Military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution Victor Davis Hanson argued that Democrats, upon recognizing that their policy platform is unpopular, are instead seeking to reshape American institutions to make their agenda “de facto popular.” He pointed to efforts such as proposals to pack the Supreme Court and abolish the Electoral College as clear examples. Separately, pushes to allow illegal aliens to vote and recent efforts in partisan gerrymandering can also be viewed as part of their broader push to reshape America to ensure they can maintain power.
Victor Davis Hanson just delivered a devastating breakdown explaining Democrats’ desperate strategy to hold power.
— Overton (@overton_news) May 8, 2026
Democrat policies are so unpopular they no longer believe they can win voters — so they’re now trying to radically change the system of governance instead.
HANSON:… pic.twitter.com/udkNxX5lfg
"It seems to me that the Democrats have lost confidence in their agenda. In other words, they don't believe that you, the voter, really does want an open border, or you want 53 million foreign-born without audits that ensure acculturation, integration, assimilation. And the same is true of critical race theory, or critical legal theory, or the emphasis and fixations on transgenderism, or the Green New Deal," Hanson said. "It seems to have been disastrous had we enacted the full agenda of the left, given what the status of oil is, and we're the largest producer of oil and gas in the history of civilization right now. You put it all together, and that message of the Democrats is not appealing. And so, of course, in the short term, their strategy has been, we're not Donald Trump."
"But long term, it suggests that they have two choices. They either have to change their culture and go back to more traditional lifestyles to improve their demographics, and to go back to the assimilationist model, as I think the Republicans have," he continued. "I don't see that happening. Or they would have to lower taxes and cut back entitlements in these blue states to retain their high earners and their upper middle class people who are, for the most part, leaving. They're not going to do that."
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"As the historian Liddy said about Rome's problems in the late Republic, the medicine for them is worse than the disease. They don't want a society where a man and woman are married fairly early, with two to three children. They really don't want a society that is racially blind, and they don't like the idea that a lot of red people stay in their states. They welcome them to leave. And the result of all that is, when they look at these long-term prognosis I just went over, they get very angry. And so what is the reaction? Is it to change the agenda, to win you over the vote? No, it's to change the system.
And so if you want to know why they want to get rid of the electoral college or why they want the census to count residents that could be here, and many cases are here illegally, maybe 30 million, if you want to know why they want to pack the Supreme Court, if you want to know why they want the National Voters Compact to de facto get rid of the electoral college, if you want to know why they want to pack the Supreme Court, it is that their message right now does not appeal to 51 percent, and the demography of which a democracy and a constitutional republic are based on is not in their favor.
"So their only alternative is to find radical changes in the system of governance to allow their unpopular agenda to be, what, de facto popular," he concluded.
This comes as the left is scrambling to coalesce around a new party leader ahead of the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election. They have yet to settle on whether simple opposition to Trump will define the party, whether they will lean further into a more radical left-wing wing of the coalition, or whether they will moderate and pull back toward the center.
So far signs point toward the second option, pointing to support for a Maine Senate candidate facing controversy over a tattoo he has said was covered up, praise for New York City politician Zohran Mamdani, and engagement with commentator Hasan Piker, a self-described socialist who has drawn outrage for inflammatory rhetoric, including calling his audience to violence against capitalists, and arguing that America deserved 9/11.
The left’s most recent attempt to reshape institutions in its favor was overturned in Virginia, as the state Supreme Court struck down a controversial electoral map proposed by the state government that turned a purple state, into one dominated by Democrats.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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