MSNBC host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted Sunday that Democrats are leaderless and “in the wilderness” following their shellacking by Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans.
Politico’s Eugene Daniels added that there is a “huge fight” coming between the Democrats’ old guard (i.e. former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and even former President Barack Obama) and the new guard (House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, among others) as the party tries to chart a path forward.
Earlier this month, the GOP pulled off the trifecta of winning the White House and the Senate, while retaining the House.
Not only that, but Trump also won the popular vote, the first Republican presidential candidate to do that in 20 years with over 76 million votes. The “spirit of ’76,” you might say, for a candidate who ran on the slogan “Make America Great Again.”
“Look, I think Democrats are in the wilderness. As you said before, there is no clear leader of the party,” Psaki said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Joe Biden is going to be out of office shortly,” she continued. “Kamala Harris just lost the election. There are a lot of governors and other people who might emerge maybe that we don’t know about yet, but there is no clear leader of the party right now.”
Psaki then offered that there is a potential bright side to the Democrats’ current predicament.
“That, to me is an opportunity because people have to decide. Nobody’s given it, right. You seize the mantle or you don’t. Are you going to be the person who decides who’s the right person to stand up against Trump? Or are you going to be the person who brings the country together?” she said.
“Are you going to be the person who talks about the economy and in ways that people understand? There are lots of ways to do it. I don’t know who’s going to emerge, but that’s the moment we’re in right now,” Psaki conceded.
Daniels, a “Meet the Press” co-panelist with Psaki jumped in arguing, “I think the most interesting dynamic that’s going to kind of play out here is the young guard versus the old guard.”
“They are going to put up a huge fight with the older folks because they think, ‘You can’t bring us to where we are right now and take us out of it,’” Daniels explained.
Psaki concurred.
“I’m just going to say the moment for generational change is now,” she said. “Because there are people in the leadership positions who are not of the young guard. Democrats control nothing. So if there are people out there who want change, now is the moment to change it.”
Psaki concluded, “I think tonally though there are lessons learned from the election without naval gazing forever. It was not just people going to Trump. It was the Democrats losing working people. If they are the party of working people, they need to better figure out how to talk to that group of people.”
So the former press secretary fell back on the old talking point that Democrats just need better messaging.
If that’s the lesson they draw, it may be a long time in the political wilderness.
Democrats don’t need better messaging, they need better policies.
Voters rejected the party’s big government, tax and spend approach because it became so big that it sparked the worst inflation in 40 years.
They also rejected the woke agenda, i.e., “they/them” pronouns and all the rest.
Unless the Democrats learn the right lessons from the 2024 elections, they will be wilderness dwellers for a while.
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