We don't always agree with Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, but her summary of the elections last week was spot on: Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke.
America had strayed too far left since Covid attacked us, and the blame falls squarely on Democratic leaders - James Clyburn, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the remaining contestants for the 2020 Democratic nomination - who wanted to out-Left each other.
In December 2019, America was extraordinarily prosperous. Despite the solid resistance to former President Trump in the media and the Deep State, Americans were pleased with his policy successes. Illegal migration had reduced, and Trump had begun no new wars, having kicked off a global initiative to bring troops home. The labor market was booming, with the lowest Black and Hispanic unemployment rates since 1960. Inflation was well-tamed, under 2.0 percent. Interest rates were at or near zero. That month, America produced 12.98 million barrels per day, the highest since the Energy Information Administration kept records. America became a net energy exporter for the first time in sixty years.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party was in chaos. Kamala Harris dropped out of the nomination contest before winning a single delegate. (She had been polling at 1% when she dropped out.)
Biden's candidacy was also unremarkable until then. He performed so poorly in the primary debates leading to Iowa 2020 that he placed a dismal fourth, with just 13% of caucus-goers selecting him. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren scored the first three spots. In New Hampshire, Biden placed fifth behind Elizabeth Warren and won the support of fewer than 9% of the electorate. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete, and Amy Klobuchar ranked in the top three.
No candidate who has fared this miserably in the first two nominating contests had ever won their party's nomination.
But the Democratic Party knew that nominating Bernie Sanders would be a disaster, given that despite his rhetoric, he would never appeal to minority communities. Buttigieg was too untested and flashy—someone who was "all hat, no cattle." Warren was too liberal and toxic and could never attract men in large numbers.
Like the Democratic Convention in 1968, when party stalwarts stepped in to choose their leader, James Clyburn, the influential Assistant Democratic Leader in the House and a prominent Black leader from South Carolina, planned a victory for Biden in the smoke-filled back rooms of Congress. The deal was simple: Biden would nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court and choose another Black woman as a VP, and Clyburn would throw his support behind Biden and get South Carolina Blacks to vote for him. It was a classic "you rub my back, and I will rub yours" move.
How Wokeism Started. In May 2020, George Floyd died at the hands of the police. The Democratic leaders saw a political opening to weaken President Trump by directly linking his Charlottesville comments to Floyd's murder and insisting that his racist vision had led to systemic police brutality. It was the first time that identity politics, always one of the pillars of the Democratic Party, became a hub around which every other Democratic priority got strung.
From May 2020 onwards, everything became about diversity, equity, and inclusion. COVID-19 was raging, and the CDC correctly frowned on public gatherings. Pelosi fought for more funds for the United States Postal Service - to the tune of $20 billion - as she planned a strategy with lawyers like Mark Elias to expand mail balloting so that voters didn't have to expose themselves to others when casting their votes. Pelosi again made it about race, arguing that not expanding mail ballots would disenfranchise communities of color. However, official statements by America's healthcare leaders carved out an exception for participating in racial justice protests, as though the virus wouldn't transmit in crowds because the cause was moral. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) had taken over the Democratic Party.
When Biden took office in January 2021, everything was about DEI and victimhood. Biden's appointments were driven by checking off DEI boxes, with merit mattering little. Against each hire, the White House went out of its way to point to the box it had checked off: Lloyd Austin—the First Black secretary of defense; Deb Haaland—the first Native American cabinet secretary; Pete Buttigieg—the first openly gay person confirmed to a cabinet position; Alejandro Mayorkas – the first Latino and immigrant to serve as secretary of homeland security; Karine Jean-Pierre - the first openly lesbian woman of color White House Press Secretary; Rachel Levine – the first openly transgender federal official confirmed by the Senate as Assistant Secretary of Health; Cecilia Rouse – the first Black woman to lead the Council of Economic Advisers; Shalanda Young – the first Black Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
These agency leaders made it their central mission to implement DEI policies at every turn as they ran the vast federal bureaucracy. Federal workers were hired based on diversity and forced to participate in DEI training. Federal agencies were required to improve representation and create supportive environments for workers from various backgrounds, including those with disabilities and LGBTQ+ employees. Federal contracts prioritized vendors who met the government's DEI vision. Transgender issues became front and center for the administration.
Through initiatives like Justice40, Biden allocated 40% of the benefits from federal investments in areas like clean energy, climate change, and water infrastructure to disadvantaged communities disproportionately affected by environmental hazards.
With so much emphasis on an extreme woke agenda, the Biden-Harris administration forgot about Americans' fundamental needs. Incompetence seemed the order of the day. Inflation skyrocketed, illegal immigration thrived, foreign wars escalated, and inner-city crime became rampant. The disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal summarized the entire administration's performance, yet Biden fired no one for incompetence.
For 36 straight months, America's wrong track numbers stayed above 57%, and Biden's popularity below 50%.
The vote on November 5 was a resounding message for the Democrats: Stop being the moral police by telling us how to live. Instead, focus your efforts on how you can help improve our lives. As Dowd said, woke is broke.
