Democrats Try to Rebrand
There has been much in the news lately about rebranding.
Cracker Barrel was an epic fail, losing customers and stock value for a logo redesign that, as one former patron put it, eliminated both the Cracker and the Barrel. Bud Light anyone?
Then there was MSNBC. In the face of plummeting ratings and a corporate divorce from NBC, the branding geniuses at Fake News Headquarters selected a new name — MS NOW, which stands for something like News of the World but was widely interpreted as either Ms. NOW, a throwback to the feminist magazine of the 1970s, or some dread disease like Multiple Sclerosis needs your attention NOW. The change is supposed to go into effect by year’s end. So great is the trolling — one influencer called it BS NOW — that some predict another name change by then.
Now come the Democrats, so virulent in their Trump Derangement Syndrome that they find themselves on the losing end of every 80/20 issue important to most common sense Americans. Boys in girls sports, immigrants flooding the country, crime ridden cities, non-English speaking truckers on the roads and oh yeah war in Ukraine. Really, Media, against peace? Never forget, these are the same people who railed in 2017 that Trump would start World War III. Now they are hysterical that he might get the Nobel Peace Prize for solving, so far, six wars.
Last week a left-wing think tank issued a cheat sheet warning Dems to avoid certain woke words if they want to win in the 2026 midterms. Whatever you do, suggested the consultants at Third Way, don’t use the expression “birthing persons” (a win for biology, and God!) or “existential threat” (I guess all those hysterical climate claims kind of busted them for this one. Or maybe it was their hypocritical alarms about the death of democracy) or cisgender (makes sense, if you want to win back all those young men who fled the party in 2024).
In short, the blacklist reads like a refutation of all the gender ideology and race baiting that defined their reign during the Biden years. Among the no-no terms: privilege … violence (as in “environmental violence”) dialoguing … triggering … othering … microaggression … holding space … body shaming … subverting norms … systems of oppression … cultural appropriation … Overton window … existential threat to [the climate, democracy, economy] … radical transparency … stakeholders … the unhoused … food insecurity … housing insecurity … person who immigrated … birthing person … cisgender … deadnaming … heteronormative … patriarchy … LGBTQIA+ … BIPOC … allyship … incarcerated people … involuntary confinement.
Robbed of these touchstones, you might wonder what the Dems could possibly say. Scrambling for message, they have come up with a new slogan: “The Abundance Agenda.” Yep, in a Trump economy about to take off like a rocket ship (as soon as Too Late Powell takes his foot off the brake), they plan to rebrand themselves as the party that can deliver shovel-ready infrastructure projects and rescue the housing market. Seems an odd fit for Dems, who are actively trying to replace all those beautiful homes in Pacific Palisades, California with low income housing, no doubt in classic Stalinist architectural style.
You know Trump is a builder right? I guess Ms. NOW never reported that Biden’s Green New Deal was a total sham. Or that Secretary Scott Bessent plans a home ownership focus this fall. Or that the Trump White House is considering limiting the able-bodied to two years in Section 8 housing. Maybe try Newsmax?
Aside from policy deficits, the thing that makes messaging so fraught for Dems is that their smiles reek of arrogance, and privilege. Oh, Gavin Newsom is trying — adopting the trolling tactics of President Trump. But with his marvelously gelled hair and a very white set of teeth, he is not authentic. Does he have a sense of right and wrong?
Encounters between mostly white aging protestors and beefy looking law enforcement lately have been hilarious.
There was that drunk woman in Newport, RI recently screaming at police trying to arrest her for trespassing. “I’m an AG,” she said, ordering them to turn off their body cams. She has been put on leave, no longer an AG. Here.
There was a cop who accused a white woman protestor of cultural appropriation for wearing a keffiyeh. The conversation triggered her. Here.
But my favorite had to be the scene on the Metro in DC. Fit National Guardsman riding on the up escalator. Overweight Protestor on the down. Across the escalator she screams at him for his choice of occupation. ‘You could be doing something else with your life.!” He looks at her and says, “And you could order a salad.” Here.
Maybe Bobby Kennedy, already a hero for ridding our food of toxins and our meds of evil, could find a cure for Trump Derangement Syndrome. Until then, expect Dems to cling to their failed policies and off-key rebranding. Consider this post on X from someone named Jill Ciminillo: “Dear @realDonaldTrump … I’ve been carjacked in Chicago with my arm broken. I still don’t want you or your troops here. TIA. BTW there are no red hats here. 🫶” Slammed for her virtue signaling — ‘I’m such a good person I won’t even blame those thugs who broke my arm,’ — she deleted the post.
Funny, cuz word is that Chicago is exactly where Trump wants to go next
As Sean Spicer said recently, Trump 1.0 was about pursuing policy goals. The far more muscular, and beyond brilliant Trump 2.0 is about culture. Andrew Breitbart famously said, “Politics is downstream from culture.” In attacking woke ideology — in the universities, in womens sports, in the Smithsonian — Trump understands that unless we win the culture wars, the policy wins will evaporate at the next Dem victory.
Dems can try to avoid certain buzz words — and soften the edges of their rigid orthodoxy — but they can never erase their track record. The most egregious of the Smithsonian offenses I have heard about is at the National Museum of Black American History & Culture — which devotes three floors to the history of slavery and three to achievements in music and sports. One exhibit attacks ‘rugged individualism” and “the nuclear family’’ because they are “part of white culture.”
Woke will not die easily.
Recently, The Girl Scouts expelled NJ mom Alexandra Bougher, a @Moms4Liberty chapter chair, after she refused to promote LGBTQ "Pride" to her troop. She also got swatted after she attacked a church's decision to raise an LGBTQ flag.
Meanwhile DC residents, many African American, pose with National Guardsmen who have made their streets safe again. Celebrate the victories as they come.