Maybe the best thing for America is that Trump crushed the Democrats hopes and dreams on Tuesday. When America needed a genuine opposition party to stand against the march of populist authoritarians, the Democrats responded with… well… nothing. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I sent the Harris campaign money, got the hat, put up the sign and hoped. But by looking at the Times county by county map, I realized by 6:30 PM that Harris was toast. Trump ran up 2 to 10% margins over the 2020 Biden numbers. In the end, Harris did not beat the Biden 2020 vote totals in ANY county.

For almost 2 years, about 70% of Americans said they did not Biden to run for a second term. His approval rating hovered below Trump. Biden’s hubris and narcissism lost this election before it began. His staff hid his infirmity. He lied to America. Yesterday, it was revealed that as early as last January his internal polling said he would lose by 400 Electoral votes and his staff was badmouthing Kamala to reporters on background. America spoke and arrogant Democrats ignored it. And when, at the debate, he showed he could not run, he waited another month then anointed Harris. Here’s the cold, hard truth. If a hotly contested primary process had resulted in a younger male candidate, Trump would not be the president-elect. I can hear the yelling at me now….

Already, Democrats are blaming the loss on racism and misogyny. I don’t doubt there are maybe 3 points in the final totals that may reflect long held American beliefs. Let me repeat that LONG HELD AMERICAN BELIEFS. You don’t have to like American attitudes about a female president. But if your party says Trump is a fascist, then you damn sure better take that issue off the table. Running a woman was a mistake. I am a cold-hearted old political hack and I never give the enemy a running start. In fact, I have long held that the first woman elected president in America will be a Republican. Yup, ala Maggie Thatcher. It’s the Nixon goes to China of gender politics. Win first. Change opinions later.

My lifetime worst president is Gerald Ford because he cut a deal to pardon Nixon. (BTW, if we had tried Nixon, the current Supreme Court would have had no basis to declare presidential immunity.) Now Biden joins Ford on my lowest ring of presidential hell.

Care to guess what the most effective, most run, Trump commercials were? Yup, the trans adds. Those ads disgusted Democrats as hateful. News flash, those ads were not about trans people, they were about fairness. Given their rising rents, that a criminal gets transitioning surgery free was insane to most Americans. Penises in girl’s locker rooms was disgusting. Trans girls in boys’ bodies beating biological girls in sports was simply unfair. The Trump campaign didn’t have to run against ‘woke.’ They only needed this one signifier to demonstrate that something was deeply wrong, utterly unfair, about Kamala and Democrats. It worked.

What the left doesn’t understand is that most Americans do not hate trans people. If you started the entire conversation about gender dysphoria from a different place, they would be on your side.

Try this: We all know that some people have a condition that tells them they are in the wrong body. It isn’t a choice. This is painful for them at first and makes other people uncomfortable. But we can agree that we don’t want to have people in pain all the time. What can we all do to help make their lives easier?

Instead, the academic left has declared that trans boys and girls are actual boys and girls. This is the radical construct of critical gender theory shoved down people’s throats. I said over a year that this issue alone would kill the Democrats in the election, and guess what, it did.

Why didn’t the Democratic party fight back on the Trump commercials? I heard Rick Wilson from the Lincoln Project say that they expected the Republican trans attack and brought Democrats an ad package to counter the hit. Democratic leadership rejected the offer. They said people don’t care about that issue. And there it is, the elite Democratic party at work. Broad swaths of America feel like Democrats only punch down. Donald Trump became their champion because he called bullshit. Admit it, the inherent disdain for blue collar America reeks from Democrats. From Hillary’s ‘deplorables’ to Biden’s ‘garbage’ the voters got the message loud and clear.

How many Americans can define the word fascist? Can you? Even when General Kelly told the reporter he thought Trump was one, he had to read the Webster’s definition to clarify what he meant. Yet, the Harris campaign ran on that for almost 3 weeks. In focus groups run by the Bulwark, participants were not sure what authoritarian meant, let alone fascist. Democrats design their messages for other college educated Democrats.

Harris never came up with a simple message to describe Trump’s tariffs. Imagine if the messaging geniuses at the Harris campaign had said this:

I like to watch Sunday football on a big TV. I bet you do too. So, Walmart or Costco has a good sale on a 72 inch beauty and you go down to pick it up on sale for 800 bucks. Except when you get there the Trump tariffs have gone in effect and now it costs $960.  “Hey, what happened?” you as the clerk.  “Tariffs,” she says. “But China has to pay those.” “No, the TV maker pays, so does the shipper and to pay me the same salary, the price has to go up. I hate it too, but there isn’t any choice”.

See how simple that is. No economics lecture. Just tell people straightforward stories. If the Democrats don’t take this as a lesson, they are done.

I know that people on the left are yelling at Trump voters. How could you!!?? Well, here is the one the Democrats didn’t expect. Trump has assembled an economically diverse, multi-ethnic coalition anchored by the American working class. Yea, those are the Trump voters. Sure that are MAGA lunatics, as surely as there a progressive Hamas lovers. Extremes gonna extreme. But Trump’s new coalition is exactly who Democrats claim they want. The arrogance of coastal academic elites sitting around talking about poor people or the brown wave that was going to save them has come home to roost. Identity is not predictive and people shoved into identity holes will rebel.

What now?

Democrats are now fully a traditional parliamentary opposition party. Powerless to stop the government. Opposition is about pouncing on every misstep of the government. It requires cold hearted unity of purpose and messaging. It requires political operatives who are natural born killers. No, they can’t duplicate the media bubble that the right has, but they can pierce it repeatedly. And no, the Democrats don’t have to go further left. Bernie lost twice. Two members of the ‘squad’ lost in primaries. Harris had the right idea with a new center coalition but there was no way in hell a California liberal could sell that. Democrats have an impressive bench in the states. The phoenix must rise from there, not DC

There will be casualties to Trumpism. I ache for the brave people of Ukraine who lose citizens every day to a fascist, Putin. But in opposition, your job is to catalogue and publicize every MAGA victim, every day. Hammer away and get ready for the 2026 midterms where the battlefield is more friendly.

I hope MAGA takes the House. I want the public to see unmitigated Trump. He won it fair and square. This is his time. Let him destroy enough government for Americans to demand more government. And, for god’s sake, stop talking to Americans like they are all from another planet.

In other words, stop being THIS accursed current Democratic Party. Wake the fuck up!