Democratic Party catapulted into 'new phase of a cold war' in one-year wake of Biden's unprecedented dropout

Fox News

21-07-2025

Former President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential election in a Sunday afternoon social media post a year ago that has since left the Democratic Party in a state of panic as it jumped to a new presidential candidate before suffering a devastating blow by MAGA voters at the ballot boxes in November that year.
A year after Biden's X post sent shock waves felt across the political spectrum, the Democratic Party is still reeling from the botched campaign cycle and has found itself in a "cold war," according to Democrat Julian Epstein, the former House Judiciary chief counsel.
"The Democratic Party has entered into a new phase of a cold war, whether it realizes it or not," Epstein told Fox News Digital. "On the one hand, we have an increasingly radicalized socialist movement, out of step with mainstream voters, dependent on the pander politics of the welfare state, addicted to a sectarian Neo-racialist identititarian ideology, and aligning with the world's most oppressive movements in the Mideast. And most of this is driven by a delusional worldview that progressives are somehow the liberating oppression in West. The problem is almost no voters agree with this worldview."
While the other side of the party, he said, is "a more trad moderate wing" that is "glomming on to the new fad known as the 'abundance.'"
"This movement is led by the so-called 'smarties' in the center," he continued. "It's not that abundance is not a smart pivot – it is. The problem is it's too small, too technocratic, too inside baseball for a meaningful reset. And those leading this alternative vision seem too easily intimidated by the other wing, and particularly the flying monkeys of the online progressive left, whenever they pop their heads up. As a result, the moderates lack any big bold vision to reset the party to a more viable common-sense center."
The Democratic Party's current state followed an unprecedented 2024 election cycle that was thrown into a tailspin when Biden officially announced he would not run for re-election in the dead of summer.
Biden's White House staff and campaign had for weeks following his disastrous June 27, 2024, debate against President Donald Trump that the 46th president would remain in the race despite mounting concerns over his mental acuity and calls for him to bow out and pass the torch to a younger generation of Democrats.
Despite allies urging Democratic voters to "keep the faith" and support Biden, the president posted a letter to X that read: "It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
Biden shortly thereafter endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take the reins of the Democratic campaign to secure the White House for another term, leaving her with just 100 days to reinvigorate support for the blue ticket.
Harris failed to drum up the support needed to defeat Trump, losing each of the seven swing states, including the key battleground of Pennsylvania that carries 19 electoral votes.
In the wake of the election, Democrats played a blame game for the loss, with some pointing to Harris' campaign, arguing the Biden campaign left them in a lurch with just 107 days. Others pointed to Harris' running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as a weak choice to invigorate voters.
Others pinned blame on the apparent behind-the-scenes push from high-profile Democrats to encourage Biden out of the race.
A handful of former President Barack Obama's allies and former advisors publicly helped lead the charge in calling on Biden to drop out of the 2024 race earlier in the summer, including David Axelrod, who said Biden was "not winning this race;" George Clooney, who called on the president to quit in a bombshell op-ed; and Jon Favreau, who served as former director of speech writing for Obama.
"There is no singular reason why we lost, but a big reason is because the Obama advisors publicly encouraged Democratic infighting to push Joe Biden out, didn't even want Kamala Harris as the nominee, and then signed up as the saviors of the campaign, only to run outdated Obama-era playbooks for a candidate that wasn't Obama," one former Biden staffer told Politico in the immediate fallout of the election.
Other pundits pointed to how the Obamas took three days before endorsing Harris after allegedly encouraging Biden to drop out.
Following the immediate backlash over Harris' election loss, the Democratic Party has grappled with the exodus of the working-class vote to the GOP, with high-profile senators such as John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and Bernie Sanders of Vermont arguing Democrats turned their backs on the blue-collar vote.
"It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change," Sanders posted to X following the election. "And they're right."
Fetterman, who repeatedly has been identified as the Democratic Party's "voice of reason" following the 2024 race, argued in February that the party had become "toxic" after years of "shaming and scolding" voters.
"I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them 'Hey, I know better than you, or you're dopes, or you're a bro, or you're ignorant or, how can you be this dumb?' I can't imagine it. And then, by the way, they're fascists. How can you vote for that?" Fetterman said on a podcast in February.
"And you know, when you're in a state like Pennsylvania, I know and I love people that voted for Trump, and they're not fascist. They don't support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you're going to lose the argument. And we have done that."
The party's identity crisis has been underscored by claims it has gone too far to the left in recent years, most notably on social issues such as transgender issues, with even the New York Times editorial board chastising the party in a March op-ed.
"Democrats should recognize that the party moved too far left on social issues after Barack Obama left office in 2017. The old video clips of Ms. Harris that the Trump campaign gleefully replayed last year – on decriminalizing the border and government-funded gender-transition surgery for prisoners – highlighted the problem. Yes, she tried to abandon these stances before the election, but she never spoke forthrightly to voters and acknowledged she had changed her position," the editorial board wrote at the time.
Obama has meanwhile told the party to "toughen up" and "stop looking for a quick fix" after the election.
"I think it's going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it's going to require Democrats to just toughen up," Obama said at a fundraiser earlier in July, according to excerpts obtained by CNN. "Don't tell me you're a Democrat, but you're kind of disappointed right now, so you're not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something."
The midterms next year loom large over both political parties. Democrats are embroiled in controversy in New York City's mayoral race, where socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani locked down the Democratic primary in June and has since come under fierce scrutiny for his far-left platform.
Epstein continued that the Democrat Party's current "cold war" is also rooted in an "addiction" to "anger."
"Undergirding all this is a dangerous culture of anger and negativity that has become the party's public face. The increasingly loud voices seem to be trapped in a permanent primal scream, and at times seem more like an odd street dance troupe or college protesters," he said.
"This is what happens when social media influence rather than governance becomes a party's North Star," Epstein continued. "Anger has become the norm on the left, it has become an addiction, a shibboleth. It's a narcotic within the progressive monoculture, but it's toxic outside of it. Until the party can say 'no' to the activist groups, get more focused on voters rather than online influencers, and move back to the traditional political center as it was in the 1990s, the toxic ratings for the party, the worst perhaps on record, will continue to decline."
As Biden notches his one-year anniversary since dropping out of his re-election race, Trump celebrated a milestone of his own Sunday: the six-month anniversary of his second presidency.
"Wow, time flies! Today is that Sixth Month Anniversary of my Second Term. Importantly, it's being hailed as one of the most consequential periods of any President," Trump wrote on social media Sunday. "In other words, we got a lot of good and great things done, including ending numerous wars of Countries not related to us other than through Trade and/or, in certain cases, friendship," he added on TRUTH Social. "Six months is not a long time to have totally revived a major Country."
"One year ago our Country was DEAD, with almost no hope of revival. Today the USA is the 'hottest' and most respected Country anywhere in the World. Happy Anniversary!!!"