Hey, maybe the utter clubbing the Democrats suffered last night will actually wake the party up, you know? Maybe they’ll figure out that you have to run toward, not away from, your own party’s accomplishments, even when it’s scary to do so. Maybe they’ll figure out that you can’t clam up about inequality and expect young people to bother showing up to vote for you, or dodge immigration reform and expect to win huge landslides among Hispanic voters. Maybe they’ll stop abjectly refusing to stake out a firm position on just about everything and realize that the long-promised “demographic shift” isn’t actually going to benefit the party unless it, you know, does something to appeal to the emerging demographics (and, no, being cool with two dudes getting married isn’t “doing” anything). Maybe the success of populist economic ballot initiatives last night, even in solidly red states, will convince them that actually doing something for poor and middle class folks is both good policy and good politics. Maybe they’ll finally stop trying so hard to turn every election into a contest between the party of rich white dudes and, ah, the other party of rich white dudes. Maybe we’ll finally see some real—
The Democratic insider who described election night as a “bloodbath” also used the tidal wave metaphor — and that person laid blame for the wipeout squarely at Obama’s feet.
“This is a tsunami. Heads will roll at 1600. And if they don’t, shame,” the insider said, adding, “The president has 60 days to clean house, regrow his spine, and lay out an aggressive, centrist agenda. If he fails at any of those, he might as well just start writing his memoir.”
Oh, OK. Business as usual then? That’s great. I’m sure tacking even harder to the right will work out this time.
The Foreign Exchanges Companion 
The stupid reality is that the Democratic Party shifts right when it loses and shifts left when it wins. This pattern has been obvious for decades. Thus my one note symphony that we leftists must deliver a series of victories, on a silver platter and gussied up with bands and dancing girls with a card that reads “here is the victory we have won for you, you’re welcome The Left,” as the only sure path the left influence within the party. That and my campaign to elect two thousand dog catchers and some allied officials so that by 2045 we should have a deep bench of Congressmen and Governors in place to unveil the Workers’ Anarcho-Academic paradise that this country deserves.
My friends disagree.
They don’t say it this way, but they dream of a rapid decapitation that destroys the Democrats just enough for our cronies to step in an re-inflate the party after two, maybe three cycles of Republican misrule that will serve to whet the public’s thirst for our ultimate triumph.