Better in their words…

WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY

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Right when everyone thought it was all coming up bread and circuses for Democrats —and proving once again that you should never assume the news cycle’s hot takes are stable— this happens. Yesterday, far-left Axios ran a fiery story headlined, ““Follow her example”: Pelosi’s retirement reignites Democrats’ generational warfare.” Reaching older progressives who don’t read Axios, the New York Times also ran a companion version in the form of a Michelle Goldberg op-ed titled, “More Democrats Need to Follow Pelosi’s Example and Retire.” Democrats obviously waited till right after Tuesday’s elections to pull the trigger.

The short version is: Nancy Pelosi was squashed by the Mamdani Family Farmhouse, which fell out of the sky and landed right on top of her. Adding insult to political injury, Nancy had lent Zohran the money to buy the stupid farmhouse in the first place (Portlanders: rhetorically speaking).

📉 In other words, the Democrats’ success on Tuesday night launched a new “Night of the Long Knives.” In the original 1934 version, under the legal excuse that his enemies had allowed their shrubbery to exceed 36” in height or something, Hitler ordered hundreds of people who opposed him to be rounded up and provided with options of a rather permanent nature and limited duration.

Something similar is happening now in the Democrat party. It’s about to be a political massacre.

This always happens to leftists. In 1936, Josef Stalin, looking to beat Adolph’s recent record, rounded up hundreds of thousands of deluded liberals not sufficiently communist, shot the lucky ones, and sent the remainder off to Siberia for endless re-education in facilities marketed as old-school summer camp, where work makes you free, except in minus-sixty degrees Fahrenheit.

Historians labeled the unfortunate Soviet episode as the “Great Terror.” But Stalin was an amateur. Nowadays, all the commie dictators race to one-up each other in enthusiasm for internal purges. It’s practically a tradition; just look at Chairman Mao, all the North Korean Kims (each in his deranged turn), Chang Kai-shek, Fidel Castro, and the current record holder in sheer numbers, Pol Pot of Cambodia.

And, as Axios’s headline helpfully reminded everyone, it is almost always in the form of “Generational Warfare.”

This is no historical anomaly. Leftists do purges all the time. They lovepurges! It’s exhilarating! It makes them feel alive! As recently as last month, for example, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary-slash-President Xi ordered a purge, just a little one, to keep his team on their toes. Newsweek:

Some alert readers may think I’m exaggerating for comedic purposes. So let’s dig into the actual news.

📉 Yesterday’s Pelosi announcement was a surprise. Until yesterday, former House Speaker Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi (D-San Fran.), 85, was actively running for re-election in next year’s midterms. She’d effortlessly raised $2.1 million so far. She’s opposed in the primary by two reckless younger Democrats, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle with one withered hand tied behind her back.

Her first challenger, State Senator Scott Weiner, 55, has raised $1.7 million, but half of that was left over from his state campaign two years ago. The other, Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, is self-funded.

But shocking everyone, in yesterday’s over-produced video announcement, Pelosi dropped out of the race. Her long and storied political career will wrap up in January, 2027. (One suspects her withered hands still have a role to play in the selection of her successor. Weiner and Chakrabarti aren’t out of the woods yet.)

“We have made history, we have made progress,” Pelosi said in her swan song. That is technically true. She was first elected during the construction of the Palace of Versailles. As Speaker, she helped shove Obamacare down the Nation’s throat and passed Biden’s lunatic covid-slash-inflation bill.

Now —suddenly and unexpectedly— she’s out. The only thing that had changed was that Democrats won on Tuesday. They won! Not lost.

Even more remarkable, nobody’s complaining. The corporate media papers are packed with soaring odes of farewell to her glorious career, now safely in the rear-view mirror. But Axios noticed the deliciously ironic fact that last year, Pelosi “played a central role in pushing then-President Biden off the Democratic presidential ticket due to his age and fitness to run.”

President Trump spoke plainly, starting with praise. “I think she did the country a great service by retiring,” Trump said. “I think she was a tremendous liability for the country. I thought she was an evil woman who did a poor job, who cost the country a lot in damages and in reputation. I thought she was terrible.” Well. Maybe not that much praise.

Anyway, Axios continued, by rounding up a whole lot of quotes from other, younger Democrats who are sick and tired of all these geriatric Boomers.

📉 For example, former Hartford mayor Luke Bronin, 46, is running in the primary against incumbent John Larson (D-Conn.), 77, who’s been squatting in his seat for 27 long years. “Nancy Pelosi’s decision sends a powerful message that it’s time to let new leaders step forward,” Larson helpfully pointed out.

George state representative Jasmine Clark, 42, is trying to primary David Scott (D-Ga.), 80. Yesterday, Clark released public records showing Scott hasn’t even voted in many recent elections, including last year’s presidential election. “I cannot fathom any elected official asking his constituents for their votes every two years while not even bothering to go vote himself,” Clark quipped.

(Scott’s office did not respond to Axios’ request for comment. He was probably still sleeping.)

Much-abused former DNC vice-chair David Hogg, 25, who has long called for “fresh faces,” was having a moment. He told Axios, “I hope more Democratic members of Congress follow Pelosi’s example and pass the torch.” Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, encouraged “other older members” to “take their cues from Pelosi and make this their last term.”

Axios asked Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), 44, if he thinks more of his older colleagues will follow Pelosi’s lead. He replied, “I don’t know, but Nancy has always been a trailblazer.” She’s blazing a trail all right, one that looks like a retirement home walker path.

Which brings us to Michelle Goldberg and her timely op-ed, which was more delicately worded, to appeal to the Times’ readers, since they need reading glasses.

📉 After a long paragraph glowingly singing Pelosi’s praises, Goldberg got to the point. Pelosi, Michelle said, is “right to retire now, setting an example for a party with a serious gerontocracy problem.” The trouble, Michelle explained, “goes far deeper.”

Deeper into the Democrat party, that is.

“Democrats used to be the party of youthful vigor,” Michelle complained, citing JFK, Clinton, and Obama as examples. But now, “There are more than 50 House Democrats who are 70 or older.” That isn’t even counting three Democrat members who croaked in office in 2025. So far.

Michelle pigpiled on poor Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), 88, who is currently running for re-election, but “struggles to do her job and sometimes appears not to recognize people she’s known for years.” Over in the Senate, Dems are led by Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), 74, who “recently recruited Janet Mills, the 77-year-old governor of Maine, to run for Senate” in Maine. So.

“Democrats need charismatic young candidates,” Michelle continued, “who understand today’s fractured information ecosystem” —i.e., TikTok— “and know how to inspire hope in those who feel deeply disaffected.” And then she finally stuck the long knife in: “And to run candidates like that, older onesmust make way.”

Taken together —Pelosi’s sudden retirement, the Axios article, the willingness of many Democrats to openly criticize their older colleagues, the matching Goldberg op-ed— yesterday looked like the beginning of a modern-day party purge.

Older Democrats are in for the political fight of their long lives. The call is coming from inside the house.

📉 But … why? And why now? You might think that Democrats, exhilarated by their wins on Tuesday and with all their new momentum, would conclude the plan is working. You might think that now would be the worst time to jettison the party’s most politically experienced and savvy members.

You’d be wrong. The reason can be summarized in two foreign words: Zohran Mamdani.

Michelle Goldberg flatly admitted it: “As we saw in this week’s New Yorkmayoral election, younger candidates have distinct advantages in reaching the emerging electorate, for reasons that go far beyond identity politics.” Mamdani, she explained, “won young men — a demographic Democrats have struggled with — by +34 points.”

Zohran the Magnificent, also 34, ran against Andrew Cuomo, 67, and Curtis Sliwa, 71. Just saying.

📉 Don’t pass too quickly over this point. In spite of the reams of rhetoric about young people preferring socialism, machine Democrats are clearly concluding it is really about age discrimination. Younger Democrats —especially men— don’t want antique candidates. They want what they’ve always been promised: change.

To be fair, the Democrats tried to preserve the old guard. They gave them a chance. They taught them how to use TikTok. But the geriatrics blew it.

Honestly. I’m just a lawyer, not a political consultant, but even I know that what young people hate the most is older generations trying to use their slang. They cringe faster than salted snails. (Maybe I learned because I have kids. They literally flee from the room in horror whenever I say something like “6-7.”)

Once you start looking for the purge, you can find it cropping up everywhere. For instance, this ABC headline invoking the experts, also from yesterday:

Behold, the new narrative has arrived. It’s an -ism, all right, but it’s not socialism. It’s ageism. The Democrats prefer to be the party of youth and vigor, like that guy who just won in New York City. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

📉 This isn’t hard. Based on a sample size of one, Democrats have drawn the conclusion that age beats everything else. “He’s so young!” But he’s a socialist. “But he’s so youthful, and energetic!” He wasn’t even born here. Look at his weird name. “So handsome! So dynamic!” He’s an Israel-hating Muslim in a city packed with Jewish people. “So spry! So fresh!” He did the Nazi salute thing. “Bold! Zestful!”

Headline from Reuters, also yesterday:

We can now see the breadcrumbs leading directly to the purge. “Affordability” is a code word, a progressive dog-whistle. Affordability represents the youth vote, a one-word signal for the basket of issues that top their list: student loan slavery, free college, rent and housing prices, internet fees, UBER rates, club cover charges, and the cost of Cookie Monster Frappuccinos.

Affordability is a bypass straight around all Trump’s 80/20 issues. As a demographic, young voters care the least about the stock market, the national debt, trans insanity, immigration, DEI, tariffs, RussiaGate, Ukraine, fentanyl, Fauci, Epstein, vaccines, or election fraud. The unbelievable price of dinner for two at Applebee’s, that’s different.

The TikTok generation’s issues are simpler. They want houses and post-pandemic normal lives. They see AI as a bigger threat to their livelihoods than immigrants.

Thus, Democrats are now engaged in a massive pivot, an all-in play for the center. Partisans in the Democrat base —the “No Kings” contingent— don’t care what issues their candidates run on. It could be making alien contact. Doesn’t matter. They’ll vote blue, no matter who. So this is nothing less than a redefinition of the party itself, a play to capture uncommitted independents using social media, and to plug the Democrats’ worst demographic leak: young men.

📉 It might even be a brilliant pivot. It is a pivot backwards, a retreat to classic Marxism based on economic division— fleeing from now-poisonous, victim-group-focused Neomarxism. They’re trying to link youth to socialism, and vice-versa. The classic Marxist play.

But it’s risky.

Democrats have decided to rapidly rebuild their political airplane while it is flying. Maybe in this time of viral media, when narratives rise and fall during a single day’s Instagram feed, there is no other choice. But plans made in haste often fail just as quickly, for unforeseen reasons. As the Bard sagely observed, “they stumble that run fast.”

If progressives’ original plan was always to pivot to a youth-based national campaign, then Nancy Pelosi would not have applied for re-election earlier this year, just to drop out after a whole lot of unnecessary effort and expense. So we are witnessing a knee-jerk response to Mamdani’s election, along with its historic turnout— the astonishing fruits of a flailing party desperate for a lifeline.

Now, Democrats’ elder statesmen and statesladies must be purged, for the good of the party.

Inscrutable Sun Tzu, in the ancient Art of War, reflected that “He who acts hastily will be easily defeated.” Whether it will work this time remains to be seen. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Have a fantastic Friday! Thanks again for all the suggestions, even the more extreme ones. We’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully with even more youthful energy and vigor than today, and a new roundup of essential news and commentary.

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