Local opinion: Where have all the Democrats gone?

The Democratic Party is favored to take the House and possibly the Senate in November. This is good news for those fed up with Donald Trump’s chaos and MAGA extremists.

Trump’s approval has plummeted to near-record lows for three straight months. A Fox News poll shows 53% of voters said they’d back the Democratic candidate compared with 46% favoring the Republican. While Trump is not on the ballot, his policies are. Democratic victories in November should be a “slam-dunk,” but will they?

During his second term, Trump has earned nearly total hatred from the left, and plenty from the right. He imposed a creed that all loyal Republicans recite the corrupting lie that the 2020 election was stolen — on pain of excommunication; otherwise, they are RINOs. Trump’s familial corruption has out-slimed the Biden family's. Trump staged reckless provocations to thrill a base that mistakes them for strength. After his second inauguration, lawfare, which the Biden administration started, escalated into an instrument of personal revenge.

Democrats are united under the “Hate Trump” banner, and many have embraced socialism, dressed up as "fairness." A wealth tax has gone from fringe to mandatory in Democratic primaries, sold on the lie that the rich don't pay taxes. This vitriol will not advance the safe and promising future which Americans want.

Behind the Trump-bashing lurks a genuinely radical program that would have been a nonstarter in your grandparents’ Democratic Party. Recent elections show Democrats have moved decidedly to left-favoring identity politics, and socialism. Today’s Democratic Party has a disconnect from what Americans generally care about. Rather than focusing on traditional party values and broader economics, advocates mobilize around shared experiences of marginalization within a specific constituency. The Democratic Party's gaze has drifted beyond the basic needs … and settled on a culture war that includes gender identity, racial quotas, DEI, bathrooms and bedrooms. When politics becomes only about identity, it carries real risks. This has cost the Democratic Party millions of voters who may never come back.

Diversity should be the nation's barometer, not its guiding star. Less than 1 percent of Americans identify as transgender. What percentage of those want to play sports? Victory for a minuscule slice of the population may fill the virtue cup, but it's not a win for the country.

During the last election, the pendulum of political thought swung to center-right in response to what the Democratic agenda offered. Rather than recognizing their error, the Party is moving further left-a trend that has resulted in a 35-year low approval.

In 2024, American voters had enough of this trend and made a huge departure by electing Donald Trump ... again. Trump's supporters point to precedents for everything he's done: lawfare against him, Biden family corruption, Democratic presidents lying without shame. But Trump goes to the extreme, and amplitude counts. He isn't the first president to break norms, but he broke them bigger, faster and more aggressively than anyone.

Where does that leave the rest of us? The world has changed so rapidly in the past two decades that most Americans struggle not only to make ends meet but also to make sense of things. Both parties have moved to the extreme. Those of us in the middle have lost faith in our leaders. There is an obligation to rebuild the trust both parties have destroyed. That means politics in which a Democrat can call a wealth tax a bad idea or be anti-abortion without being excommunicated, and a Republican can say the 2020 election wasn't stolen without being purged. It means treating Jew-hatred as disqualifying wherever it appears. And it means weighing issues on their merits, not by what Trump tweeted. You can be a socialist, even though it’s a bad idea, but be an honest one; don't sell it under the label of "standing up" to Mr. Trump.

In politics, authenticity is a key to victory. Democratic candidates need to emphasize the common ground they have with most of the electorate. We need honest leaders with courage and honesty, but most of all leadership and willingness to stand up to bigots and charlatans.