Democrats Embrace Far-Left Policies, Dropping Facade of Moderation in 2025 Elections: Analyst

We're going to have a discussion with a Republican reaction to last night's Democratic sweep. Joining us now is Mike Howell. He's president of Oversight Project. And Mike, thank you for joining us this morning. First, let's kick off just with your overall reactions to the elections last night. Of course, a Democratic sweep, but these were, in fact, blue states and a blue city. Yeah, that's exactly right. I think some will overstate the importance of these elections that were always uphill battles for the Republicans who had their own problems on their side in terms of candidate quality, messaging and so forth. I think my biggest takeaways are two, one on the Democrat side, one on the Republican side. First is the Democrat Party is different than it was or pretended to be two or even four years ago. They have embraced the furthest left elements and now with some success. And so the demand signal will send to future presidential hopefuls and Senate hopefuls is there is no need to keep up that facade of moderation, whether it's about hurting your opponents or a candidate like Zoran Mondami, who runs explicitly as a socialist communist. You aren't going to see this blue dog Democrat moderation thing that we're used to. I think those days are over. And then on the Republican side, I think the truth of the matter, and this is reflected in President Trump's comments, is frustration on the progress of the domestic policy, whether it's the economy or immigration enforcement, accountability or any of the future issues of his presidential campaign. It's too difficult to get those through the political system with the filibuster that that's why he's calling for it. And instead, it's really been a foreign policy focused president. That's where the most energy has been in those issues really haven't translated to much attention for the public. The public's focused on domestic issues. You brought up a really fascinating point about there was this sort of undercurrent of leaning hard to the left, to the more socialist values of the Democratic Party, as opposed to the more traditional, call it Clinton or JFK style, more centrist Democratic principles. And now you say kind of that it's just out in the open. And over the last two primary seasons, Bernie Sanders was far away ahead and then somehow was sidelined. But it seemed like the the policy that came out of certainly during Biden's administration were much more progressive even than Obama just, you know, four years earlier. So do you think that this will now happen at the national stage where they're going to just fully embrace this progressive agenda? Or is it just at the local level in these blue, you know, strongholds of the Democrats? Yeah, I think we're on the path to full embrace. And that already kind of happened in the Biden years, as you noted, the pitch of Biden was I'm a moderate return to normalcy. But the actuality of President Biden's administration was far from that. I think a lot of that had to do with him losing control, you know, both of not having the command presence and then a lot of the other, you know, radical elements and progressive elements taking over in senior spots in the administration of the White House. But here's what I expect moving forward is it'll look a lot different and it'll sound a lot different. There will still be an attempt by a lot of mainstream media and institutions in America to kind of make it sound like warmed over Clinton era, you know, blue dog Democrat style things. That'll be the real test for this transition period. Try to settle enough people that it is basically just one opposition to Trump and then two, it's going to be wrapped in those kind of terms. You'll see the DNC speaking that way. But over time, I think, you know, there won't be any of those pretenses or cosmetic differences. It'll just be a full on embrace of Zoran, who is the future of the Democrat Party. I'd like you to talk about him a bit and the situation in New York City. You know, the the claim that you're helping people by providing, you know, thirty dollar minimum wages. But in essence, you're kind of giving up a nod to the larger businesses, right? Because you almost create an impossibility for small and midsize businesses to get off the ground unless they have enough capital to really get over the hump and take on much larger businesses. So what do you think will be the example in New York City under this socialist agenda? Yeah, I think they're going to do a lot of basic wealth transfer programs that are going to be transparently obvious, but disguises, you know, other initiatives, whether it's these grocery store deals or, you know, these city credit cards or what have you. And I think you're going to see a lot of the big capital in New York potentially leaving. Not as much as people are threatening online on X, you know, Zoran wins, I'll get out. I don't think so. Those people have been living in a city teetering towards this for a very long time. I mean, Cuomo's policies are not too different than Mondami's. It's just Mondami's willing to to say it. But I think New York continues to become more of a foreign city inside of America with a magnet for, you know, a lot of low income, illegal and legal immigrants. And then over time, it'll resemble something closer to London. And you're not going to see it being viewed or in actual practice, this financial engine of America. And then I want to get your take on how last night's results might go into the government shutdown. We just saw President Trump kind of pulling in all the senators for breakfast saying their approach has not worked. What what do you think? And he's blaming the results of the elections, partly on that. So what do you think will happen with the shutdown? Yeah, there's a couple of things, right, because, you know, on the blame issue, which has always been so central to the shutdown conversations, this is the first time I think we have a shutdown where the public really identifies it as just an act of Democrat outrage to stop the government at all costs to show opposition to President Trump. All that being said, my guess is that President Trump's takeaway from the election results is while he's done a ton of great foreign policy stuff that he felt he had to do in the American interest, it is not translating into domestic support. There are real domestic issues that are underlying a lot of these things, the United States and what allows for people to accept radical ideas like socialism or just general disaffection with the system. And those obviously are economic in nature. That is number one and always will be. You know, people cannot get secure and good paying jobs, access to housing, et cetera. But then also, you know, a contingent of Republican voters, they want to see that their participation in the America First movement results in durable political changes, actual policy changes. And so they're promised a lot of bold things like mass deportations and, you know, absolute accountability to see a system that they think is rigged against them, which accountability truly is a proxy for. It's not always about the individual case. It's about showing, you know, the little guy in America that, hey, the big guys actually have to play by the same rules that are used to keep you down so often. And so I think he's got time to get that on track before the midterms. But it looks like the administration, you know, redoubles their efforts on domestic issues and understands that, you know, it starts at home. I appreciate you sharing all your insights with us this morning, and we'll certainly be keeping a watch on what happens with the Supreme Court today and a few other key things that Trump has on his agenda. Mike Howell, thanks for joining. Thanks for having me.