, more relatable Democratic media presence (podcasts, social media, sports broadcasting).”
Unfortunately for the Democrats, the aforementioned strategies are all contradictory. You can’t aggressively attack everything and then “roll over and play dead.” You can’t embrace “traditional American imagery,” gun shows(!), and patriotism when you’re wooing the Hamas-loving, flag-burning AOC wing of your party.
Which means we’re gonna see a lot of liberal [EXPLETIVE] thrown at the wall. Over the next 12 months, the mainstream media will likely churn through quite a few potential flagbearers, hoping one of ‘em will stick. (Spoiler alert: It ain’t gonna be Sen. Murphy.) And liberal donors will hear conflicting messages over the strategy and goals, which will make ‘em less likely to open their checkbooks.
The Democratic Party will continue to be politically paralyzed until something — or someone — goes viral.
And eventually, it will. It always does.
But until then, the Trump administration has a historic opportunity to Make America Great Again. If successful, it won’t really matter what the Democrats do.
Because the business of MAGA is saving our country.