Reid J. Epstein

You know, I had somebody before the election tell me that if Trump won, that Democrats would be way more effed than they were last time, to sanitize that phrase a little bit. Thank you. And when I checked in with her... Last week, she said that it was worse than she anticipated, even more bad than they thought.

You know, I had somebody before the election tell me that if Trump won, that Democrats would be way more effed than they were last time, to sanitize that phrase a little bit. Thank you. And when I checked in with her... Last week, she said that it was worse than she anticipated, even more bad than they thought.

And I think there's a difference between the people who look at this and say like they only need to win two or three seats to win back the majority and the people who look at what has happened in Washington and the country over the last two weeks and change, right? Like Trump does not have a mathematical advantage in the government system.

And I think there's a difference between the people who look at this and say like they only need to win two or three seats to win back the majority and the people who look at what has happened in Washington and the country over the last two weeks and change, right? Like Trump does not have a mathematical advantage in the government system.

That's requisite to the types of actions that he's taken place since he's been president. And that's, I think, where some of this bifurcation has taken place. And because a lot of the Democrats came into this new Trump administration, I think, with an unrealistic anticipation of what he would do once he became the president.

That's requisite to the types of actions that he's taken place since he's been president. And that's, I think, where some of this bifurcation has taken place. And because a lot of the Democrats came into this new Trump administration, I think, with an unrealistic anticipation of what he would do once he became the president.

And they were clearly ill-prepared politically, certainly, for the types of actions that Trump has taken.

And they were clearly ill-prepared politically, certainly, for the types of actions that Trump has taken.

And the people who are making the case for freaking out, frankly, have been doing more freaking out over the last couple weeks, right? They were freaking out from the morning after the election, right? And their case is like not without merit, frankly. We saw what happened in the election. We saw kind of all of these demographics moving away from the party.

And the people who are making the case for freaking out, frankly, have been doing more freaking out over the last couple weeks, right? They were freaking out from the morning after the election, right? And their case is like not without merit, frankly. We saw what happened in the election. We saw kind of all of these demographics moving away from the party.

What none of the people who have been moved toward sort of what we would call an autopsy or a post-election review have wanted to discuss – has been kind of the origin of why all those things went the wrong way. And none of them want to talk about the idea of the fact or the reality that they all got behind a very unpopular president and basically told the American people that he wasn't too old.

What none of the people who have been moved toward sort of what we would call an autopsy or a post-election review have wanted to discuss – has been kind of the origin of why all those things went the wrong way. And none of them want to talk about the idea of the fact or the reality that they all got behind a very unpopular president and basically told the American people that he wasn't too old.

that he wasn't too frail, and on and on and on, and backed him until they didn't, by which point, you know, lots of these voters didn't believe them when they said anything else because of what they had said about Biden.

that he wasn't too frail, and on and on and on, and backed him until they didn't, by which point, you know, lots of these voters didn't believe them when they said anything else because of what they had said about Biden.

I think the bigger issue is that it's a vibes problem and what people think of Democrats. And that really goes back— farther than Biden, it goes back to Obama, when the party was seen as college professors drinking wine, being in urban enclaves, where the Democratic Party of FDR and Truman and Kennedy was much more of a working class party.

I think the bigger issue is that it's a vibes problem and what people think of Democrats. And that really goes back— farther than Biden, it goes back to Obama, when the party was seen as college professors drinking wine, being in urban enclaves, where the Democratic Party of FDR and Truman and Kennedy was much more of a working class party.

And there are so many affinity groups, sort of to use a phrase in vogue in some of these circles, in the Democratic coalition at this point. They had a discussion at the Democratic National Committee meeting over the weekend about whether to maintain a gender balance among their vice chair positions because some people might not consider themselves men or women.

And there are so many affinity groups, sort of to use a phrase in vogue in some of these circles, in the Democratic coalition at this point. They had a discussion at the Democratic National Committee meeting over the weekend about whether to maintain a gender balance among their vice chair positions because some people might not consider themselves men or women.

And so like those types of discussions – sort of percolate out into the broader culture of what it means to be a Democrat. Right. You know, nobody was actually watching the Democratic Party's meeting over the weekend. You were. You know, nobody who was not being paid to do so, I think, was watching it.

And so like those types of discussions – sort of percolate out into the broader culture of what it means to be a Democrat. Right. You know, nobody was actually watching the Democratic Party's meeting over the weekend. You were. You know, nobody who was not being paid to do so, I think, was watching it.