Theater of the absurd

Democrats have for at least my lifetime, been about style over substance. Their modus operandi has always been to play on the emotions of voters, and to do that, they require theater.  They approach elections as if they were playwrights. This is not to condemn their approach; it had been working for them for decades, so why would they abandon it? But now, finally, they may have to abandon it.

What changed? Voters have begun to wake up to the deception that underlies their narrative, their script. And why are voters waking up now? I have a theory.  Up until the presidency of Obama, the left was successfully moving the Overton Window in smaller increments.  They were winning, albeit slowly. But with Obama, that changed.  They wanted to make the country take dramatic leaps leftward. Given the honeymoon Obama enjoyed, at first, even this was successful and one had to wonder if socialism was inevitable. 

But hubris is failure of character, and the results it eventually leads to are also failure. As the leftward shift proceeded further and further, the ability to coat each move as a success, the ability to argue that even further leftward shifts were needed became obviously less and less plausible to ordinary people. The lies had to grow bigger and bigger. And as the lies grew bigger, they became more ridiculous, more obviously unbelievable. People couldn't help but notice.  From Covid, to welfare, to border security, it became too big a pill for many to swallow. When the establishment and ANTIFA are on the same side, it's hard not to wonder what is really going on.

When Democrats try to play both sides (as with Israel and Hamas), they achieve nothing but rather, lose trust on both sides, and inevitably, make the whole situation worse for everyone involved.

Yet the Democrats have no other way to operate, they will continue to do what has worked, hoping it will work again. They have yet to figure out, that their lies have outsized the belief of people. So you continue to see things like this:

Where is the substance of the Kamala Harris agenda? There are only communist ideas and ideas she has directly copied from Donald Trump.  Their substance is either flawed or unoriginal. And in many cases lies that fly in the face of reality; Kamala Harris is going to be tough on the border? No. That's clearly a lie, belied by years of evidence.

Democrats cannot continue to lie successfully, and they cannot run on substance when their substance is growing socialism/communism to fix the problems of socialism/communism. They have only one choice, which is a choice they refuse to make - change the substance of their policies. Until Democrats decide to shift back towards the center, their base will continue to shrink.  I for one am now grateful for their stubborn mindedness.