Democrats, this New Years, resolve to be worse.
Leave your introspection and inhibitions in 2024.
During the 2024 campaign, we kept saying:
Oof. But do not cringe. It must be made true.
What is the alternative? A thousand years of GOP rule? Evil stuff is incoming. We must find our way back to power. Fast.
After what I will call the “Great Loss” on November 5, 2024, every lazy pundit in America told Dems to “look inward,” “soul-search,” and “introspect.” Sounds fun if you are bored on a lazy holiday weekend, but now self-reflection is a pleasant indulgence we do not have time for. Does anybody think Donald Trump and Elon Musk are blocking out an hour to settle at their desks, pen in hand, and scrawling out moral inventories?
President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 Presidential election, not me. They are out of the game now. In their retirement, they have nothing to interrupt kicking back and reading Herman Hesse classics. The rest of us, who will suffer for their failures, still must work for our living.
Obviously, we should study the Great Loss. Valuable strategic insights surely lie in that data. It would be good for elected Democrats and their knights to develop more compelling rhetoric and correct whatever policy discrepancies might have been unappealing to our voters.
But we do not have infinite time to change ourselves. The next Congress will be sworn in on Friday, January 03, 2025. I don’t want to read in the Atlantic about “Dems in Disarray” after that or so help me I will be making some cranky fucking listener calls to the C-SPAN Washington Journal dial-in radio program.
If you are an elected Democrat still playing Hamlet, if you still do not know how you are going to fight, take my advice:
Wear leather biker jackets and sunglasses when coming to and from the Capitol. You will wear the suit on the floor but always be seen as some Easy Rider en route between the heart of our Democracy and Sega’s Streets of Rage. It is nothing you will need to explain—sunglasses and jackets are not unusual outerwear, but they clearly signal to your constituents that you are not a loser. Look cool. This should be your number one priority.
Be disinhibited. Who cares? You are fighting Donald Trump and the stupidest Republicans to have ever set foot in Washington, DC. Half of these fools are sloppy drunks and washed-up TV stars. Read the list of Trump’s cabinet nominees and try and tell me that you think any one of those guys opened a fucking book in the last four years. Understand? These are fools. They are also cartoonishly evil. This is not the time to be feckless. Instead, be fuckless.
Start drinking. These MAGA Republicans and Trump appointees are going to be at bars doing embarrassing shit, and you will not see it unless your ass is on a stool too. Plus, every day, average Joe Six-Packs will stop thinking Democrats are effete if they can start the occasional anecdote with: “When I was down the American Legion taking shots” or “Everybody at the bar last night was livid about these proposed tax breaks for billionaires.”
Smoke cigarettes and cannabis. Real Duncan Hunter hours. The old smoky back rooms existed for a reason—people who share vices can make magic happen. Republicans love to smoke so much that they brought back indoor smoking in the House of Representatives in 2023. Conspicuously stand 25 feet from the Capitol, and light one up. Assuredly, some typical Republican non-smoker will come up and ask to bum one. From there, you can talk frankly. You invite them back to your Congressional frat (as seen in the hit comedy Alpha House, available streaming only on Amazon Prime) to suck on a big bong. You will not only have a bond for life, but your newfound friend from across the aisle will spill the hot “goss” or “tea” you need to leak to Bob Woodward.
Use profanity. I have a tough time with this myself—I have always preferred to editorialize in the style of the National Review—but it gets easier. You have to do it every day. If you curse about something, the American public will naturally assume that it matters to you. Use this to your advantage.
Encourage Republicans to fight each other. The Great Loss stripped Democrats of every power they had in Washington. We have no majorities. While we can (for now) filibuster in the Senate, in a straight caucus-against-caucus vote, we will lose every time. The conservative Supreme Court, who recently narrowed the scope of anti-bribery laws, might be bought by wealthy Republican donors, or, in the best-case scenario, they are accepting five-and-six-figure gifts from patrons but rewarding their sugar daddies with no special favors. (The sort of thing that hurts Matt Gaetz’s feelings.) So, it would be a mistake to place too much faith in the Judicial branch to check the power of the unified Republican President and Congress. But we can talk shit, and the House Republican majority is razor-thin. By encouraging intra-Republican conflict wherever possible, we might inevitably find a moment where a congressperson with a special interest will need to break ranks with the party, and only a small few—less than five—defections will tank a bill.
To any elected Democrat or their staff taking notes, I understand if you follow these tips, your colleagues might suspect you were replaced with your evil twin. Great. In 2025, we aren’t going to “be best.” We are going to be the GOP’s nightmare.
tl;dr Democrats should be less mopey and more Moody. Specifically, Hank Moody, as featured on Showtime’s Californication.
So get your Trump is a Bitch t-shirt and get in the fighting spirit. January 01, 2024, is when we break bad.
