Gloria Romero: Memo to My Party

As a lifetime Democrat, I am horrified to see a Democratic Party I once revered—a party that sent us to the moon and back and inspired a new generation of youth like me with messaging replete with opportunity, hope, optimism, and belief in working-class Americans—now on the path to irrelevance and political extinction across major swaths of our country.

It’s been called a political earthquake; a political tsunami; a Red Dawn. I’ll just be blunt: I’ll call it the abject stupidity of the Party elites who have embraced the vilest expressions of woke-ism and an abdication to the promise of education as the key to the American Dream that still matters to so many, particularly Latinos and African-Americans, and the commitment to ensuring the public safety for all.  Even Democratic strategist James Carville has—finally—called out Democrats on our pending national suicide if this is what continues to define Democrats today.

Rather than leading with conviction and strength, today’s Democratic Party has become so unrecognizable that I—the former Democratic Majority Leader of the California Senate–actually made the extraordinary choice to endorse a pro-school choice Republican candidate in last month’s California gubernatorial election as a way of warning my Party that it is leaving too many Democrats behind.  And, like what has transpired nationally, even here in California we will continue to launch The Resistance and seek alternative candidates irrespective of party affiliation. I was shocked to see my little endorsement sending ripple effects across the nation because as a true-blue Democrat I was willing to call out my own Party on the critical issue of education and the plight of poor, minority children trapped in failing schools by a Democratic Governor and Legislature willingly held hostage by the money fed them by education unions and special interests keeping our children trapped therein.

Today’s Democratic Party has lost its way–and we know it. Given Tuesday’s election results, I feel vindicated that other Democrats just like me are willing to put our families, kids, and communities first and walk away from an initial behind our names (e.g., a D, an R, an I) and just do the right—and sane thing!  For too long, Democrats have foolishly suffered the political courage of lemmings–blindly running off the cliff guided by wokism. Democrats are living in a modern-day Jonestown-like cult where the Kool-aid we are being asked to drink.

Consider some of Tuesday’s results:

Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Party insider and Clintonista Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial election.  Not only was Youngkin elected, but a Black Lt. Governor –Winsome Sears–and a Latino Attorney General—Jason Miyares– are the new faces of Virginia. Their legislative House of Delegates also flipped 51-49 with the defeat of some Democrats.  That was a sea change, given that President Joe Biden had won by 10 percentage points just a year earlier.

In New Jersey—a state so Blue and part of the Democratic Machine that no one followed it, the Republican gubernatorial candidate nearly eked out a win in one of the most taxed states in the nation.  A truck driver beat the arrogant New Jersey Senate President with only $153!  What is significant here is that this isn’t the Deep South (where Democratic operatives claimed that a bunch of racists voted in Virginia) but right across the river from Blue New York state—voters who, most likely, see the complete demise of a once beautiful and safe New York under Democratic leadership and they don’t want that in New Jersey.

In Buffalo, New York, the socialist candidate endorsed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders trails the more moderate Democrat who ran as a write-in candidate after losing the primary earlier this year.  Once sane legislators have completely become afraid of the socialists that they have run over to embrace them to say claim that “we are with you” as they facilitate the leap off the cliff.  Both New York Senators Schumer—the Majority Leader of the Senate–and ever-flip-flopping Senator Gillibrand—both gave their support to a new woke wave they have been trying to birth—not out of ideology, but their own spinelessness that the socialists will come after their seats if they don’t commit political suicide first. 

In Minneapolis—an overwhelmingly Democratic city and Ground Zero in the “defund the police” movement, and the very city where George Floyd was horrifically murdered, voters soundly rejected a proposed city charter amendment to not only defund the police, but to abolish its police force!

In Seattle—where its ridiculous leaders once hailed a “summer of love” as its own city burned, woke officials suffered defeat and a Republican City Attorney was elected.

In a Texas special election which is 73% Latino, the Republican candidate defeated the Democratic candidate—signaling that Latinos are sick and tired of being told they belong to their Democratic masters.

And to top it all off:  The Atlanta Braves won the World Series in Atlanta—yes, the same southern city Major League Baseball, a delusional defeated gubernatorial candidate, Stacey Abrams, and the entire Democratic Party, claimed was a city of hate due to efforts to tighten voter security.  Did it suddenly become less racist since the last baseball game or did they finally realize how ridiculous they looked?

Wow!  What a night to jump-start a new political year leading up to the 2022 midterm elections where out-of-touch Border Czar Vice President Kamala Harris predicted that Tuesday would be a bellwether for things to come.  On that, she’s right.

So here are some notes to my Party, a memo to WAKE UP, reverse course, and get back to standing up for “the little guy” and everyday families once again.  Otherwise, more and more Democrats will willingly walk away from a growing irrelevant, insane Party—and the “leaders” who claim to lead us because of their campaign war chests.

1).  Wokism is dead and The Great Awakening is upon us.  After only ten months of seeing the Biden-Harris Administration in action, 71% think the country is on the wrong track, a third of Democrats don’t want Biden to seek re-election, and his poll numbers are in the toilet.  Buyer’s remorse is real and Plan B, Vice President Kamala Harris, has shown she cannot pick up the torch that back room operatives manipulated to be handed to her, and turn the ship around.  The Biden-Harris Administration’s complete capitulation to the most extreme elements of the Party while abdicating any representation for working families has backfired and voters marched to the polls to start taking their country back—even in Seattle’s infamous Chop Zone first formed during the so-called Summer of Love.  Pronouns were soundly rejected in favor of kitchen table issues. Among the 1 in 4 Virginia voters who said education was the most important issue facing voters, Youngkin won by 11 points.

2). Parents Matter. Parents turned the tide in Virginia even after the Biden-Harris Administration threatened to unleash the Department of Justice on them if they spoke out, acted out at their local school board meetings.  But rather than succumbing to the fear of being labeled a “domestic terrorist”, they organized and Youngkin validated rightful concerns over curriculum gone too far and became age inappropriate for too many children.  But rather than embracing parents, Democrats in Virginia shamed them, choosing to ignore parents and “close the deal” with the AFT President Randi Weingarten campaigned alongside Terry McAuliffe.  In California, the Democratic Party is hitched to the NEA affiliate, the CA Teachers’ Association. Denied a seat at the table, their kid’s schools forcibly shut down, their children forcibly seated in front of Zoom cameras as the “new classrooms”, parents stood up, fought back—and won!

3). Don’t defund the police.  What a stupid idea, and yet, following the murder of George Floyd, Democrats—led by woke idiots—kneeled down, marched, cheered the burning of police precincts, small businesses, and looting of main streets across America.  Yet, in Minneapolis—the very city where George Floyd was killed and an overwhelmingly Democratic city, voters rejected the bid to not only defund the police but abolish it.  This is a warning across the nation.  Here in California, the California Democratic Party is entertaining a resolution to refuse any donations from law enforcement.  How stupid.  56% voted against it—despite the ACLU and Moveon.org pumping in big money to support that boneheaded move.  In Democratic city after Democratic city, crime is up—murder up 65% in two years in Minneapolis   Here in Los Angeles, murder has skyrocketed and is up double digits.

4).  The party ‘Leaders” have no clothes or coat tails.  All the “big guys “were sent in:  from Biden, to Obama, to Harris, to Jill Biden, to failed candidate Stacy Abrams who still thinks she won the Governorship in the adjacent state.  The voters rejected them all.  Now Harris will have to eat her words that this week is the harbinger of 2022, 2024. The debacle in Afghanistan, a southern border in crisis, soaring inflation and questions about Joe Biden’s age and mental capacity and Harris’ failure to find her way to a southern border to even pretend to lead on rightful concerns over undocumented immigration have contributed to a spiraling downward trend in approval of the Biden-Harris Administration that did a Frankensteinian lurch to the far left corners of a political platform.  Over 2/3 of Democratic voters now say they don’t want Biden to be the 2024 nominee and not too many want Plan B—Kamala Harris—either.  Senator Joe Manchin, are you listening? Anyone?

5). Retire the White Sheets, Tiki Torches, Use of Blackface, and Stop Blowing Their Own Dog Whistles.

Remember, Democrats were once upon a time Dixiecrats, and today’s Democratic Party has become too flirtatious with all things past.  Democrats need to stop it.  While practices and outcomes of racism and sexism is by no means non-existent in American life, Democratic knee-jerk blame of racism in any outcome or position they don’t like has grown weary.  The victories in Virginia and across the country are not a “Delta variant of Covid” disease as one CNN pundit tried to spin it on election night.

In fact, recognize that a broad coalition needs to form—not based on race, but issues.  It is not lost on me that 55% of Latinos voted for Youngkin, motivated by their top concern:  education.  Blacks—unmotivated by McAuliffe—didn’t turn out.

All the name calling by Democrats and their partners in the deception—mainstream media outlets from the Los Angeles Times to CNN—won’t stop a ship recognizing it has hit a political iceberg and is starting to realign and turn around.  There are no Black faces of white supremacy.  Stop it.

It’s not Trump.  It’s not January 6^th.  It’s still the economy, injected with a massive dose of ideological and political delusion. Massive supply shortages, soaring inflation, rising gas and food prices played impacted voters. People are jumping ship as gasoline prices jump, and Building Back Better has become a pipe dream.

Stop trying to find and blame a bogeyman and an “insurrection” that never materialized.  McAuliffe tried running against Trump—and got a whooping.  In fact, rather than defeating Trump, America First policies and values are gaining strength in light of the Biden-Harris failures in Afghanistan, energy independence, and capitulation to globalism and China.  Voters are not right wing conspiracists but everyday Americans going to the polls to hire or defeat their leaders.  Candidates need to run on their own records and Democrats need to undergo emergency psychoanalysis and therapy to figure out who they are and what the Party is even supposed to stand for.  On this, Senator Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema have been alone in offering some dose of sanity.

Look, I’m still a Democrat. Presumably, so are hundreds of thousands of voters across the nation who willingly bucked Party elites and idiots to do the right thing on Tuesday and dare to walk off the Democratic Party Plantation that has lost its way.  Before we become extinct—led by everyday Moms, parents, Latinos and others—we have a chance to address that pesky climate change issue.  But in this case, we don’t have to fly anyone in private jets to Scotland—we just need to do a political temperature check to understand that the real climate change taking place is the political temperature so many sensible Democrats are rejecting.

Sadly, national Democrats are still in denial, buckling down on stupid rather than changing course.  2022 has started.  There’s still time to change, but I’m not optimistic.