Retiring Democratic Senator Michael Bennet (Co.) shared a sobering take on his political party's current situation, saying he's "furious" about their inability to defeat President Trump - and he fears the worst for Democrats is yet to come.
Bennet, who is leaving national politics to run for governor of reliably Democratic Colorado, told CNN that the party's brand is damaged nationally.
“I don’t think nationally the Democratic brand helps very much anywhere,” Bennet told State of the Union. “If it did, we wouldn’t have lost to Donald Trump twice.”
While many Democrats have blamed their present woes on President Biden and his disastrous re-election plans, others argue Biden is becoming a convenient scapegoat for a political party that is unwilling to engage in necessary self-scrutiny.
Interviewer Jake Tapper - whose controversial new book Original Sin has led to fresh criticism of Biden's presidency and the effort to conceal his cognitive decline, an effort that many say Tapper participated in himself - grilled Bennet about the Democratic party's "record-low" popularity and whether it would hurt Bennet's campaign for governor.
Even as he slammed Trump, Bennet faulted Democrats for failing to provide voters with an alternative to Trump and his plans to "blow up Washington, D.C."
"I think they’re sick of a Democratic Party who hasn't been able to show how we’re going to address an economy where the middle class continues to shrink and where, over the last 20 years, we've actually lost ground in terms of, you know, the achievement of our kids in school. We need to address those things," he said.
The Democrats' "woke" drift has been cited as a significant factor in their wipeout last November, but months later, the party is still paralyzed by divisions on how to rebuild.
While some, like Bennet, clearly want to distance themselves from the progressives in the party, others are continuing to cling to the "woke" brand.
Democrats remain as lost as ever, with reports that the party is spending millions of dollars to study men. The bizarre initiative, entitled, "Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan," aims to "study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality" in male spaces.
Meanwhile, a desperate effort to paint Trump as a nascent authoritarian is falling flat.
According to the most recent polling averages from RealClearPolitics, Trump is only a couple of points underwater, while the Democratic party's net approval is more than 20 points in the negative.
