“On the Holmes Front” with Frank Holmes
When an incumbent party decisively loses a presidential election, it usually makes every effort possible to correct the problem—but the Democrats aren’t any normal party.
The Democratic Party just adopted a new strategy to take back power after President Donald Trump leaves office in four years, and is it ever delusional.
The far-Left fever swamps of the party think the only reason former Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election was messaging—that she didn’t go far enough and sound rude enough on the campaign trail.
As far as Democratic strategists are concerned, the substance was fine…because the whole 2024 election loss was just a messaging problem.
So, instead of listening to voters’ resounding rejection of DEI, socialism, and putting men into women’s sports, the Democrats have decided to triple down on a strategy they call “Dark Woke.”
It’s far-Left politics wrapped up in an offensive, in-your-face attitude.
The New York Times wrote a deep-dive description of the Democrats’ new campaign style on Monday, calling their new pose “provocative, edgy, and perilously toeing the line of not being too offensive.”
“Dark Woke” is the Democrats’ new communication strategy to “unapologetically” shove their far-Left views down Americans’ throats by “being crass” and “rude,” although “only to a point.”
The problem, they think, is that Democrats have been too decent and civil toward President Trump and his supporters.
Bhavik Lathia, the former digital director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, claims Democrats have been so nice that they have locked themselves inside a “respectability prison.”
“There is an extreme imbalance in strategy that allows Republicans to say stuff that really grabs voters’ attention, where we’re stuck saying boring pablum,” Lathia stated.
Caleb Brock, the 23-year-old director of digital strategy for Rep. Ro Khanna, D-C.A., said he and his fellow left-wing influencers and terminally online yackers are “ready to combat (the Trump administration) by any means necessary.”
But have the Democrats ever been quiet about their extremely offensive views, which represent a tiny minority of Americans—from defunding the police, to the Green New Deal, to America needing DEI to combat “systemic racism” that has reigned since 1619, to the never-ending march of new “holidays” to promote transgenderism to children?
When have liberal Democrats ever stifled, moderated, or equivocated about their far-Left views? When have they ever shut up about them?
Yet radical extremists, who tried to deplatform anyone who questioned COVID lockdowns or denied the U.S. is a racist country, think they’re the victims in America’s culture wars.
“I think the ‘dark woke’ stuff had to happen eventually because the liberal side of the culture war has not been overtly cruel enough to fit into American politics” said podcaster and documentarian Liv Agar, who is obsessed with painting every Republican as a QAnon conspiracy fanatic.
I think the “dark woke” stuff had to happen eventually because the liberal side of the culture war has not been overtly cruel enough to fit into American politics
— Liv (@Liv_Agar) February 1, 2025
The whole concept seemed so confusing and redundant that even trained political scientists asked is it was really the clearest branding.
Daily Wire personality Matt Walsh dedicated a 20-minute-long video to breaking down the Democrats’ latest ideological pose—but some wondered if “Dark Woke” wasn’t much simpler than it seems.
The Times tried to explain that “Dark Woke” by pointing to far-Left Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas sat on the floor of the House and said that conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene had a “bleach blonde bad built butch body” or when she called wheelchair-bound Texas Gov. Greg Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels.”
“Is ‘Dark Woke’ just being a Democrat, but also an a**hole?” asked Wilfred Reilly, a professor at Kentucky State University.
“So what’s changed exactly?” asked Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA.
“Dark Woke is just that ‘Biff Tannen’ leftism where they say everything they already do but just with more” cussing, said another commentator.
Is "Dark Woke" just being a Democrat, but also an asshole?
— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) April 24, 2025
Dark Woke is just that “Biff Tannen” leftism where they say everything they already do but just with more “fucking” and “dipshit” and “pissbaby” and maybe some death threats https://t.co/ZIxHG5Zmhd
— Silenced on Site (@77_steeze) April 25, 2025
Maybe they have something in mind like when then-vice presidential candidate Tim Walz accused Elon Musk of “jumping around like a dips**t,” or dozens of congressional Democrats recording the exact same video where they accuse the Trump administration of spreading “sh*t that aint’ true.”
Here’s what’s really bizarre about the “shit that ain’t true” videos:
The @SenateDems account is retweeting every single one of them. As if to highlight that it’s all scripted: pic.twitter.com/MvFAGwpkR9
— JuliansRum (@ItsJuliansRum) March 4, 2025
“Of course, for anyone not on the Left this whole thing feels like bad sketch comedy,” wrote Katherine Dee at Unherd. It’s preposterous to believe “that the reason the Left lost is because it wasn’t ‘mean enough.’”
Not only does the concept not appeal to most Americans, but it’s already a proven failure.
The Left has already gone down this road, not that long ago. The New York Times pointed out former Biden administration communications honcho Anita Dunn’s failed efforts to make Joe Biden seem cool by rebranding him as a meme character called “Dark Brandon.”
Dunn’s attempts culminated with Joe Biden’s weird, Mussolini-like speech in front of a red-and-black colored Constitution Hall, surrounded on each side by uniformed Marines, where he branded the entire MAGA movement as racist, homophobic, transphobic neo-Nazi fascists.
But evidently, faced with a landslide election loss, a tough Senate map in 2026, and the prospects of having to debate the brilliant and likable J.D. Vance in 2028, the best that the wisest Democratic minds in D.C. can come up with is tripling down on disgrace.