The midterm elections are at hand and usually the minority party wins back a majority. The Democrats are mounting their challenges to the Republicans in some key races. I seem to remember Democrat shaman James Carville, following their defeat in November 2024, saying to the effect: the crazies have hijacked my party. His words were actually more salty than we can say here!
Truth is, no one of any substance has been guarding his party. There is no leader or one who is acceptable to the people, the ordinary Democrats. What filled the vacuum?
Accordingly, I suggest that is the reason we have all these Marxists and socialists taking over the Democrat Party—hijacking—in broad daylight, because there’s no one of substance with the moral authority to take the lead and provide something positive other than, “Trump is a crook and his is a corrupt regime!”
Many of us saw the new movie about Odysseus this summer and were reminded of his classic odyssey away from and, after ten years, his return home. What took so long? Odysseus faced a dozen serious challenges, many of his own or his crew’s making. Let’s imagine the Democrats are on a “socialist odyssey.”
Early on, Odysseus faced Aeolus’s bag of winds because his curious crew opened the dread bag of wind and it blew the ship far off course. See the following as the Democrats’ crew. Not Shumer, not Jeffries, Warren, Schiff, etc.— their key power brokers could come up with any platform. Meanwhile, AOC is loving it and so is Bernie Sanders. It plays right into their socialist dreams! And all the Big Guns—Clinton, Obama, Harris—fell in line to give and catch some of the quicksilver star power. Someone might suggest they are all just “windbags.” Regardless, his ship is surely way off course.
In addition, standing in Odysseus’s way, there was the one-eyed giant Cyclops Polyphemus whom Odysseus blinds with a sharpened stake. For that, Odysseus later receives Poseidon’s curse. I’ve been looking for some moderate leader, perhaps Josh Shapiro, current Governor of Pennsylvania. He could have been a VP or Presidential candidate had there been a traditional Democrat convention in 2024. Will he now take the reins and stand in the gap? Surely many are waiting for this election just to crash and burn to begin anew! Cursed party, or just an odd looking, blind-in-one-eye party thrashing around?
What about leadership from some of those testy Democrat Senators who like to wax eloquent at the committee hearings and hide in their offices during the week—for example, Whitehouse, Booker, and a couple of others? Nothing doing! I recall Circe who turns Odysseus’s scouts into pigs. They are restored when Odysseus stays with Circe for a year and later gets instructions from Hermes. Not just the above named senators but the whole party needs instruction on how to get their party back to its former identity, if there is one.
One of the last challenges Odysseus suffers was brought about by his starving crew who slaughtered and ate the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios on Thrinacia. Zeus punished the ship with a thunderbolt that destroyed the ship and killed everyone but Odysseus. Abdul El Sayed, socialist candidate for a Michigan US Senate seat, won’t answer questions about several issues as his opponent called him on the carpet for in a recent debate. Opponent US Representative Mike Rogers claims that El Sayed cannot get a security clearance! Surely, this will prove fatal for his candidacy.
In Texas, James Talarico, candidate for US Senate, wasn’t seen at all in late September. His opponent, current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reminds voters that Talarico stands for open borders, socialistic programs, multi-genderism, etc. His spokesman reports a case of flu. Meanwhile, Paxton mocks him at rallies! Have both El Sayed and Talarico “slaughtered and eaten” whatever remained of a hope to come back to the moderation of the Democrat Party, maybe forever!
Well, as the classic story spins and recounts many other obstacles, we have seen enough of the Democrats’ odyssey to sense their danger in these midterms. Is there any hope for the Democrats to arrive home to their traditional Ithaca and its beloved wife Penelope? Or will there be fatal obstacles ahead? Almost certainly, the Democrat oracle Carville will descend from Mount Olympus to tell us that all is well after all, and Democrats will win back the majority!
Robert Penny lives in Old Agency Village in Ridgeland.
