After President-elect Donald Trump leaned on dissident Republican U.S House members and strong-armed the reelection of Speaker Mike Johnson, congressional Democrats -- and Republicans -- marveled at Trump's power and influence.
When the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Colorado could not prevent Trump from appearing on that state's primary, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the House Jan. 6 Committee, remained defiant. On CNN, Raskin said: "I disagree with that interpretation, just because the other parts of the Fourteenth Amendment are self-executing. ... I am working with a number of my colleagues ... to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment."
Just days ago, the former president of the New York City Bar Association co-authored a piece published in the Hill and urged House Democrats to oppose Trump's certification: "The Constitution provides that an oath-breaking insurrectionist is ineligible to be president. This is the plain wording of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. ... The evidence of Donald Trump's engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming."
But Jan. 6, 2025, came and went. Democrats' talk of staging an objection to the certification of an "insurrectionist" quickly evaporated, and the certification of Trump's victory proceeded without a hitch. Why? Trump's stunning comeback victory proved that whipping out the anti-Trump Nazi/dictator/insurrection/threat-to-our-republic card no longer works. Democrat strategist James Carville said: "... Voters want an election about them. They don't want an election about you or your opponent. And for too much, we lost that. I lost it myself. We made it about Trump, and we didn't make it about voters."
Still, House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries contrasted Democrats' supposed acceptance of election outcomes with Republicans who "deny elections." During Trump's certification, Jeffries said: "There are no election deniers on our side of the aisle. One should love America when you win and when you lose. That's the patriotic thing to do, and that's the America that House Democrats will fight hard to preserve because we love this country."
Quite an astonishing display of chutzpah from the lawmaker who, one year after Trump took office, tweeted: "The more we learn about 2016 election the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes. America deserves to know whether we have a FAKE President in the Oval Office."
MSNBC host Joy Reid also remained in Trump-is-an-insurrectionist mode: "Fourteen days from today you will hear many soberly laud the peaceful transfer of power. ... But you can't peacefully transfer power to an insurrectionist ... This will be violent transfer of power, the most violent in U.S. history, if we are being honest."
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin carried the theme to a hysterical level: "You don't move on, because Jan. 6 was an atrocity. It's one of the worst moments in American history. When you think about the worst moments in American history, like World War II, like the Holocaust, chattel slavery. We need to never forget because the past becomes prologue."
"The Holocaust"? "World War II"? "Chattel slavery"?
But Trump's election triumph, the collapse of special counsel Jack Smith's Trump "election interference" case and Trump's growing approval ratings signal even most Democrat voters want to move on.
Now what? Look for Democrats to argue "heartless" Republicans, who seek to rein in spending and get the federal budget under control, want to kill Grandma. Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) recently offered a preview: "... We have to explain the issues to the American people in the way they can understand it. Let me give you a good example. Medicaid ... It's about every single family in America needing what Medicaid provides. But we don't explain that to people. I can't tell you how many times I talk to people, especially in rural communities, they have no idea that these nursing homes are funded through Medicaid. People keep passing it off as something for low-income people only and doesn't apply to other families. We have got to go to the American people ... and that's what we are not doing a good job of."
So, expect the Democrats -- the party of DEI; abortion; climate change; Israel-is-an-apartheid-state; Republican-are-racist/sexist/bigoted; and class warfare -- to regain their footing, to reinforce and to resume their anti-Trump "resistance."