Republicans will be thrilled that the Democratic Party continues to prove itself clueless and tone deaf coming up on two months after President-elect Trump’s decisive and power-shifting victory.
But if you are one of tens of millions of Americans being battered by inflation, mass illegal immigration, crime, crumbling cities, failing public schools, the crippling prices of health care and job loss, you will most likely continue to be depressed and concerned that the leaders of the Democratic Party and the liberal media would rather virtue-signal to the far-left than tackle the issues upending your quality of life and putting you and your family at risk.
As an example of this useless virtue-signaling, look no further than the left’s pile on regarding the “long-awaited” — three and one-half years, at taxpayer expense — report released last week by the House Ethics Committee on former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
First of all, the last time I checked, the system of justice in the U.S. still presumes someone innocent unless found guilty. Not so, it seems, in the case of Gaetz, for many on the left.
Next, it should be noted that the release of this report is all but unprecedented by the committee and was seemingly done with the express purpose of embarrassing Gaetz and putting the Republicans on the defensive. But at what cost to future hearings, potentially innocent individuals and the truth?
The attorneys representing Gaetz answered that question, in part: “The Committee’s apparent intention to release its report after explicitly acknowledging it lacks jurisdiction over former members, its failure to follow constitutional notions of due process, and failure to adhere to its own procedural rules and precedent represents an unprecedented overreach that threatens fundamental constitutional rights and established procedural protections.”
As I have stressed in past columns pertaining to Ukraine, it seems that honest, unbiased and factual reporting is on the wane in the Age of Trump. With regard to this Gaetz saga, Mollie Hemingway — the editor-in-chief of The Federalist — has done some truly exceptional reporting on the case.
To that very point, this past Monday, Hemingway posted on X: “Sometimes I feel like I was the only reporter to look into the details of the Gaetz allegations. That’s how I learned the accuser is in prison for making the same false sex-with-minors accusation against someone else.”
Prior to that, Hemingway had authored a detailed article on Nov. 17 headlined, “House Probe Into Matt Gaetz Relies On Witnesses DOJ Found Lacked Credibility.” Keep in mind, that was the Biden-Harris Department of Justice.
This back and forth on the Gaetz case aside, the left’s non-stop bloodlust to sensationalize, embarrass, gloat or fundraise off the report demonstrates that not only did they learn nothing from the election results, which embarrassed their candidate and their party, but that they continue to drown out the voices of the two constituencies they were once most identified with protecting: the working class and the disenfranchised.
Come Nov. 6, it seems as if Democrats instantly went back to their kneejerk strategy of sliming and smearing Republicans, while also resurfacing their fantasy to impeach Trump yet again and demonizing his personality and words while ignoring his successful policies.
Again, maybe that is great for fundraising off the sliver of the perpetually angry and even hate-filled far left, but it does absolutely nothing for those tens of millions of working-class and disenfranchised Americans whose lives have been turned upside down by one failed policy after another, many of whom were loyal Democratic voters. But not anymore.
Trump just took a big bite into those constituencies — Black, Hispanic, Asian, female and young voters. Why? Because those who jumped on the Trump train from those communities no longer believed the Democrats were listening to them — or were the ones inflicting the policies upon them that were making their lives worse.
If the main strategy of many of the Democrats and the far left is to continually vilify Trump, Gaetz, Vance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth and other Republicans at the direct expense of the working class and the disenfranchised — which it is — they are going to be on the outside looking in for the next decade, or longer.
Make no mistake: In many ways, Trump is counting on that predictable and failed strategy to further cement his vision into policy and law.
Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official.
