It is mind-boggling at times that, even nearly one year after Kamala Harris's epic, landslide election loss to Donald Trump, most Democrats still cannot see how far out of touch they are with the majority of Americans.
There are many reasons why they cannot see this. One of the most prominent is that they exist entirely within their bubbles. They don't talk to voters who disagree with them, and most of them won't do an adversarial media interview. As Katie Porter recently demonstrated, even friendly interviews seem adversarial to them if they are asked a single follow-up question.
Put simply, they are out of touch with America because they only speak to and with a tiny sliver of Americans.
It brings to mind the famous apocryphal quote from film critic Pauline Kael in 1972: 'I can't believe Nixon won. I don't know anyone who voted for him.' Her actual quote wasn't this; it was much worse:
‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.'
And that is exactly the mindset not just of New York liberal elites today, but also elected Democrats even in red states.
Believe it or not, there still are some lingering remnants of introspection and self-reflection on the left, however. Yesterday, courtesy of Dave Weigel and Semafor, we learned that a liberal group known as Welcome conducted a six-month 'autopsy' of the 2024 election.
The results are about as obvious as any post-mortem could be.
According to a new “autopsy” of their 2024 campaign strategy, Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric.
— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 27, 2025
They’ve grown their support only among self-described “white liberals” while losing ground with all other voters. https://t.co/Y5Ug9nt1IQ
What? Democrats are only popular with white hippie boomers and AWFLs?
You don't say!
Here is more from Weigel's report:
Democrats have badly weakened their party with left-leaning ideas and rhetoric, growing only with self-described 'white liberals' while losing ground with other voters, according to a new center-left group’s report shared first with Semafor.
The group, called Welcome, consulted hundreds of thousands of voters over six months for its broad findings, including that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party is 'out of touch.' Most voters, the group found, believe the party over-prioritizes issues like “protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans,' and 'fighting climate change' while not caring about 'securing the border' or 'lowering the rate of crime.'
I'm shocked. SHOCKED, I say.
In his post about the report, Weigel shared an even more hilarious conclusion that he reached based on Welcome's findings.
First in @semafor: A new study of Democrats' rotten brand, endorsed by Biden's former CM and a former DCCC chair, blames not "the groups" but whole party for embracing identity politics and left-wing ideas.
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) October 27, 2025
The way out: Return to Obama 2012/Bernie 2016. https://t.co/JiUqvnkDg0
OOF.
Obama 2012 was not Obama 2008. He campaigned exclusively on racial division and identity politics, not 'hope and change.' But, I suppose, he didn't campaign on the idea that men can get pregnant or children are born 'in the wrong bodies,' so maybe that's a tiny step in the right direction.
As for Sanders, he is a comical figure in national politics, and not just among conservatives. Everyone can see right through his hypocrisy about 'democratic socialism' and 'the oligarchy.'
But Weigel is a Bernie Bro, so it makes sense that he would reach that conclusion.
Every Bernie Bro screams silently.
— Stacey (@ScotsFyre) October 27, 2025
And yes. Please run a Sanders style campaign nationwide after we see what Sanders like policies do to NYC.
Do it. https://t.co/zD8fuv5mIp
Sure, that'll sell in New York City, where Zohran Mamdani is set to win the mayoral race and complete New York's decline into John Carpenter fiction.
But New York City is not a swing state. And America does NOT vote the way that city does.
If you're worried that Democrats might learn from this report, however, fear not. Welcome got a lot of pushback from the radical progressives, who offered this prescription for success:
Progressives have their own theories of why Democrats started losing. At Persuasion 2025, a one-day conference organized by Way to Win and Swayable last month, strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio argued that Democrats were beset by 'polling-ism' which told them that voters had static opinions and responded to messages they agreed with.
Democrats didn’t need to move to the center or use more centrist language, she said; they needed to re-frame issues. One idea: Instead of calling the GOP’s tax reform package a 'big ugly bill,' they might call it 'the MAGA murder law.'
The MAGA murder law? Seriously? THAT'S your plan?
Good Lord, are Democrats not violent enough already?
But that is who the party will listen to, based on all available evidence.
Meanwhile, we can all rest assured that Democrats will continue to ignore traditional liberals who are aghast at what the party has become.
I find these autopsies infuriating. There were hundreds, thousands of liberals screaming that the left was losing people. Did they care then? No. Did they talk to us? No. They called us bigots.
— Bridget Phetasy (@BridgetPhetasy) October 27, 2025
Do they care now? Also no. https://t.co/YZCOAyIFLU
They don't care because they think they are winning on issues when they are only talking to -- and listening to -- six percent of the country.
I don't think D's have a clue how badly the trans issue hurt them, the R's did a great job of weaponizing this (Tampon Tim for just one expl). Trans deserve rights but not our world altered to suit them (see trans "women" in sports, the ridiculousness of posting your pronouns). https://t.co/ADha2fxTSS
— Obi-jon Kenobi (@KenobiObi69370) October 27, 2025
That kind of talk will get you kicked out of the Democrat Party in 2025.
On the other side of the aisle, conservatives had a good old time with Welcome's Captain Obvious findings.
https://t.co/pemqM0syiH pic.twitter.com/eYkDChdkSW
— Chris Rosenthal (@cdotrosenthal) October 28, 2025
You don’t say…. https://t.co/3epKLkfiWU pic.twitter.com/KvmGoAHgVF
— A Useful Idiot (@AUsefuIldiot) October 27, 2025
@FrankLuntz https://t.co/mIEnj5MA9d pic.twitter.com/rFWIMEA4gq
— MaryAnnNotGinger 💋 (@MAnotGinger) October 27, 2025
As for Weigel's proposed solution, that earned plenty of laughs as well.
“The way out of identity politics and socialism is … identity politics and socialism”
— Cody Penn-Dent (@codypd) October 27, 2025
There’s a winner.
"We needs to distance ourselves from left-wing ideas by....embracing Obama and Bernie." pic.twitter.com/LpMehFkcTT
— Panic Chicken (@panicchicken01) October 27, 2025
“out with left-wing ideas, in with bernie 2016!”
— Ty Schalter (@tyschalter) October 27, 2025
lmao
Hey, what happened to 'We're not going back'?
Ultimately, it is pretty on-brand for the party that has completely lost touch with a majority of voters to require a six-month study to tell them WHY they have lost those voters -- and then completely ignore the results.
Democrats will continue to celebrate victories in far-left pockets of America like New York, but it's pretty safe to say that they are nowhere NEAR finding their way back to being a viable national political party anytime soon.
But at least, like Pauline Kael, the left can take consolation in 2028 in the fact that they don't know a single person who voted for JD Vance.
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