No. of Recommendations: 5
You mean…most of the major cities on the west coast? Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland to name a few?
Then you had entire states like Oregon making drugs essentially legal and Washington banning police pursuits. No, I think the democrats have lost the Law and Order vote for a generation.
Yes, the major cities on the west coast are only a modest number of cities. Most cities didn't defund their police, and most Democrats were iffy about the Defund movement from the get go. Which is exactly how you ended up with a situation where de Blasio was trying to look like he was satisfying the activist left without actually doing much - and AOC calling him out on it. That was the dominant pattern - outside of the furthest left jurisdictions, most Democrats were very wary of what the Defund movement was calling for.
The Democrats haven't had the Law and Order vote for several generations. After all, when do you think the last time was that they were considered the Law and Order party versus the GOP? So I don't think it's much of a stretch to agree with you that they won't have it for a while longer. Democrats always do poorly when law and order issues have high salience with voters. I agree with you that the brief dalliance with "defund the police" as a slogan and policy was especially bad new for Democrats and they will pay for it for a little while, and the politicians that didn't dodge the issue will be especially the worse off. But that hurts AOC's chances in a primary if she decides to run any time soon.
Of the last 6 democrat Presidents (Biden, Obama, Clinton, Carter, LBJ, Kennedy) 4 were Senators as their main political claim to fame. Contrast that with the GOP where of their last 7 Trump, Bush43, Bush41, Reagan, Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower) only Richard Nixon was a Senator.
LBJ and Biden didn't ascend to the Presidency from the Senate, but rather from the Vice Presidency. Obama was the only person of either party to move from the Senate to the WH without a stop in the Veep spot since Kennedy. If AOC wants to be President, she'd be much better off as Governor AOC than Senator AOC. The Governor's Mansion is the main launching pad for successful Presidential runs (Clinton, Bush 43, Clinton, Reagan, Carter). Vice President AOC would also be good (Biden, Bush41, LBJ, Nixon). Only Kennedy and Obama have made the leap straight from Senator to President.
