Democrats’ Hamlet Moment Isn’t the Start of a Solution But the Heart of the Problem

I’ve been observing the on-going debates about which of the several “reckonings” Democrats need to have to improve their fortunes with what I can only describe as a mounting frustration and disgust. There’s the one over Joe Biden being old. There’s the one about Democrats becoming too “woke” and speech police-y. There’s the one about having betrayed or fallen short about this or that left-leaning cause. On the merits I agree with some of these more than others. Some I think are genuinely important. But as things Democrats should be focusing on now, taking accountability for, repositioning, whatever (!) they all, taking together, strike me as different sorts of pathetic, out-of-touch and myopic distractions.

Parties succeed and gain traction by doing far more than by self-analyzing. And my own theory of the case is that core driver and cause of the low standing of the Democratic party right now is not wokeness or immigration or Joe Biden’s age but the fact that Democrats are simply not effective at advancing the policies they claim to support or protecting the constituencies they claim to defend. Put simply, they are some mix of unable and unwilling to wield power to achieve specific ends.