Alejandro Nina Duran is a first-year undergraduate student planning to study Economics and Public Policy. He is interested in history, American foreign policy, Latin American politics and the intersection of cinema and philosophy.
Well, the Babylon Bee has some competition on its horizon: The Democratic National Committee (DNC) has become a satire of itself. Since Democrats handed Donald Trump the win in November, Democratic leadership has gone back to the drawing board. However, they still “appear leaderless, rudderless, and divided.” Additionally, it appears they also have no collective understanding of how they lost, let alone how to win in the future. The DNC Leadership Forum was a moment for the future leaders of the Democratic Party to start grounding themselves in a coherent doctrine, deliver a strong message that could herald an end to Trumpism, and disassociate themselves from an Establishment increasingly perceived as corrupt and partisan. It should not have been an occasion for the very progressive virtue signaling and antics that cost them the election. But alas, Democrats continue to live in the la-la-land of foolhardy identity politics and the Oppression Olympics.
At the forum, Democrats reflected upon what the future of the party looked like, and as you can expect, it wasn’t pretty. If you haven’t gotten popcorn yet, I would highly advise it. Amid displays of the Oppression Olympics and subliminal identity politics, there were serious questions about how to reshape the party. Moderator Symone Sanders asked now-DNC chair Ken Martin felt about the Trump attack ad about then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ support taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery for federal inmates. Sanders proceeded to ask, “how should Democrats respond to this attack?” Instead of Martin distancing himself from a widely unpopular federal policy, Martin doubled down with a gushy response that “the Democratic Party has to live its values.” Yeesh. The Democratic Party continues to be out of touch with the American people.
Dr. Quintessa Hathaway headlined the DNC Leadership Forum with some of the best singing of 2025 with her tunes, and right next to her was Faiz Shakir, who could barely contain himself (the Weeknd better watch out). In the elections themselves, outgoing DNC chair Jamie Harrison gave a spiel on how the gender-inclusive voting process worked. His monologue was long, contrived, and headache-inducing: “our rules specify that when we have a gender non-binary candidate or officer, the non-binary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six officers must be gendered balanced. Our elected officers are currently two males, two females in order to be gender balanced we must elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender. So again, this is what we have to do for this vice chair race. We have to elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender.” Did you get that? Me neither.
Democrats continued to spew from the same worn-out playbook Americans left behind in 2024. When asked about then-Vice President Harris’ loss in November, the candidates were asked whether “racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris’ defeat?” They all threw their hands up in the same cringe-worthy manner. At least they can all agree on this, right? As candidates gave their opening pitch to the audience for DNC leadership roles, candidates continued to exhibit a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. One of the candidates based his speech on his “valiant protesting” of President Trump back in Trump’s first campaign. At least one person found his speech moving enough to vote for him. He did better than most of the other candidates. Other candidates who stepped up to the lectern did not disappoint with their cringeworthy race-grifting. Marilyn Davis’ opening statement called voters to vote for her because she was black. Similarly, Jeanna Repass emulated Kamala Harris by repeatedly saying, “I’m speaking!” but it failed to muster any votes behind her vision of the DNC being run by a strong, black woman. In the end, the white guy, Ken Martin, was elected as chair. If you haven’t noticed, the Democratic litmus test of who is the most woke is getting old.
Instead of the DNC having fruitful discussions surrounding the economy, immigration, and national security, we got a circus show instead. Pandering to ideologies and values that exclude most of America is not great optics. Neither is victimization. Charles Krauthammer once eloquently put it this way: “Identity politics is the mother’s milk of the Democratic Left.” If the Democrats want to have a solid gameplan for rallying the American people towards their party, they need to start by leaving identity politics and wokeism at the front door.
By Alejandro Nina Duran
