The backlash over an excessively woke Democratic Party

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The Democrats have lurched too far to the left.

The Democrats are alienating middle-of-the-road voters.

The Democrats are facing a wipeout in the midterms.

The Democrats desperately need a course correction.

Are these the latest RNC talking points, spewed out at the opposition?

Actually, it’s what some Democrats are saying about their own party–and has practically become the media’s conventional wisdom.

With all the focus on GOP infighting–typified by Kevin McCarthy endorsing Liz Cheney’s primary opponent–it’s easy to lose sight of the Democratic battles that never really reached a cease-fire.

Both sides were consumed by tactics in recent months, the progressives eviscerating Joe Manchin for blocking the Build Back Better bill, with the result that they now have nothing.

(Reuters)

And then there are the culture wars, mainly over vaccines, with the rise of liberal Covid Moms who want their students liberated from masks and others fed up with the endless restrictions. Even as blue states have joined nearly all the others in dropping mandates, the CDC stubbornly sticks to the old guidance with only a hint that it might change.

AN ERA OF ENDLESS DEBATES, FROM UKRAINE TO VACCINES TO RUSSIAGATE

President Biden, as you’ve heard endlessly, ran as a moderate, then pushed a Bernie-style agenda on the Hill with mixed results. Now he’s attempting a reset in advance of next week’s State of the Union, but is obviously preoccupied with the showdown in Ukraine. 

In her New York Times column, Maureen Dowd declares that "many Americans are fed up. The jumbled Covid response has eroded an already shaky trust in government. Inflation is biting. War is looming. Things feel out of control. People are anxious and reassessing their lives…

"The Democrats are stepping all over themselves. And Republicans are doing all they can to prevent the Democrats from accomplishing anything, and then are trashing them for not doing anything… Exhausted, confused, isolated and depressed Americans are not buying the Democratic line that things are better than they look."

HOW REPUTATIONS ARE RUINED, FROM CNN TO BUCKINGHAM PALACE

Dowd quotes three Democratic warhorses–David Axelrod, James Carville and Stan Greenberg– with Carville saying the Dems look too much like an "urban, coastal, arrogant party" indulging in "faculty lounge politics" and using words like "Latinx."

Democratic strategist James Carville said Democrats "whine too much" (Munoz for ICSS  Livepic) (Getty Images)

Axios points to "a barrage of evidence that the progressive activism of the Squad pushed the party's image way left of where most voters are — even most Democratic voters… This is a seismic shift from just a year ago. The signs have built steadily throughout President Biden's 13 months in office that Squad politics are problematic," including 30 House Democrats retiring.

Axios invokes the landslide win for a recall of three San Francisco school board members, in one of America’s most liberal cities, who seemed more interested in renaming schools honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln than returning to in-person classes. The recalled president, Gabriela Lopez, didn’t help matters by tying the recall movement to "white supremacists"--70 percent of voters supported the ouster, which was backed by Democratic Mayor London Breed.

The Washington Post sees a "growing backlash" in which strategists and voters are recoiling from some of the left-wing proposals that gained prominence during the Trump administration… many Democrats now see them as too extreme and harmful to Democratic prospects this fall."

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The paper adds that "Abolish ICE" and calls to renounce Lincoln were never representative of the broader Democratic Party, and that Republicans have deftly weaponized them, tagging all of their opponents with attacks that have resonated in part because Democrats have often been reluctant to respond directly lest they highlight their own divisions."

One point of consensus: Biden’s low approval ratings aren’t helping.

President Biden listens during the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus, Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The president was never a Defund the Police guy or a Medicare for All guy. But he tried to govern like FDR when he could barely count on 50 votes in the Senate.

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But this is deeper than legislation. Biden can’t be blamed for every off-the-charts San Francisco school board official or Manhattan district attorney who said he’d go easy on armed robbers. 

While battling Vladimir Putin, he has eight months to change his party’s actions and its image before the voters have their say.