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ABE WON’T BE SILENT - This week, before the unfortunate breaking news that Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, nearly every media outlet was gleefully trashing his decline and pinning the blame squarely on him for where we are now — politically, socially, and seemingly every problem on Earth. As if it’s all his fault. This moment isn’t just the story of one man aging out of relevance — it reads more like the final chapter in the slow, staggering collapse of the Democratic Party as we’ve known it.
Wishing Joe the best of health, of course — yet hasn’t he suffered enough tragedy for one lifetime? What a horrendous, heartbreaking way to close this chapter.
The media had refused to focus on Joe’s decline during the campaign because all they could obsess on was Trump — and in doing so — they paved the way for Trump Redux. While he continues to call the media ‘the enemy of the people’, they’ve really served as his best friends, cheerleaders, and champions. FYI — I’ve always agreed with him about the media not being our friends — au contraire.
What we have now is the Democrats in disarray — a party that once stood for bold ideas and clear values — has devolved into a lopsided, politically correct mess of contradictions and guilt trips. It’s the party of performative virtue signaling, where certain minority groups are aggressively defended while others are conveniently chastised or ignored.
[SIDEBAR] Welcome to the experience of being a Jew who spent a lifetime of promoting and voting exclusively for Democrats, only to run away as fast as possible after the shameful turnout in November 2024. I'm now officially registered with No Party Preference. Let’s see where this goes.
Everyone knows the Democrats can’t message their way out of a paper bag. Their reputation has been summed up by the catch phrase: “Dems show up to a gunfight with a butter knife.” A blur of contradictions and feeble messaging handed Republicans control of all three branches of government. Blither, dither, and slither — it’s been an embarrassing spectacle. November 2024 wasn’t just a loss; it confirmed a death sentence. Frankly, they got what they deserved for allowing Jews to become the target of their ire while siding with an Islamist ideology rooted in violence.
The decision to herald Biden as the face of the Democratic Party was the kiss of death. Flanked by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the leadership looked less like a vibrant political force and more like an ad for a funeral home. At a moment when the country needed energy, urgency, and moral clarity to confront the rising threat of fascism — which the media themselves kept warning about — what we got was a crotchety tableau of status quo mumbo jumbo.
Even now, many in the party still refuse to own up to their role in the collapse and reckon with their fecklessness as the world burns around us — not just in the Middle East or Russia, but right here on our college campuses. And all Biden could muster was running America like a funeral director — well-meaning, maybe, but utterly incapable of confronting the moral emergencies of our time. Especially when the Islamist mobs came for the Jews.
Worst of all, when I voted for Joe in 2020, yes it was of course to get Trump out of the White House— but more importantly, because Joe promised to “save the soul of America” — which he did, for a while. Look how this all ended. He’ll be talked about in perpetuity — and not in the way he hoped or truly deserved, because Joe was/is a mensch. We’ll never know the whole truth about what really went wrong — or who bullied everyone into keeping their mouths shut. No matter who writes a tell-all from his inner circle — believe none of it.
Age wasn’t Joe’s only problem — it was the absence of direction, energy, and urgency from the party as well. There was plenty of handwringing before the fateful debate debacle that only deepened the damage. Joe’s presidency always felt like a placeholder for something better that never arrived — which is an understatement when you see how tragically the Kamala campaign turned out. Too bad she was paralyzed by the fear of alienating antisemitic progressives and Gen Z — the very crowd that ultimately sealed her defeat.
[SIDEBAR] As for lessons learned? Democrats mustn’t flatter themselves into believing they have the vision or spiritual strength to turn this failure into a teaching moment. As recently as last week, the firing of David Hogg was yet another red flag that the clown show isn’t over by a long shot. A party that silences young, passionate voices — especially those forged in tragedy and activism — is a party in free fall. Hogg wasn’t the problem; he was the warning. Instead of embracing the future, Democrats keep clinging to the past. Every move reeks of desperation and disconnection. How can you claim to champion change when you’re terrified of your own change agents?
While Republicans played offense and rewrote the rules — actually owning the Libs and making young straight men feel great again — Democrats stuck to their usual playing defense about what they stand for and offense on Trump, which the media does more than enough of and hence, leaving them irrelevant. Coupled with the blatantly antisemitic, morally bankrupt rhetoric by members of The Squad is a major reason why so many lifelong Democrats are leaving the party in droves. When Rashida Tlaib repeatedly chants “From the river to the sea,” a slogan that calls for the erasure of Israel, and Ilhan Omar suggests support for Israel is “all about the Benjamins,” it’s clear the rot runs deep. At this point, it’s hard to see how they recover — and maybe they won’t. And it’s not just Jews that are fed up. It’s all aspects of our diverse union.
[SIDEBAR] The growing #WalkAway movement from the Democratic Party across social media proves that people are fed up. The next political shift will have to come from Independents: refugees like me who’ve fled the Democrats, and those disillusioned by Trump’s bullying bullshit.
One thing is certain: the unapologetic progressives are just as much a losing proposition as they are convinced they’re the second coming. The next wave of political leaders must be bold enough to say, with conviction: I refuse to be part of a corrupt system that led us down this path of shame, division, and moral collapse.
With the Democrats imploding in 2024 and the Republican Party long devoured by MAGA, all that remains is a wide-open lane for new voices to rise. I’ve always said that “heroes emerge” — and I think back to Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama as proof. Time will tell whether someone with the courage and cojones to meet this discombobulated moment steps forward — or appears like a vision, an oasis of hope.
Whether we’ll ever truthfully say someone made America great again remains to be seen.
(ABE GURKO is the executive producer of a documentary “LOUDER: The Soundtrack of Change,” about the extraordinary Women of Protest Music streaming on MAX. He's an Opinionator who hosts a podcast, "Won't Be Silent," engaging in conversations from the edge of democracy. Abe is a contributor to CityWatchLA.com. [email protected].)
