The Patriot Post® · The Anguish of the DNC

If you find yourself being tattooed by a jackhammer or picked apart by a school of piranhas, just remember: It could be worse. I mean, you could be Ken Martin.

The hapless 53-year-old chairman of the once-venerable Democratic National Committee is in the deeply unenviable position of trying to herd a party of feral political cats while attempting to build the Democrat brand, articulate its platform and principles, and coordinate its national messaging strategy — and all while fleecing gullible donors large and small for a campaign war chest whose size will largely determine the outcome of the crucial November 3 midterms. Talk about a tall order.

And it’s that last part, the fundraising part, that has DC Democrats in full meltdown mode. As of late June, according to Federal Election Commission reports, the DNC had $16 million in cash on hand and $18 million in debt. I’m no CPA, but I know red numbers when I see them. How bad is it for the DNC? This bad: Martin and his organization have reportedly put up their DC headquarters as collateral for a $15 million loan. Indeed, the Democrats are fit to be Hogg-tied.

All this would be awful enough if those deeply unpopular Republicans were equally cash-strapped. But they’re not. As of late June, the Republican National Committee had $128 million in cash on hand.

If curmudgeonly Casey Stengel were a Democrat, he’d no doubt look around the DNC and ask, “Can’t anyone here play this game?” The difference, though, is that while Casey’s 1962 Mets were lovable losers, today’s Democrats are just, well, losers.

“So much is going politically right for Democrats these days,” laments The New York Times. “President Trump’s approval is down, gas prices are up and an unpopular war with Iran drags on. But dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats.”

And yet, as the Times’s disconsolate Shane Goldmacher and Reid Epstein add, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.‘s human resources department.”

You can’t make this stuff up. Goldmacher and Epstein go on to “defend” Martin by explaining that none of their half-dozen DNC sources actually witnessed the flying phone, and that there’s “some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed.”

Phonegate aside, we can get a sense of the condition of the two parties by the sorts of issues that are currently causing them consternation. Republicans, for example, are having serious discussions about serious matters — about whether President Trump has gotten over his skis on Iran, and about whether the party has been surreptitiously recaptured by the globalists and the neocons. On the Democrat side, though, they’re talking about doing away with the Senate, eliminating prisons, abolishing ICE, and getting rid of our national borders. Granted, these ideas are coming from the Democratic Socialists of America, but that’s precisely where all the party is at the moment.

Folks, this ain’t your granddaddy’s Democrat Party. These people are — how can I put this gently? — fuh-reeeeaks.

Asked by the friendlies at CNN whether he thinks the DNC is a mess, Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton didn’t mince words: “Yes, I do, and months ago I called on Ken Martin to resign. … The leadership of the Democratic Party right now is a mess, and this is not the first time they’ve tried to hide this mess.”

The anguish among the Democrats is palpable, and the polling bears it out. As CNN’s resident data analyst and truth-teller Harry Enten pointed out recently, the Democrat Party’s net favorability was at plus-one in 2018 but is currently a staggering minus 24.

And why might that be? You know the answer: The party has been overtaken by leftist loons with policy positions that are repellent to everyday Americans. As Enten also points out, back in 1996, 42% of voters felt the Democrat Party was too liberal. In 2013, that number grew to 48%. Today, it’s at 57%. That’s a strong majority of voters who think the Democrats are Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

That’s no way to run a political party, and it’s no way to get ready for a midterm election that ought to be yours for the taking. Which is why I hope, for our country’s sake, they keep doing exactly what they’re currently doing.

The only thing more delicious would be an all-out civil war.