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That’s the famous quote from George Santayana in his 1905 book, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. And what rang true 120 years ago rings true today, except to the Democratic Party.
Example: This week, it was revealed that the Democratic National Committee did an autopsy on where Democrats went wrong in 2024 when they got their doors blown off in the presidential election, lost the Senate, and failed to win back the House of Representatives. The autopsy, per the New York Times, consisted of more than 300 interviews with Democrats across all 50 states, and it was intended to create a road map for DNC Chairman Ken Martin to chart a path back to power. But Martin has decided to bury the report because the truth may hurt sensitive party members.
“He believes that looking back so publicly and painfully at the past would prove counterproductive for the party as it tries next year to take back power in Congress,” according to a DNC spokeswoman who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share the thinking behind his decision, the New York Times reported.
“Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win?” Martin said in a statement. “If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.”
As a result, Democrats appear to be going back to the 2024 playbook. Former Vice President Kamala Harris has been on a media blitz in recent weeks, well after her book tour was supposed to be over, and is definitely hinting at her third run for president. If you’re Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the likely GOP ticket in 2028, this is the best possible news one could imagine.
It bears repeating: Harris is arguably the worst major politician of our lifetime, and she is somehow regressing on the public speaking front. Authenticity is a foreign concept, but hubris is never in short supply.
“Some people have actually said I was the most qualified candidate ever to run for president,” Harris told journalist-turned-Democratic activist Kara Swisher recently before adding, “I’m just speaking fact.”
“There will be a marble bust of me in Congress,” she also told the New York Times earlier this month. “I am a historic figure like any Vice President of the United States ever was.”
And that’s the bad news for Democrats. She seems to actually believe what she’s saying without realizing what got her to this point: certainly not merit or accomplishments, but being the ultimate example of a DEI hire. Remember, it was Joe Biden, in an effort to win over black voters in 2020, who vowed to choose a woman of color as his running mate. This basically left him three options in terms of relative name recognition: Harris, then-Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), and 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams. It was akin to picking from these three teams to win the Super Bowl this year: the Cleveland Browns, New York Jets, or Tennessee Titans.
Biden ultimately went with Harris, the same person who accused him of essentially being a racist during a primary debate in 2019. At the time, she accused Biden of opposing busing as a means to desegregate schools in the 1970s before going with the rehearsed line: “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.”
This did not sit well with the Bidens. “That was some f***ing bullshit,” Biden allegedly said to fellow candidate Pete Buttigieg onstage during a commercial break.
“With what he cares about, what he fights for, what he’s committed to, you get up there and call him a racist without basis? Go f*** yourself,” Jill Biden allegedly said, according to Politico.
Biden chose Harris anyway, likely because she was the best worst choice among the three possibilities.
A recent survey by pollster Big Data shows that Harris leads Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) by double digits, 31% to 20%, with Buttigieg coming in third with just 10%.
Speaking of polls, it’s never been a worse time to be a Democrat. A Quinnipiac poll out this week shows the party at 15% approval, with 77% disapproving. Even a majority of Democratic voters disapprove of their own party by 6 percentage points after being 22 points above water in October.
So why the 28-point shift in the span of two months? Their government shutdown appears to be the culprit, and voting 15 times against reopening the government only to fold after the November elections. It was abundantly clear that the government was shut down for political purposes in an effort to rally voters in Virginia and New Jersey during the off-year elections. And when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) finally gave in, voters turned on the party as a whole.
And as this is happening, Trump and the GOP’s poll numbers are surging, with Trump at 50% approval in RMG Research’s poll released Friday, while Quinnipiac has him at 46%. Given the overwhelming wave of negative media coverage Trump endures on a daily basis, these numbers are relatively good, especially when considering that his predecessors, former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, were polling lower than he is at this point in their respective second terms.
Looking ahead to 2026, the already solid economy is set to take off. The Dow closed Friday above 48,000, up nearly 14% since Trump’s victory in November 2024, while the S&P is up more than 19% despite dire warnings of a recession when Trump’s tariff strategy was implemented in April. The Trump tax cuts also come into play next year, thanks to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, in addition to no tax on tips. Better trade deals around the globe will also be felt, all while gas and oil prices continue to go down courtesy of “drill, baby, drill” and lowered dependence on foreign imports.
DEMOCRATS’ PERFORMATIVE ANGER ON GUNS OFFERS NO REAL SOLUTIONS
Without a doubt, Democrats will shut down the government again in late January 2026 to upset the economy in the same way the party did in the fall. The media will carry their water, as usual.
But in the end, if resistance is all the blue team knows, and if ignoring past mistakes by dismissing its own autopsy is the game plan, not winning back the House is the least of its problems.
