Democrats Have a Real Problem, Part IV
Incompetence
Sheer, unadulterated, mind-numbing incompetence. There is no other way to describe the debacle of the 2020 Iowa caucuses.
It took three full days to tabulate and release results from the individual caucuses, at which point Tom Perez jumped in with both feet to further muddy the water. The Democratic National Committee Chairman piped up at the 11th hour of caucus counting to demand a “re-canvassing,” which is apparently the functional equivalent of a recount. Recounts generally aren’t requested/demanded by people with full confidence in publicized results and this isn’t some chattering head from cable television. The chair of the national party throwing shade at the validity of Iowa’s results probably isn’t super-helpful for the Iowa Democratic Party.
Of course, what’s necessary isn’t always helpful to everyone involved and Perez’s intervention was arguably needed after the IDP covered itself in operational glory.
Regardless, the situation is a disaster in every sense of the word. The absolute best-case scenario here is the Democratic Party gave a contract to Clinton-connected lackeys so they could develop an app to be used in the first state to kick off the process of nominating President Donald Trump’s 2020 opponent. And then the app failed. The IDP compounded this stupidity by failing to have adequate backup measures in place, all of which resulted in the ongoing failure to say for sure who won the caucuses. Bernie Sanders and the insufferable Pete Buttigieg seem to have emerged victorious depending on whether your measuring stick is popular vote or delegate count. Their neck-and-neck finish lacks much oomph, though, when even the head of the DNC is skeptical about the final tallies.
To repeat, this is the best-case scenario.
Worse cases include some form of intentional chicanery from the national party to cover for Joe Biden’s belly flop in Iowa and deny Senator Sanders an outright claim of victory as well as the media grandstanding that goes with it. Or they focus on the Buttigieg campaign’s payment of over $40,000 to the app developer and Pete’s questionable caucus-night claim of victory despite exactly zero official results. These scenarios are tin-foil hat stuff, but given the DNC’s recent track record, one can hardly blame Sanders’ supporters for jumping at shadows.
Needless to say, there’s no excuse for any of this.
The local and national party leadership had four years to plan for this moment, and they were well-aware of the stakes. Nor are we talking about technology meant to crack the artificial intelligence barrier of meaning; the app was to count votes and transmit the tally. Additionally, developers would have had a good idea of how many people would use the app and when.
The much bigger issue than the Iowa fiasco, however, is that it is just the latest offering in a line of practically unbroken, catastrophic incompetence that has plagued the party for (at least) five years.
Consider…
In 2015, party leadership decided to run Hillary Clinton—the poster child for the DC status quo if ever there was one—straight into the teeth of a populist uprising. They did this despite recognizing her historic unpopularity as evidenced by the absence of other viable candidates in the race, the heavy-handed reminders of Hillary’s overwhelming super-delegate support, and the bare-bones debate schedule. Even this might’ve worked had the power brokers left it at that; instead, they began working with journalists to drive a stake through heart of Bernie Sanders’ campaign even though it never really had a shot to win (thanks to the aforementioned super-delegate count as well as Clinton’s advantage in the South). Then, John Podesta tried to send money to a Nigerian prince, Russia hacked everyone’s emails, the anti-Bernie effort was laid bare, and intra-party bitterness erupted that festers to this day.
Still, the candidate hand-picked and ushered through the primaries by party bigwigs might’ve won had she visited Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania rather than indulging a pipe dream of flipping red states blue for a landslide victory.
So the Democratic establishment blew an un-blow-able election and simultaneously planted the seeds of discord that still threaten to derail the party in 2020. Good times.
That takes us to 2017 where President Trump—the candidate party experts desperately wanted to face—served as a constant reminder of the party’s monumental failures of the last two years. Again, however, Democrats doubled down on their own stupidity, giving birth to the nonsensical idea that Trump’s campaign team conspired/colluded/worked with Russia to hack the election. True to form, Dems weren’t content to let the process play out. They sent their spin doctors in front of cameras to tease smoking guns, bombshells, and piles of evidence that never materialized. Further shooting themselves in the feet, Dems never even attempted to address the fact that every voter with a pulse knew Russia was working against the Clinton campaign because the mainstream media had been writing about it since October of 2015, a point at which the world was still laughing at the idea of Trump running for president. American voters simply cared more about the accurate and damning information revealed by the hacks than they did about Russia being their source, and there was no reason to think these voters would be moved by an investigation that was never likely to produce what was promised.
When Robert Mueller’s investigation predictably came up empty, the faces of the Democratic Party were undeterred. They implicitly or explicitly insisted the proof was there, but Mueller couldn’t find it despite effectively infinite resources and power. Or they insisted Mueller laid out a paint-by-numbers case for obstruction of justice, ignoring that the report also laid out a paint-by-numbers defense to the same charge (i.e. the report detailed why it would be difficult to prove Trump’s subjective intent during pivotal decisions).
None of this stuck outside the Democrat echo chambers so it was onto Ukraine and a hyper-partisan impeachment process that was never going to be a winner. This despite Nancy Pelosi’s assurances that a partisan impeachment couldn’t happen because it would be too divisive for the country. Once again, Democrats never explained why an investigation into Joe Biden’s ostensibly questionable conduct in Ukraine was, per se, against the interests of the country. The Bidens’ innocence was just a foundational article of faith on which the impeachment inquiry was built. Except, obviously it wasn’t an article of faith outside those pesky Democrat echo chambers as evidenced by Trump’s acquittal, his rising approval rating, and the public’s indifference to the whole circus.
Nor did Democrats make any effort to explain why the House’s impeachment inquiry was legitimate whereas the Senate’s trial was a travesty of justice despite both bodies breaking from prior impeachment protocols. Or why the Senate consists of criminals for not calling the exact witness that the House didn’t call. Or why the impeachment inquiry had to be done so urgently those witnesses couldn’t be dragged into testify using the courts, but delivery of the articles could be delayed by a month after the inquiry wrapped up.
And these are just the low lights.
Remember when Democrats had both arms wrapped around cretinous slime like Louise Mensch, Michael Avenatti, James Comey, and now John f***ing Bolton? Recall their scorched-earth drive to stop Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation? Or how about their current strategy of telling voters, contrary to what they may believe, the economy is actually awful at the moment? Or what about throwing so much centrist support behind Joe Biden’s campaign, which was DOA thanks to its clear parallels to Hillary’s disaster?
There are too many charlie foxtrots to list.
The standard bearers of the Democratic Party, including their strongest contenders for POTUS, want to dramatically expand the power and reach of government. Yet they have shown a remarkable inability to handle even simple tasks or demonstrate sound judgment when faced with easy choices. They reflexively play to their base without making even token effort to expand it. This is a real problem.
