Ours certainly is a time of political change — some would say upheaval. Just recently, disaffected Democratic ex-governor Rod Blagojevich condemned his own party as a den of “monumental” “hypocrites and liars.” Now he has been joined by a former Democrat who adds a prognosis to his diagnosis.
The party is “on its last stand,” she says. It is a “dying party” that will “go the way of the Whigs.”
Gloria Romero certainly was no fair-weather Democrat. An ex-college professor with a Ph.D. in psychology, she was the party’s California Senate majority leader from 2005 to 2008. She stuck with the Democrats, too, through thick and thin and spin. Eight months ago, though, she’d finally had enough and made news by leaving the party and supporting then-candidate Donald Trump. She explained her decision at the time, as Fox News reported:
She claimed she could not stand by as Democrats took “a giant leap to authoritarianism [and] censorship,” noting former President Reagan warned that if fascism rose in the U.S. it would come under the guise of liberalism.
“It is terrifying to see how language has been modified so that, as a feminist and a former professor … I would be condemned for saying that I can define a woman and distinguish between biological sex and gender identity,” Romero said.
…. I am a mother and refuse to call myself a ‘birthing person.'”
“The Republican Party has become the party of peace while the Democrats have marched towards endless war.”
She also took aim at the Green movement within the Democratic Party, voicing opposition to regulations on appliances.
“[A]s a Latina, I will not give up my gas stove; you cannot toast a tortilla on an electric range,” she quipped.
Interestingly, Romero does apparently reflect a wider movement among Latino voters. In fact, a recent poll found President Trump’s approval rating among Hispanics to be a striking 59.6 percent. This is perhaps unprecedented, as that group has traditionally supported Democrats.
As for Romero’s recent statements, they were made last Thursday on Fox & friends First. She opened praising Senator John Fetterman (D-Penn.) for speaking out against his party’s radical policies. She said she wished more Democrats would follow suit, but lamented that they were caught in the “web … of identity politics.”
They call everybody a “Nazi” and a “racist,” Romero stated. Yet they still defend “open borders,” ignore “anti-Semitism,” and “refuse to stand up for ‘America first.’” All this and more are why, she said, the Democrats are on their “last stand,” are a “dying party” and will “go the way of the Whigs.”
Romero also alluded to the apparent political “realignment” we’ve witnessed in recent years. She said that the Republicans are a “new party,” being remolded by the MAGA movement. It wouldn’t have happened under a Mitt Romney or John McCain or with the Bushes, she stated. But Trump has trumped the old formula and has been the general at the head of an updated and rebooted GOP.
As for the Whigs analogy, it’s quite apt. In the mid-19th century, the Whigs and the Democrats were our nation’s two biggest parties. In fact, Whig candidates won the presidency in 1840 and 1848; why, even Abraham Lincoln was a Whig.
But their power didn’t last. Slavery ultimately divided them as it did the country, and many abolitionist Whigs fled to the Republican Party. The GOP then became the second major party.
The same phenomenon has been apparent with the Democrats in recent years: Many members have fled the party over slavery.
That is, the slavery of being in thrall to wicked ideas, prejudice, and perverted science.
As to this, while interviewing Romero, Fox & Friends First host Todd Piro expressed incredulity. Since the Democratic leadership really just craves power, he wondered, why didn’t they dispense with the radicalism, embrace the popular kitchen-table issues, and attract the voters? It’s a good question.
After all, imagine that the Democrats had rejected the nihilist radicalism. Imagine they’d instead secured the border; not engaged in Covid-shot coercion; and rejected the “trans,” defund-the-police, and other woke agendas. Imagine they’d channeled 1990s Democrats and at least pretended to want to support the middle class. They very well might’ve won the 2024 election even with their wanting candidate. (Moreover, had they rejected identity politics, anointing Kamala Harris simply because she was a “black” woman might’ve been avoidable.)
So why do the Democrats pander to the woke brigade? First, the latter may be more numerous than many suppose. A 2021 Hill-HarrisX poll found that one-third of voters identify as “woke.” To the point here, approximately 60 percent of Democrats said being woke is a positive attribute.
Of course, people have different conceptions of what the terms means, with some surely subscribing to a sanitized definition. Many black voters, for example, still embrace the earlier concept of wokeness. This essentially meant being socially “enlightened,” as they conceptualize it. (And this conception almost never includes men in women’s sports.)
Second, whatever the Democratic wokesters’ numbers, social media today can magnify their voices. Go on a platform, be loud and proud, and you may be like a lizard puffing up its neck. You’ll look larger and more intimidating than you are.
Regardless, the reality is that the Democrats have become the home of risible radicalism. Of course, some will play the equivalency game here and say the Republicans are radical, too. But putting this in perspective is simple. What is the mainstream-GOP analogue to saying a boy can become a girl just by willing it — and if you disagree we’ll cancel you? It doesn’t exist.
Note, too, that as I illustrated here, the Democratic/Democratic-aligned Left is responsible for virtually all political violence. Violence, vice, and extremism aren’t bugs in today’s Democratic Party — they’re a feature.
This said, whether this creature feature will actually die, per Romero’s prediction, remains to be seen.
After all, the Democrats are adept at constructing illusions and stealing elections. Besides, like cats, catty parties sometimes have nine lives.