Rational adults who find themselves at a loss — person or professional — will retreat for serious introspection. Such people are interested in why they missed the reality of the moment. Irrational people Democrats have made the avoidance of a reckoning a high art.

While the astro-turfed violence against Tesla continues, ostensibly sober Democrat authors are straining to compare “angry Democrats” with the TEA Party movement of 15 years ago.

A recent Quinnipiac survey showed 49 percent of self-identified Democrats disapproving the job performance of the congressional party. The palpable unhappiness at the grassroots has led multiple observers to suggest that we may be on the brink of an intraparty revolt similar in intensity and significance to the tea-party movement that convulsed Republicans during the Obama administration, and which (many believe) paved the way for the equally angry MAGA movement that is now in charge of the country.

Unfortunately, for the author and Demcratic Strategist, Ed Kilgore (of such “centrist” publications like The New Republic, Atlantic and NY Magazine), this paragraph represents the only time he gets close to recognizable facts. And that’s in second paragraph. He leads with this rancid prose:

Without any question, rank-and-file Democrats are furious right now. They are angry at the Trump administration, of course, for the multi-pronged attack underway on the public sector; on judges; on immigrants; on universities; on our allies; and on the U.S. Constitution. They are angry at a Republican Party that is egging on Trump, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, and the unruly gang of social-media trolls, Christian nationalists, and tech bros who have been empowered by the new administration, at the expense of congressional Republican authority. But most of all, they’re angry at their own party’s leaders for losing a winnable 2024 election and then retreating into confusion and fecklessness in dealing with emergency conditions that look a lot like every authoritarian takeover in modern world history.

Holy Limburger Cheese, Batman, does that reek! With denial, surly aspersions and a refusal to acknowledge that election mandate does not an authoritarian make.

Kilgore is championing Biden’s old status quo of waste, fraud, diversion of taxpayer funds, Nannystatism, inflation, censorship, lawfare and open borders. He does it by framing efforts by the Executive Branch to solve these issues as attacks. And then he goes on to say angry Democrats will never become like TEA Party because that was an illegitimate movement borne of racial animus against The Lightbringer Obama.

It’s true that the tea party of the right began with angry grassroots Republicans infuriated by Barack Obama’s 2008 election victory (snip)

While tea-party protests may have been aimed at TARP and then Obamacare, they really represented a revolt against the New Deal and Great Society legacy of beneficent government

Kilgore actually lies about the formation of the TEA Party movement. My memory easily goes back to 15 years ago regardless of what position Kilgore holds in the Ministry of Truth and it was a bi-partisan reaction to the proposed government takeover of medical care via Obamacare. While the TaxedEnoughAlready movement, organized locally, had different albeit overlapping issues per location, it brought together conservatives, libertarians and fiscally-conservative Democrats. It was an issue-oriented movement right up until the Democrats took up their talking points that the movement was racist, sexist and, yes, the labels fascist and Nazi, were used against it by Democrats like Nancy Pelosi (and being drunk isn’t an excuse). Nothing makes a line Democrat cower, tuck tail and lick a hand like being accused racism, sexism, fascism. And Obama set the template of using the government against one’s political opponents by siccing the IRS on any organization with Tea Party or Liberty or Patriot in its title.

An art refined during Obama’s third term.

As Kilgore demonstrates, he is so enthralled by the idea of a beneficent government that those who disagree are illegitimate. QED.

And of course, what should we expect of a Democrat strategist who was, only a year ago, downplaying Biden’s dementia moments.

the 2024 presidential election choice will be between an 81-year-old Democrat and a 78-year-old Republican. In terms of grammar, syntax, logic, and recall of important events, the former is more cogent on his worst days than the latter appears to be on his best days. (snip)

Is Trump more “vigorous” than Biden, in terms of self-confidence and aggressiveness? Yes, but in the way that Attila the Hun was more “vigorous” than St. Francis of Assisi.

Funny, I don’t remember St. Francis sniffing kids or shrieking that half the country were fascists.

No wonder Ed avoids reality. He’s hoping to keep his phony-baloney job. If he can only keep the gaslight on why Trump won to frighten Democrats into staying the course.

We’re going to need a lot more popcorn.

featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license