For generations, Democrats have portrayed themselves as the party of ordinary Americans—factory workers, waitresses, truck drivers, police officers, construction workers, and middle-class families trying to get ahead. Yet one of the most striking features of modern American politics is how often Democrat leaders, activists, and media allies seem genuinely baffled by the very people they claim to represent.

The latest example comes from Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse, whose reaction to President Trump’s appearance at a packed UFC event on the White House lawn last weekend revealed a familiar pattern among America’s cultural elites. To tens of millions of Americans, UFC is simply entertainment. It is competitive, exciting, patriotic, and increasingly mainstream. To Hesse and myriad other journalists and political commentators, however, its popularity seems to require explanation—as though they are studying the customs of a distant tribe.

That reaction says far more about elite America than it does about UFC fans, and few institutions better embody elite opinion than the modern Democrat Party.

The inability to understand ordinary Americans has become a recurring problem for Democrats. Consider one of the most famous campaign images in modern history. In 1988, Democrat presidential nominee Michael Dukakis climbed into a tank in an effort to project foreign policy credibility. Though the campaign intended the image to demonstrate Dukakis’s strength and command in order to reassure wary voters, the photograph instead became a political disaster.

To many Americans, Dukakis did not look like a commander-in-chief—he looked like Alfred E. Neuman from MAD magazine, wearing an oversized helmet and generally appearing out of his element. The embarrassing image became iconic because it captured something larger than a single campaign mistake: a cohort of American elites—consultants, strategists, and media professionals—who apparently thought the photo was a good idea.

The same kind of blindness occasionally appears among establishment Republicans as well. George H.W. Bush’s comments upon seeing a new and improved grocery store scanner became a symbol—fairly or unfairly—of a politician disconnected from everyday life. But while both parties have produced elite figures detached from ordinary concerns, the problem is far more pronounced today on the Left.

Indeed, many of the institutions that now shape Democrat politics are populated almost exclusively by people who live, work, and socialize within a remarkably narrow slice of America. They attend the same universities, read the same publications, and live in the same metropolitan areas. They follow the same social-media accounts. Their children attend the same schools, and their friends share the same political and cultural assumptions.

And increasingly, they seem unable to comprehend how other Americans think.

When Hillary Clinton dismissed millions of voters as a “basket of deplorables,” many Americans viewed the comment not as a gaffe but as a rare moment of honesty. It reflected a prevailing attitude among Democrats, and elites more broadly, that disagreement could be explained only by ignorance, prejudice, or moral deficiency.

President Biden repeatedly displayed a similar tendency. During the 2024 campaign (before he was ousted), he and his allies often portrayed concerns about illegal immigration, inflation, crime, and cultural change as either exaggerated or illegitimate, even as polling showed those issues dominating voters’ concerns. Time and again, Democrat leaders appeared surprised that Americans cared more about grocery prices and border security than about the priorities emphasized by elite institutions.

Vice President Kamala Harris often suffered from the same disconnect. Her public appearances frequently projected the impression that she was speaking to an audience of policy experts rather than to working Americans—when she was not donning fake accents, that is. Her campaign’s struggles were not merely ideological; they were cultural. Many voters simply concluded that she did not understand their lives.

The pattern extends well beyond politicians.

Millions of Americans attend NASCAR races, pack country music concerts, and watch UFC fights. Elite commentators scoff and express bewilderment in response. Millions more display American flags, fill church pews, and worry about rising crime and open borders. Too often, the response from elite circles is not curiosity but contempt.

The Democrat Party once excelled at connecting with ordinary Americans precisely because it better understood their views. Franklin Roosevelt, known as a “traitor to his class,” spoke the language of workers because he wanted them to be part of the Democrats’ coalition for generations. Harry Truman connected with voters because he shared many of their instincts. Even Bill Clinton possessed an intuitive feel for middle-class anxieties and aspirations.

Today’s Democrat coalition increasingly draws its leadership from elite universities, media organizations, nonprofits, foundations, government bureaucracies, and professional-class enclaves. These institutions exercise enormous cultural influence, but they are not representative of America as a whole.

As a result, Democrats increasingly mistake the views traded in faculty lounges, newsroom editorial meetings, and Washington policy conferences for the views held around kitchen tables. That confusion helps explain their shock at one political surprise after another, especially Trump’s victories in 2016 and 2024.

Democrat strategists express astonishment after yet another batch of election results defies their expectations. Panels of “experts” search for explanations, and reports are circulated that blame political circumstances or voters’ various “isms.” But the possibility that the Democrats have lost touch with ordinary Americans is rarely, if ever, considered.

A political movement cannot represent people it does not understand. And it cannot understand the views of many Americans, whom it increasingly views with a mixture of confusion, suspicion, and disdain. For a party that still considers itself the party of the people, that is a major problem it has yet to reckon with.

And it is also a problem for America as a whole. A healthy republic depends on officeholders who can understand—and respect—the culture and traditions of their fellow citizens, even when they do not share them. When America’s governing and cultural elites lose the ability to see the nation as it actually is, they make poorer decisions, deepen political divisions, and erode the mutual trust on which self-government depends. A republic cannot long endure if those who wield influence come to view ordinary Americans not as fellow citizens to be understood but as strangers to be belittled and ignored.

The post Of the Elite, By the Elite, For the Elite appeared first on The American Mind.



 

 

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An illegal alien faked injuries and used a Mexican ambulance to get into the United States, where he would later commit bank fraud by stealing food stamp benefits from poor Americans, Breitbart News has learned.

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President Donald Trump said Tuesday he would be willing to let Congress review his administration's emerging Iran agreement, as lawmakers from both parties press for more information about a deal intended to help formalize an end to the recent U.S.-Iran conflict.Asked...

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.

Jack Fowler: Speaking of war, Victor, Spencer Pratt says it’s war. 

On Friday, two things happened. One is his business mysteriously burned down. 

Victor Davis Hanson: I know it, it did. Not so mysteriously. I think some of his political opponents’ supporters did it, but who knows? 

Fowler: Yeah. But he also put out a concession video. 

I’m going to read this now. This is from RedState:

Watch it. They’ll wish the mail-ballot fraud scheme to elevate [Nithya] Raman had never taken place. 

Pratt says he’s moving on from the campaign phase of his mission to save Los Angeles to the next, more interesting phase, reminding people that his goal wasn’t to become mayor but to expose the corrupt machine and that he’s laser-focused on just that. 

“Do you think they can really get rid of me that easily?” says Pratt. “Hey, morons, I didn’t get into this for political power. I got into this to expose the corrupt machine. Nothing’s changed. You enjoy your worthless meetings in City Hall. I’ve been lighting you up every single day, and now I don’t have to worry about offending CNN viewers. 

“I don’t have campaign laws hamstringing me now. It’s war.” 

He made threats. He’s got some videos and documents that are going to be very harmful to one of the two candidates. 

Victor, I think he’s here to stay. I don’t know. What do you think? 

Hanson: Yeah, I think so. I think what he’s referring to is that every would-be whistleblower or discontented person is sending him material. He’s the person to do it, and he will air it, and that’s going to give him a lot of exposure and clout. 

But when you run for office in Los Angeles, or California in general, what he’s basically saying is this, the subtext is this: Is it so hard to say that if you want to be a voter, then you don’t just go to get a building permit or apply for disability and give your name, and they mail it to you? 

You just register to vote. You go to a state office, and you take the initiative, and you register. Then you give an address. You show a California driver’s license, which is now not required. You should have to have a driver’s license or a state-issued ID, one or the other. 

They mail it. You give them an address. They check it on a computer to see if you’re actually at that address, and they mail you one ballot. 

Then you take that ballot, and if you want to fill it out, we could call it an absentee ballot. Maybe you would be ill. But more likely, you should go to the polls, and you should show your California driver’s license again. 

And we don’t do that. 

But we do if you want to get disability. I must have been to 40 medical procedure appointments for this latest bout with cancer. I’m talking about blood draws. I’m talking about X-rays, CT scans, and lung-volume tests. 

Every place I went: “Can I see your ID? Can I see your ID? Can I see your ID?” 

But not to vote? Not to vote? 

That’s just crazy. 

So, what he’s saying is, you people conduct elections, and you have no idea who’s voting. You give licenses to people here illegally, and that license is used to get a registered vote, but you don’t even check if they’re at the address. You don’t even check if they know English. 

Nobody has to know. How could you vote and not know the language of the country? By making an X. You can do that in California with a witness. 

And then what’s so hard? India, you’re talking about India has 1.4 billion people. They don’t take a week to tally the ballots. 

And what’s the good of saying, “Well, we authenticate”? 

Well, you have to authenticate it because you have so many laxities built into this corrupt system. And even then, when you did that in the 2024 election, you only rejected 0.09% of the ballots. So, you’re not really auditing them. You’re letting them go right by you. 

I think the election exposed that California has reached critical mass at this point. People said to themselves, “This state is dysfunctional. It can’t conduct honest, transparent elections with readily tabulated votes. Nobody trusts it anymore. It has no confidence from the population, and we understand what’s happening.” 

300,000 to 500,000 people are leaving every year who are taxpayers in the middle- and upper-middle-income brackets. 

When they go, then we have more entitlements, and more people come into the state, either legally or illegally, who are impoverished. And there’s less and less money to pay for more and more people who want federal, state, and local help in California. 

And therefore, we’re going to do what? We’re going to raise the gas tax. We’re going to raise the income tax. We’re going to raise the property tax. 

Then more people are going to go, and more people are going to come in to get more benefits. That’s where we’re in a doom loop. 

And it’s not going to get better. 

It is a Third World country. It’s falling apart. 

And when you add $250 billion of fraud and stolen money—and I must say, trying to be as objective as I can, I’ve been following that story—I would conservatively suggest that, based on what’s in the paper and the names and online pictures of the people who have been arrested, 60% to 75% are immigrants. 

So, that’s not a good look. 

People come over here, and instead of kissing the soil and saying, “Thank God I’m in the United States. I owe so much to my host,” it’s, “Oh man, there’s nobody here. These people are stupid. They give away stuff. I’m going to get mine.” 

That’s the wrong attitude. 

Fowler: Hey, we flew them over here, even at our own expense, so they could then rip us off. It’s easy to connect those dots. 

There’s an online publication out of Fresno, Victor. I coincidentally saw it the other day. I think it’s GV Wire. And it had an article by two nonprofit leaders from a Catholic organization. 

They’re trying to do the Lord’s work, and we’re hurting in the Central Valley now. There are fewer donors, and the reason is people are leaving. 

Hanson: They’re leaving. Just last week, two people that I would say are in the high-income brackets—they pay a ton of taxes—basically said, “I’m done.” 

As one person said, “With the federal income tax and Medicare and the Obamacare and California’s 13.3% income tax, I pay 58% of my income. And I get the worst roads. I get gangbangers. I get high crime. I get filthy streets. I get homelessness. And I get elections like they have in Los Angeles. 

“And we’re sitting on a bonanza of gas and oil, and we have $6.50 gas. We have the second- or third-largest forestry industry in the country, and we let it burn down. We have 60 million trees that burned up, and we drove everything out except maybe two companies. 

“We have rare-earth minerals. We have everything. It’s the most richly endowed state in the country and the most beautiful, and it’s the most ill-governed.” 

So, they’re leaving. 

And I don’t know what’s going to happen. You get the impression that people want them to go. It’s like the Seattle mayor said, “Bye-bye.” 

In “The Dying Citizen,” I quoted an immigrant who said, “We’re so happy you people are leaving because you’re making room for us, and we’re taking over.” 

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

"Kennedy, I think, would be in a position to attract some support nationally."

'Identifying high-risk individuals'

An individual allegedly involved in a thwarted terrorist attack aimed at Sunday’s UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House parroted Democrat conspiracy theories about President Trump protecting child predators connected to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to federal court documents. The revelation came on Tuesday, when Fox News reported on how the FBI and […]

The Department of Justice on Tuesday announced that 15 individuals affiliated with two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups have been federally indicted on charges of conspiring to impede or injure federal officers.

“Today, a federal indictment was unsealed charging 15 defendants with conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers and other charges related to efforts of two Minneapolis-based Antifa groups that violently opposed the enforcement of federal law in our state,” Daniel Rosen, U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, said during a press conference.

Minneapolis has drawn national attention in recent months amid ongoing clashes involving federal law enforcement. The unrest followed reporting from independent journalist Nick Shirley, who exposed alleged widespread hospice fraud in the city.

In response to those allegations, the administration of President Donald Trump directed multiple federal agencies—including the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice—to investigate and pursue those responsible.

Federal agents involved in those efforts have since faced continued scrutiny and protests. Earlier this spring, two deadly shootings occurred during confrontations involving demonstrators who were impeding Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations.

The shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents while they attempted to impede deportation operations in February, have since caused even more widespread scrutiny against federal agents, mobilizing the organized Antifa presence in the city.

Venezuela's state-owned energy company Corpoelec and General Electric (GE) Vernova on Monday signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the recovery of Venezuela's rundown power grid — which was left in a dire state after decades of socialist mismanagement.

The post Venezuela Signs Deal with General Electric to Restore Nation’s Power Grid appeared first on Breitbart.

Tuesday on ABC's "The View,"  Vice President JD Vance defended President Donald Trump over the administration's handling of the Epstein files.

The post Vance: ‘Trump Literally Reported Jeffrey Epstein to the Police’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Tuesday on ABC's "The View," Vice President JD Vance defended President Donald Trump over a comment he made about inflation.

The post Vance Defends Trump on Affordability — ‘The Idea that Republicans Caused the Affordability Problem Is a Hoax’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Tamura Jotaro, CEO of Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), predicted that it will take “at least a couple of weeks, or if not a month” for shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to return to pre-war levels.

The post Tanker Companies Say Hormuz Traffic Will Take ‘Weeks’ to Return to Normal appeared first on Breitbart.

'She's getting her sparkle back'