The scorpion, the frog and the Democratic Party

Most of us heard the fable of the scorpion and the frog. As paraphrased on Wikipedia, it goes like this: “A scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks a frog to carry it across. The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s my character.'”

In the same way, if Donald Trump is reelected, especially with a major electoral margin, and all the more if the GOP takes control of both houses, a major reason will be that the Democrats are similar to the scorpion. They continue to hold more and more radical positions, positions that are becoming increasingly out of touch with mainstream Americans. And yet rather than act on political pragmatism and modify their extreme positions, they hold to them anyway, even to their own detriment.

It’s true that Kamala Harris is proving to be a very unpopular candidate. In fact, according to a recent poll, “When asked which candidate they rejected ‘more,’ 50.1 percent said Harris, while 48.6 percent said Trump.”

That is really quite striking when you just think of how much hatred there is toward Donald Trump. Yet, according to this poll (conducted from Oct. 25-29), more of them “rejected” Harris than Trump.

But if Trump and the GOP do triumph next Tuesday, it will not just be due to Harris’ unpopularity and Trump’s popularity. That’s because Trump has too much baggage. Too many haters. Too many alienating flaws. Too many obstacles to overcome.

Plus, Trump has disappointed many Christian conservatives by taking the teeth out of the GOP platform on important issues such as abortion and same-sex “marriage.”

No, there is something else going on, something that is driving many voters away from Harris and the Democrats. As articulated by the left-leaning political pundit Van Jones, “I just wonder if we look back on this period – there’s no excuse for the stuff that Elon Musk is doing, the stuff he says, he’s irresponsible – but if progressives have a politics that says, all white people are racist, all men are toxic, and all billionaires are evil, it’s kind of hard to keep them on your side. And so, we might want to think about, if you’re chasing people out of the party, you can’t be mad when they leave. And maybe if we had a different politics, where we actually said, dignity for everybody, everybody’s respected, and we need you, more people might stay.”

Quite true. Except for the fact that the scorpion isn’t thinking rationally and pragmatically. It’s being true to its own nature. It can’t help but sting the very one that it’s depending on for survival.

Put another way, defending tampons in boys’ bathrooms (as per Gov. Tim Waltz) is not a winning strategy.

Advocating government-funded sex-change surgery for trans-identified illegal immigrant inmates (as per Vice President Harris) will not garner popular support.

Or telling black voters that they’re disloyal if they don’t vote for Harris will hardly encourage a greater black turnout for the Democrats.

When it comes to younger male voters (18-29), op-ed writer Erika Sanzi notes that, “From the 2016 Trump-Clinton race to now, the percentage of these voters that identify or lean Democrat has taken a nosedive from 51 percent to 39 percent.”

She attributes much of this to what they’re learning in school, writing, “Schools of education that train teachers are steeped in the worldview that sees girls and women as victims and boys and men as their victimizers. They are told that to be born female in 2024 is to be ‘oppressed.’ Aspiring teachers now spend their college years marinating in anti-male content and rhetoric where slogans like ‘Smash the patriarchy,’ ‘toxic masculinity’ and ‘the future is female’ abound.”

Sanzi continues, “Just as the school-aged boys begin to wonder, ‘is there anything on offer here for me?’, so do the young men in that 18-29 year old demographic when looking at the political left and the Democratic Party.”

She concludes, “The steady drumbeat of denigrating messages heard from the front of the classroom and from the stage of the Democratic convention has left young men feeling alienated and looking for something else.

“They seem to be finding it in the GOP.”

Then why doesn’t the Democratic Party make a shift toward the center?

That’s similar to the question the frog asked the scorpion: “Why Mr. Scorpion, why did you sting me? Now we will both surely drown.”

The scorpion replies, “I don’t know, I guess it’s just my nature.”