TAS Publisher Melissa McKenzie’s *Center of the Democratic Party* is not a happy read, but it’s an essential one with a high truth quotient. It is the best one-stop diagnosis of our political failures and cultural decline that I’ve encountered anywhere.

Today’s Democratic Party is indeed a wholly-owned subsidiary of the bat-guano crazy Left, for reasons our Melissa so clearly outlines. The party’s future now rests more in the hands of AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Comrade Mamdani, and their toxic ideas than in the hands of the JFKs, Hubert Humphreys, and Scoop Jacksons of my youth. In its current state, I wouldn’t vote for a Democrat for assistant county rat-catcher.

I join Melissa in challenging the happy-talk bubble so many Republicans seem to be in, thinking they’re in the political catbird seat now, with clear sailing for many election cycles to come. Not so fast.

Donald Trump’s election in 2024 may be, as the estimable Piers Morgan claims in his new book *Woke is Dead*, a much-needed resurgence of common sense. But alas, common sense has never been common—and it’s subject to leaving the room without notice.

Since moving back into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Trump has taken decisive actions: closing our borders and tasking the Department of Homeland Security with the hard work of expelling the worst actors among the many millions of gate crashers the previous administration invited in. He has cracked down on crime that Democrat policies have allowed to thrive.

He has made official government policy embrace the bloody obvious—that there are only two sexes, not dozens as Democrat gospel insists, with pronouns without end, amen. He has steered us away from the suicidal energy policy of abandoning fossil fuels in the name of a fake climate crisis.

He is working to end the slander that the U.S. is a hopelessly racist society where Black Americans suffer at the hands of white oppressors. He’s returned our military to its legitimate function of defending the country rather than acting as just another vehicle of leftist social engineering.

These and other sensible, much-needed policies should have translated into high approval ratings for Trump and for the Republican Party. They haven’t.

Conservative-leaning writers and talking heads like to point out that the Democratic Party is “enjoying” historically low approval numbers. It is. But Republicans don’t do much better.

Trump’s approval ratings—depending on the poll—hover just above 40 percent, with a majority expressing disapproval. Not a good place to be with slightly less than a year to go before a midterm election, a cycle that historically sees low voter turnout but where all the political crazies flock to the polls.

It’s reasonable to say the Republicans’ whisker-thin majority in the House is in jeopardy. Losing the House would throw a major spanner in the spokes of the Trump agenda—already hobbled by federal judges acting more as left political activists than as impartial jurists.

(For the defense, the Donald may have overstepped in some areas. But in court, he’s been far more sinned against than sinning.)

Much of the lingering Trump Derangement Syndrome is not hard to locate. Most of it hinges on the Donald’s style and presentation.

Even I, who have voted for him three times, don’t give him many style points. His speeches are rambling, repetitive messes. He often sounds wrong even when he’s right. And it’s clear he studied modesty on a Muhammad Ali scholarship.

But how much better off would we be if more voters could distinguish between what many consider a toxic personality and Trump’s sound policies that have clearly made America a better place?

In addition to activist federal judges—many of whom I suspect are wearing RESIST! sweatshirts under their robes—Trump continues to be maligned daily and unfairly by legacy media drones. Entertainment figures, who off script seem to lack even the sense God gave a chicken, keep up a steady dumb-beat.

(In this regard, I believe I’ll skip Harrison Ford’s latest: *Indiana Jones’ Gums Go Bad*, coming soon to a three-quarters empty theater near you.)

And don’t even get me started on the professoriat. Other than in STEM curricula—and even there we see softening—four years in most universities today is a worse investment than trying to help out that Nigerian prince.

Making matters worse, the performance of down-ballot Republican officeholders, taken all around, has been less than spectacular.

Better than the Democrats, of course, but has there ever been a lower bar than this?

Too many Republicans are timid, loathe to take the flak the Donald is willing to absorb by doing what needs to be done—even when it would step on some very noisy political toes.

Exhibit A is the current government shutdown, caused by the Democrats’ extortionist trillion-dollar-plus policy demand. The relative silence from the Republican side is unnerving.

Not even the Donald seems to be as invested in this one as he should be.

Too many Republicans seem to believe Democrats will take the hit for causing air traffic controllers and Marine Corps lance corporals to go without their paychecks while members of Congress still cash theirs.

But don’t bet on this.

The merits of the case would dictate that the Donkeys are causing this disruption. But when have the merits ever carried the day in contentious partisan conflict?

That Republicans are blamed for government shutdowns seems to be written on stone tablets handed down from the mountaintop.

Taking all of this into account, I believe I’ll have the following bumper sticker made up in time for next fall’s midterms:

**“VOTE REPUBLICAN! We may not be perfect, but the other bunch is stone crazy.”**

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**RIP Mike Greenwell:** a good ballplayer and a good man.

**Octogenarians Can Solve Murders Too.**
https://spectator.org/democrat-policies-are-crazy-but-crazy-still-sells-see-nyc/