Brehm: It’s the Democrats’ message that is the problem

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None of us are exempt from the harsh reality that life doesn’t always go the way we want. I’ve always thought it a wise practice when that happens to examine what one might have done differently to produce a preferred outcome. That honest introspection breeds humility and wisdom — and most importantly change. To be sure, sometimes we can be victims of purely bad circumstances and people. But more often than not, our own behavior in part helped bring about the negative result.

Democrats had a bruising election in 2024. And it wasn’t a fluke; voters just don’t seem to like them. According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, nearly 60% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party, the highest unpopularity rating for progressives the poll has ever produced. Yikes. According to that same survey, the GOP is more popular than ever.

You’d think the outcome of the last election and these rough numbers would have Democrats in a reflective rebuilding mode. But that seems not to be so. The consensus among party leaders appears to be that, despite an over billion-dollar spending advantage, their core problem is one of “messaging.” As Gov. Tim Walz, whose performance on the national ticket has been bipartisanly panned, said in his vapid postmortem, “I think we’re communicating the right way, but are we communicating in the right spaces?” Huh? If I were a Democrat, that kind of cowardly word salad from the guy who lost an election to one of the most vulnerable presidential candidates in American political history would make my blood boil.

No, it’s not the way you talk, my Democratic friends, that is the problem — although the shaming and scolding isn’t helping matters either. It’s what you talk about.

The policy positions of the Democratic Party are just way out of step with most center-right American voters. Until those return to some sanity, the electoral routs for progressives will continue.

Take the issue of biological men competing with women in organized sports. Until just the last few years, no one thought this was in any way a sensible or safe idea. But falling in line with the wokest of the woke, mainstream Democratic politicians quickly got comfortable with a gender ideological extremism most Americans reject.

And Dems don’t appear to be shifting course. When President Donald Trump, surrounded by female athletes in a moving moment at the White House, signed the executive order, “Keeping Men out of Women’s Sports,” which prohibits federally funded educational institutions or sports associations from requiring women to compete against biological males or to undress in their presence, there was not a peep of support from any major Minnesota DFL elected leader. Pretty unwise given a supermajority of Americans (79%) support President’s Trump common-sense action on this.

Not to be outdone, Minnesota’s most radical statewide office holder, Attorney General Keith Ellison, doubled down on his party’s nuttiness, and sued the White House last week for its move to limit federal funding for gender-transition treatment for children, something most countries in Europe heavily restrict and an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans oppose. 2022 called, Mr. Ellison, and it wants its politics back.

Then there’s the crisis of illegal immigration and border crossings, which voters consistently ranked as a top concern approaching last year’s election. Democrats’ affinity for open borders and weak federal immigration law enforcement have put them on the wrong side of a matter most citizens want significant change on. But Democrats apparently want to stay there, allowing Republicans yet another advantage.

President Trump’s recent executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to detain “aliens apprehended on suspicion of violating Federal or State law” is supported by 87% of Americans. Not a shocker. Even Hillary Clinton once said of undocumented migrants: “If they’ve committed a crime, deport them.” Amen, Madam Secretary.

Yet the response of Democrats here in Minnesota and across the country has been to vehemently oppose U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts to carry out this reasonable and popular initiative. The city of Minneapolis, which is run entirely by Democrats and has substantial public safety problems of its own, has foolishly vowed not to cooperate with ICE in apprehending undocumented criminals within its neighborhoods. And Minnesota’s entire Democratic delegation, with the exception of Angie Craig, opposed the Laken Riley Act, which requires ICE to detain undocumented migrants who commit theft-related crimes. Seems like common sense for a state and city struggling with stubbornly high crime rates to export criminals with no legal right to be here, but, hey, what do I know.

How is all this “terrifying” ICE action impacting Minnesota, anyway? Well, three illegal immigrants residing in my hometown of St. Paul who also happen to be child sex predators have been picked up by ICE. I say, good, and thank you. I think most Minnesotans do, too.

It’s been remarkable to watch Democrats growing apoplectic about President Trump’s efforts to — check notes — cut wasteful federal spending. Does anyone not think Washington’s behemoth bureaucracy cannot be cut back? Or that such an exercise is not necessary and urgent given our $36 trillion national debt, which each of us owes a $106,000 share? The knee-jerk hysteria in response to this fiscal responsibility shows just how unfit Democrats are to deal with our country and state’s serious overspending problems.

I have been observing American and Minnesotan politics for a long time now. And I’ll admit, the Democratic Party today on the national and local levels has many gifted communicators in its midst. It’s not a lack of talent or messaging that’s causing voters to reject the party and its platform. It’s the platform itself.