Finally, a unifying theme for 2018
Democrats whom
I talk to confess privately that despite
President Donald
Trump’s unpopularity and the fact that nearly all polls show their party with a lead over Republicans when it comes to the upcoming midterm elections, they are increasingly nervous about 2018. Fueling the Democrats’ anxiety is the growing perception that their party is without any overarching and unifying vision or theme. The Democratic Party too often is seen as a bizarre collection of single-cause or special interest groups, with the whole actually being less than the sum of its parts.
You want evidence? How about your self-consciously inclusive Democratic event that features only gluten-free, vegan-friendly appetizers and especially welcomes all agnostic cross-dressers who prize sensitivity to an earnest community that remains smoke-free, salt-free and humor-free? To spare members of what was long known as the party of Jefferson and Jackson (before both erstwhile Democratic heroes were expelled retroactively for not championing same-sex marriage and other policy positions unbecoming to a 21st-century liberal) from their increasingly joyless search for an elusive galvanizing idea, here is a nationally unifying theme for 2018:
Summon the will and, yes, the courage to speak up for an un-silent majority of decent and intelligent Americans without a national leader to champion their cause: those of us who despise the New York Yankees baseball team. Think about it. Ours is a nation that admirably roots for the humble, overmatched underdog. The Yankees are now and always have been the rich and arrogant overdog. Major League Baseball has 30 teams. In the past 95 years, the Yankees have been one of the two league champion teams that play in the World Series 40 times. The Yankees have been World Series champions 27 times — or, to put this into perspective, 10 more times than their original league rivals (the Boston Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians) combined. To be a Yankees fan means to root for Apple or Amazon rather than for your neighborhood mom and pop store.
Risk-averse Democrats will worry about alienating “all those Yankees fans.” Sorry, but forget about them. Yankee Stadium, which was once called “The House That Ruth Built,” was recently rebuilt at a cost to the nation’s taxpayers, according to the respected Brookings Institution, of just $431 million. The Yankees’ new ballpark could be more accurately called “The House That Mr. and Mrs. Joe Six-pack Built.” With the Yankees’ listed one-game price for a second-row box seat just a mere $1,538, we begin to understand how the Yankees were recently able to afford acquir-
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