Katie Pavlich: Democrats will be back

For all of the talk of disunity among Republicans heading into Election Day just a little over a month ago, it was Democrat voters who failed to turn out for Hillary Clinton. The Obama coalition was no longer reliable, leading to her demise among key demographic groups and to Donald Trump shattering the usually reliable blue “firewall” of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

“They said there’s no way Donald Trump can break the blue wall. We didn’t break it, we shattered that sucker,” Trump said recently in Ohio at one of his thank-you rallies.

{mosads}Indeed, he did.

Not unlike previous election cycles, the obituary of the losing side has already been written. Democrats have been devastated at every level of government, they’re demoralized, beaten down and in a new civil war among themselves.

“Rip up the Democratic Party,” Jonathan Tasani writes. “First, the Clinton machine must be rooted out of the party. A quarter of a century is enough time to understand that its ideology has failed the American people. Second, the Democratic National Committee has to be turned inside out.”

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Republicans are in a honeymoon period. For the most part, President-elect Trump has appointed staunchly conservative, experienced experts to his Cabinet. For the first time since 2007, the GOP controls the House and the Senate. As a result, lawmakers are looking to make big moves with extensive plans for tax reform and the long awaited repeal of ObamaCare.

“The first bill we’re going to be working on is our ObamaCare legislation,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a recent interview on 60 Minutes. “We have to bring relief as fast as possible to people who are struggling under ObamaCare.”

But while Democrats are currently feuding about who is going to lead their party back to victory in future elections, it won’t last forever and Republicans would do well not to dance too long in the end zone.

Historically, Democrats have been far more united than Republicans when it comes to policy, ideology and public debate. President Obama will be out of the White House in a matter of weeks but will no doubt be heavily involved in rebuilding the party and the grassroots coalition that brought him to power in 2008 and 2012. He isn’t leaving Washington, which means he’ll have direct access to every progressive community organizing group in the country in addition to Capitol Hill and K Street. Because Clinton lost, she is no longer able to preserve Obama’s legacy, which means he’ll have to do it himself.  

During one of the final press conferences of his presidency, Obama gave strong indications about his plans to quickly rebuild election infrastructure and to get his party back in the game.

“I’m not worried about being the last Democratic president.  I think — not even for a while.  And I say that, not being cute.  The Democratic nominee won the popular vote, and obviously this was an extremely competitive race, and I would expect that future races will be competitive as well.  I certainly think it’s true that politics in America right now are a little up for grabs, that some of the old alignments within both parties — Democrat and Republican — are being reshaped,” Obama said. “Democrats do have to do some thinking about how do we make sure that the message we have is received effectively and results in winning elections.

“I don’t think that there has to be a complete overhaul here.  I think that there does have to be better organization, a smarter message.  And one message I do have for Democrats is that a strategy that’s just micro-targeting particular, discrete groups in a Democratic coalition sometimes will win you elections, but it’s not going to win you the broad mandate that you need.  And ultimately, the more we can talk about what we have in common as a nation, and speak to a broad set of values, a vision that speaks to everybody and not just one group at a time, the better off we’re going to be,” he continued.

Obama plans on Democrats winning in the near future, and he’ll certainly be heavily involved in making it happen. Republicans should be prepared to bolster their own grassroots efforts, keep promises made on the campaign trail and to fend off calculated, effective attacks from their progressive opponents.

Pavlich is editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.