Democrats Stare Into the Abyss

Democrats won’t learn lessons from losing the 2024 presidential election, or at least Sunny Hostin won’t. As the staunchly racist co-host ABC’s The View, Hostin’s rage flared during Thursday’s episode as she lashed at Latino voters for supporting President-elect Trump. She repeatedly insisted that they only supported Trump because of their “misogyny and sexism.” She also suggested those worried about the economy didn’t know what they were experiencing. Anti-Trump Republican co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin seemed to be finally embracing her new role as the one to explain Republican voters to the rest of them. She implored the cast and Democrats writ-large to do a postmortem of the Biden-then-Harris campaign to figure out where things went wrong; breaking down the issues that matter to voters and they were deaf to. Despite Republicans being the victors in at all levels of the federal government, Hostin declared that it was Republicans who needed the self-reflection: FARAH GRIFFIN: I think a lot of Democrats missed the moment. They were looking at the micro and not the macro – HOSTIN: Do you think that the Republicans missed the moment? What about a postmortem on the Republican Party, which is the Trump Party right now? FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, they just swept, though. “They won, but they're morally bankrupt!” Hostin shouted in her impotent rage. On the issue of the terrible Biden economy and average Americans being unable to make ends meet, uber-wealthy Hostin insisted those people were too stupid to know what they were experiencing: FARAH GRIFFIN: No one who’s struggling to make ends meet at the table like, ‘how am I going to pay this bill?’ cares what Wharton professors say about the economy. HOSTIN: That’s because they’ve been bombarded with misinformation and disinformation.     When talking about the border, Hostin’s racial resentment really showed. In response to Farah Griffin noting that “Latinos in Texas, a district that's 97 percent Latino went 75 percent for Donald Trump,” Hostin instinctually shouted out “misogyny” like it was a Pavlovian response, and kept doubling down on it: FARAH GRIFFIN: And finally, we talk a lot about these different demographics and these assumptions of how they’re going to go. Latinos in Texas, a district that's 97 percent Latino went 75 percent for Donald Trump. Why?  It’s on – HOSTIN: Misogyny. That’s why. FARAH GRIFFIN: No! It's on the border! HOSTIN: It’s misogyny. FARAH GRIFFIN: The border crisis is on their doorstep! And they were begging people to care about it for years. We need to take some lessons – HOSTIN: Misogyny and sexism, that's what that was. FARAH GRIFFIN: The lessons are not misogyny and sexism. Responding to a clip of Hostin’s comments on X, Fox News national correspondent Bill Melugin figured out she was talking about Starr County, TX. “Wow,” he wrote. He then gave the facts: “Starr County voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016.” As KSAT reported, “In 2016, Starr County voted for Hillary Clinton with a percentage of 79.1 to Donald Trump’s 19%, according to Politico. Joe Biden won 52.1% of Starr County’s vote in 2020, and Trump won 47.1%.”   Wow. Sunny Hostin claims the reason Starr County, TX, a 97% Hispanic county on the border in the RGV, swung 75 points to Trump this election, is due to their “misogyny” and “sexism”. Starr County voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in 2016. https://t.co/YRluBa0Ptx — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 7, 2024   With Trump’s win finally sinking in, co-host Joy Behar was distraught and she denounced America. “We lost the Senate, the Supreme Court, the executive branch, the House is on the verge of going to him. It's pathetic! There are no checks and balances!” she whined. “A completely intelligent qualified woman lost to a guy who's simulating sex with a microphone. I mean, come on, America!” Behar suggested she was feeling more depressed about it now that her “Valium” had worn off. Continuing the bashing of America, Hostin lamented that “this country missed out on [Harris’s] leadership.” “This country missed out on the leadership of moving forward, not going back, the leadership of someone that was trying to unify this country in a way that I think this country really needs...” she said. Despite Harris losing in a humiliating fashion, Hostin laughably boasted that “she certainly met the moments” and “exhibited a grace towards [Trump] that he didn't deserve.” The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View November 7, 2024 11:05:28 a.m. Eastern (…) JOY BEHAR: I'd like to be positive, but today I don't feel -- yesterday I felt better. Maybe it was the Valium. [Laughter] But today, I feel like – We lost the Senate, the Supreme Court, the executive branch, the House is on the verge of going to him. It's pathetic! There are no checks and balances! A completely intelligent qualified woman lost to a guy who's simulating sex with a microphone. I mean, come on, America! [Applause] SUNNY HOSTIN: Yeah. I know. You know, I feel that – I was saddened when I saw her, primarily because this is the kind of leadership we could have had. And that's what I felt walking away from it, like this country missed out on that type of leadership. This country missed out on the leadership of moving forward, not going back, the leadership of someone that was trying to unify this country in a way that I think this country really needs and it's just going to become more divisive under someone like Donald Trump. So, while I think she certainly met the moments, and she was graceful, a grace – She exhibited a grace towards him that he didn't deserve. (…) 11:07:31 a.m. eastern ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I do think that in this postmortem that needs to happen with Democrats, they need to think about why wasn’t she given more lead time, why didn't Biden give her six months or a year to run? But there’s bigger pictures.  That’s a micro; there are some macro issues here. The fact that the nation elected somebody like Donald Trump who -- even people who voted for him – I talk to so many of these people who will say, ‘I don't like him, I don't like the things he says, but I felt like my life was better under him.’ I think that we – I think a lot of Democrats missed the moment. They were looking at the micro and not the macro – HOSTIN: Do you think that the Republicans missed the moment? What about a postmortem on the Republican Party, which is the Trump Party right now? BEHAR: I was just about to say that. FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, they just swept, though. I've been talking about what I'd like to see from the Republican Party. HOSTIN: They won, but they're morally bankrupt! FARAH GRIFFIN: But America just gave them – So let me just make my point here. So, you have people talking about, ‘well, how did she win Michigan?’ Cause Democrats are saying, ‘she should have talked more about Gaza.’ No, union halls were empty. Dearborn went for Donald Trump. This is not about a micro issue like Gaza, it’s people saying, ‘the cost of living is too high, the wages are too low, my life felt better under him.’ And I know what we’ll say, ‘Goldman Sachs says the economy will do better under her. The analysts at UPenn and Wharton –’ BEHAR: We’ll see. FARAH GRIFFIN: No one who’s struggling to make ends meet at the table like, ‘how am I going to pay this bill?’ cares what Wharton professors say about the economy. HOSTIN: That’s because they’ve been bombarded with misinformation and disinformation. [Crosstalk] FARAH GRIFFIN: But – Just one more thing, I want to say. This issue of abortion, which I hope we can unpack more. There are a lot of women who cared about abortion, but they were in states like Pennsylvania where they don't have an ultra-restrictive abortion law. They were voting more because pocketbook issues matter more than if a woman in Alabama is able to get an abortion. HOSTIN: But they’re going to do worse under a Trump administration! The only people that are going to do well are the millionaires and the billionaires. FARAH GRIFFIN: And finally, we talk a lot about these different demographics and these assumptions of how they’re going to go. Latinos in Texas, a district that's 97 percent Latino went 75 percent for Donald Trump. Why?  It’s on – HOSTIN: Misogyny. That’s why. FARAH GRIFFIN: No! It's on the border! HOSTIN: It’s misogyny. FARAH GRIFFIN: The border crisis is on their doorstep! And they were begging people to care about it for years. We need to take some lessons – HOSTIN: Misogyny and sexism, that's what that was. FARAH GRIFFIN: The lessons are not misogyny and sexism. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Knock, knock. Who’s there? Oh my gosh, it’s Whoopi! (…)

With his usual amount of pretentiousness and faux solemnity, MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell kicked off Wednesday’s edition of The Last Word by attempting to wax poetic about how Frederick Douglass would have supported Kamala Harris and how “some white men” do not share his belief that a woman can be president of the United States. Douglass has nothing to do with the choice of Donald Trump or Harris. The only reason to invoke him is to make some nonsensical argument about how a universally admired historical figure would support your current and unrelated partisan agenda, which is exactly what O’Donnell tried to do, “Frederick Douglass would be so proud and admiring of Kamala Harris. He did not just fight for the right to vote for black men, when only white men could vote. He also fought for the right to vote for all women. When he was editor of the newspaper, the North Star, Frederick Douglass wrote, ‘We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.’”      Stretching to the point where most people would hurt themselves, O’Donnell continued, “That was a very unpopular opinion among white men in this country at that time and remains an unpopular opinion among some white men in this country to this day. It may be that not enough people in the country believe in the full equality of women to elect a woman president of the United States.” Attacking the exact voters you need to win over in the most personal ways may strike most people as unwise, but Lawrence O’Donnell is not most people. Instead, he continued with his forced Douglass-Harris connection, “Frederick Douglass would have seen the election of Kamala Harris to vice president of the United States four years ago as real progress. Frederick Douglass knew that progress did not mean the end of struggle.” Not only is O’Donnell attacking the character of the white men who voted for Trump, his thesis has the added demerit of being wrong. Trump did better with just about every possible demographic, including women, than he did four years ago. Does O’Donnell think women don’t believe “in the full equality of women”? Here is a transcript for the November 6 show: MSNBC The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell 11/6/2024 10:01 PM ET LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: Frederick Douglass would be so proud and admiring of Kamala Harris. He did not just fight for the right to vote for black men, when only white men could vote. He also fought for the right to vote for all women. When he was editor of the newspaper, the North Star, Frederick Douglass wrote, “We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.”  That was a very unpopular opinion among white men in this country at that time and remains an unpopular opinion among some white men in this country to this day. It may be that not enough people in the country believe in the full equality of women to elect a woman president of the United States. Frederick Douglass would have seen the election of Kamala Harris to vice president of the United States four years ago as real progress. Frederick Douglass knew that progress did not mean the end of struggle. 

Donald Trump's campaign greatly expanded its youth voter base in the 2024 election following the president's appearance on several prominent podcasts that appeal to young men.Exit polls have shown huge numbers among young men for Trump, where he won by 14 points over Vice President Kamala Harris. This was a 15-point swing for Republicans since 2020 when President Joe Biden won the 18-to-29-year-old category with 56%. Trump made gains with young female voters also, increasing his support by seven points since 2020 from 33% to 40%.Overall, Trump massively closed the gap among young voters, according to statistics from Circle. What was a 25-point margin for Biden in 2020 shrunk to just a 6% advantage for Harris in 2024. The new 52% (D) to 46% (R) margin was actually Harris' biggest block of support in the election, which is an obvious marker of how she ended up losing by almost 5 million votes.With so many young voters, especially males, coming out for Trump, it's hard to ignore the fact the president made a bounty of unexpected appearances on podcasts that appeal to that demographic.'He tells me about all the hot guys I've never heard about.'As reported by Today, Trump credited his son Barron for urging him to go on "The Joe Rogan Experience" and many others podcasts.Trump even told Fox's Maria Bartiromo that Barron lets him know which podcasts are the most popular."He tells me about all the hot guys [podcasters] I've never heard about," Trump laughed. "'Dad, that guy is hot,'" he added.Particularly, this was the reason why Trump appeared on a livestream with popular streamer Adin Ross."My son's told me about you. They told me about how big — Barron, he said, 'Dad, he's really big,'" Trump told Ross during the livestream. Trump's appearance reportedly averaged about 500,000 concurrent viewers on streaming platform Kick, while the YouTube version has 2.6 million views.Newsweek also credited Barron for Trump's appearance on "Bussin' with the Boys," a sports podcast starring two former NFL players.This was coupled by an appearance on comedian Theo Von's podcast that drew in 14 million YouTube viewers, while 7.8 million tuned in for comedian Andrew Schulz's "Flagrant" podcast with Trump.Trump also made a repeat guest spot on the "Full Send Podcast" with the Nelk Boys, who have a massive young, male audience of their own.UFC President Dana White made reference to these appearances during Trump's late-night victory speech. White made sure to thank nearly all of the aforementioned podcast hosts as part of the reason why Trump won.Harris, on the other hand, made only two prominent podcast appearances; this included the "Call Her Daddy" podcast, which is widely considered the most popular podcast among women.However, it was an odd choice given that the show focuses predominantly on sex and relationships. Harris later appeared on "Club Shay Shay," the popular show starring former NFL player Shannon Sharpe. Disappointingly for the Harris campaign, however, her appearance does not even rank in the top 50 most-viewed episodes of the podcast.Barron's influence on the election "cannot be understated," says political commentator and noted young, male Trump supporter John Doyle.Doyle told Blaze News that Barron spent "his most formative years watching his father be punished by a country he loves," which likely drove him to help his father's campaign in any way he could."I'm not surprised at all that he advised his father, and did so effectively," Doyle added. "Especially since the position of the regime is to disenfranchise the very viewers of those podcasts, young male voters."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Over the past few months, Americans everywhere had called on each other to make the results of the 2024 presidential election “too big to rig” — though many were skeptical that a feat of that nature was possible. But it turns out it was. The red wave was unstoppable, and Donald Trump won every single swing state. “I mean, from the beginning, it kind of looked like there's no path for her. There’s no path,” Pat Gray of “Pat Gray Unleashed” comments. “You didn’t want to believe it immediately because I didn’t want the beat down at the end.” “But you know what, we are finally unburdened by what has been,” he adds. The prospect of a Donald Trump win became clearer and clearer as the night went on, and one clip of Jake Tapper from CNN illustrates this perfectly. As Tapper stands looking at an electoral map, his colleague shows him that there was currently no state in America where Kamala Harris was outperforming Biden in 2020. “Literally nothing?” Tapper says, shocked, staring at the empty electoral map. “Literally not one county?” Gray, Keith Malinak, and Jeffy couldn’t help but burst into laughter watching the clip. “He hates Trump,” Gray comments. “It’s made him unreasonable, a guy who used to be somewhat of a real journalist,” noting that Tapper now has Trump Derangement Syndrome, like so many others. While Tapper is not alone in his condition, the guys aren’t sure that Kamala supporters actually support Kamala enough to do anything about it. “There might be a little bit of upheaval, but no one really feels the need to go out and burn the streets down because of Kamala Harris not winning,” Jeffy says. Want more from Pat Gray?To enjoy more of Pat's biting analysis and signature wit as he restores common sense to a senseless world, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

As Democrats make excuses for losing yet another election to Donald Trump, more signs of a historic political realignment are emerging.Look no farther than New Jersey.'Democrats need to take this extremely seriously by looking at whether this is an individual one-off or if there is something deeper and more systematic.'A Republican presidential candidate has not won the Garden State since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and Democrats have won the state by double-digit margins since 1996 with one exception: George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign. By all accounts, New Jersey is a deep-blue state. But that could be changing.Even though Kamala Harris won the state on Election Day, her margin of victory was only 5.1%. In other words, Harris had the worst showing for a Democrat in New Jersey since Bill Clinton in 1992, who would have defeated George H.W. Bush by a larger margin had third-party candidate Ross Perot not siphoned away a significant number of votes.Put another way: Trump lost to Hillary Clinton by 14% in 2016 and to Joe Biden by 16% in 2020 — but by only 5% to Harris in 2024.What should we think about Trump's robust performance in New Jersey? According to Politico, it means New Jersey could be up for grabs as a swing state in future presidential elections.Not only are Trump's improving margins eye-popping, but Politico noted that Tuesday's result is "more striking" because Democrats hold a significant voter registration advantage over Republicans in the state — about 900,000. In light of Trump's performance, Democratic strategist Dan Bryan told Politico that his party needs to wake up."Democrats need to take this extremely seriously by looking at whether this is an individual one-off or if there is something deeper and more systematic," he said.In Hudson County — part of the New York City metro — Trump improved by 9% compared to 2020. Other parts of the New York City area saw similar shifts in Trump's favor.Jose Arango, the Republican Party chairman of Hudson County, believes he knows why urban voters are shifting toward Trump."The Democratic Party talks about helping the poor, but if you talk about Hudson County, it's segregated and the working class, and the liberal enclaves are basically the people who are supporting Wall Street in the places they can’t afford the rent. There's no affordable housing," he told Politico.Chris Russell, a New Jersey Republican strategist, agrees that Trump's agenda has struck a chord with New Jerseyans. "I think you saw the beginnings of this in '21," Russell told Politico, referring to Republican Jack Ciattarelli nearly winning election to be New Jersey's governor. "There's a frustration by voters in New Jersey on economic stuff, on crime issues, and I also think there’s an underbelly in the stuff Trump tapped into culturally," Russell explained. "People are tired of being told they’re bad people, racists, bigots, or Nazis — all these crazy aspersions that are cast on people who support Trump or things that he believes."Even Gov. Phil Murphy (D) this week described his win three years ago as the "canary in the coal mine" foreshadowing a significant electorate realignment in his state.Whether a Republican wins New Jersey in future election remains to be seen. But it's clear that New Jersey is not an outlier.In New York, for example, Trump lost by 23% in 2020. This year, he is poised to lose by only 11%. In California, Trump lost by 29% in 2020 but is currently losing by only 17% this year. This phenomenon — a red shift — happened across the nation, most prominently in historically blue states.If Republicans lean into what made them successful this year, perhaps there is hope yet for California, New York, Illinois, and other longtime Democratic strongholds.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A mystery trader identifying himself only as Thèo secured an estimated $48 million in profits betting that the 45th president would be elected the 47th president. The trader, a Frenchman with a financial services background who has been dubbed the "Trump whale," reportedly used four anonymous accounts — Theo4, Fredi9999, PrincessCaro and Michieon — on the crypto-based betting site Polymarket to bet on President Donald Trump to win the popular vote as well as most battleground states. Thèo suspected that establishment pollsters and the mainstream media had overestimated support for Kamala Harris and once again underestimated Trump's support. Thèo told Visegrád 24 prior to Election Day, "The polls are really different from the predictive odds in the predictive markets. It calculates something totally different. One is calculating what are the intentions of the people to vote. The other are bets made by real people with real money about who they believe the winner will be." The Frenchman noted in August, he began to realize that "media outlets are making the same mistakes they made in 2016 and 2020 underestimating the Trump vote. Why? Because, again, it's underestimating the shy Trump vote effect." The Princeton Election Consortium indicated, for example, in November 2016 that Hillary Clinton had a 99% chance of beating Trump, projecting her to take 312 electoral votes. FiveThirtyEight, then Nate Silver's polling outfit, suggested that Clinton's had a 71.4% chance of winning. Polls conducted that year by the Washington Post, ABC News, Google Consumer Surveys, Ipsos, YouGov, Fox News, Selzer & Company, and other outfits were similarly way off the mark, all putting Clinton ahead by several points. Thèo indicated that this time around, the New York Times/Siena College polls and others were making the same mistakes, noting that in one instance, a poll showing Harris ahead by 2 percentage points in North Carolina was actually "un-representative by 9.3 percentage points." 'Don't trust the mainstream media.' Prior to Election Day, Thèo told a reporter at the Wall Street Journal who had taken an interest in the trader's enormous bets that RealClearPolitics polling averages showed Trump outdoing his swing-state polling numbers in the previous presidential election, which was particularly close. Recognizing that the races would again be close in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and factoring in the "shy Trump voter effect" — which the mainstream polling outfits apparently neglected to account for — the trader realized the Republican had upwards of a 90% chance of winning the day and a 65% chance of winning the popular vote. The Frenchman took the addition step of commissioning a major pollster to conduct surveys to measure the "neighbor effect" stateside. Thèo noted that while the shy voter effect undermined the reliability of normal polls, neighbor polls — where respondents are asked which candidates their neighbors would likely support — would provide a better indication of voter preferences. Thèo told the Journal that the results "were mind blowing to the favor of Trump!" "Public opinion would have been better prepared if the latest polls had measured that neighbor effect," he added. Bloomberg indicated that Polymarket bets on which candidate would become the 47th president produced almost $3.7 billion in volume this cycle. Polymarket released a statement Wednesday morning, noting, "Last night, Polymarket proved the wisdom of markets over the polls, the media, and the pundits. Polymarket consistently and accurately forecasted outcomes well ahead of all three, demonstrating the power of high volume, deeply liquid prediction markets like those pioneered by Polymarket." The company later shared a screenshot of an Oct. 22 Time magazine headline that read, "Don't Trust the Political Prediction Markets," commenting, "Don't trust the mainstream media." Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) unleashed a scathing critique against the Democratic Party following its crushing defeat on Election Day.In his blistering remarks, Sanders declared it was "no great surprise" that the party lost the presidential election and suffered many other congressional defeats.Though Sanders claims he supports working-class Americans, he called President-elect Donald Trump's hopes to end the federal income tax 'insane economics.'Sanders stated, "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.""First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right," he wrote."Today, while the very rich are doing phenomenally well, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and we have more income and wealth inequality than ever before," Sanders continued. "Unbelievably, real, inflation-accounted-for weekly wages for the average American worker are actually lower now than they were 50 years ago.""Will the big money interests and well-paid consultants who control the Democratic Party learn any real lessons from this disastrous campaign?" he questioned. "Will they understand the pain and political alienation that tens of millions of Americans are experiencing? Do they have any ideas as to how we can take on the increasingly powerful Oligarchy which has so much economic and political power?""Probably not," Sanders concluded.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former Democrat, responded to Sanders, writing, "Sadly late."In his critique, Sanders also slammed the Democratic Party for supporting Israel."Today, despite strong opposition from a majority of Americans, we continue to spend billions funding the extremist Netanyahu government's all out war against the Palestinian people which has led to the horrific humanitarian disaster of mass malnutrition and the starvation of thousands of children," Sanders stated.He concluded that "those of us concerned about grassroots democracy and economic justice need to have some very serious political discussions."Though Sanders claims he supports working-class Americans, he called President-elect Donald Trump's hopes to end the federal income tax "insane economics." He argued that such a plan would "hurt desperately poor people and further enrich the very wealthy."Sanders, a sitting senator earning approximately $174,000 annually, is worth roughly $3 million. He won his third re-election campaign on Tuesday, keeping him in the Senate for another six years.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Long before Final Fantasy Tactics and Triangle Strategy and away from the bright spotlight of Fire Emblem, there was Shining Force. Released on the Sega Genesis in 1992, it was like nothing ever seen before on the system. A prequel to dungeon crawler Shining in the Darkness, it combined strategic combat with RPG mechanics to make something that was a breath of fresh air for those on the Sega side of the ‘90s console wars. Re-released on Steam as part of the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Classics collection, it’s been announced that it’ll be delisted soon, meaning this underappreciated classic RPG will no longer be buyable on PC. Continue reading Forgotten classic strategy RPG Shining Force is about to be delisted from Steam MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best classic games, Best platform games, Best RPGs

HUME-ILIATED! Brit Hume NUKES Obama Lackey for Whining that Lefties Don't Have a Joe Rogan or Elon Musk