Dear Democrats: STFU About “Woke”

And go take a look at what’s happening at the Port of Los Angeles.

U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Tim Boring host a listening session with Michigan farmers and agriculture industry leaders on tariffs, immigration, H5N1, and rural economic development on March 20, 2025 in Sparta, Michigan. (Photo by Chris duMond/Getty Images)

On the Secret pod Sarah and I had a conversation about Democratic messaging in general and Sen. Elissa Slotkin’s specific attempt to pivot the party away from “wokeness.” (This part of the show starts at the 15:54 mark.) Sarah’s contention was that Democrats will, at some point, need to create a coherent vision for the future and build a brand around that.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this topic and I wonder if there’s another path. Look, a party brand built around a coherent and compelling vision for the future is absolutely one way to win power. But it’s not the only way.

So let me lay out an alternative theory: Democrats don’t need to rebrand the party; they need to totally disqualify the Republican party while being ambiguous about what they stand for so that a broad array of voters can project their preferences on to them.

And any national Democrat trying to do intraparty wrangling right now is committing political malpractice. Because the only story that matters is how Trump Republicans are destroying the economy and the rule of law.

Let’s dive in.

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1. Ports

Late last week Sen. Slotkin did a big public rollout of her campaign to purge the Democratic party of being “weak and woke.” This involved her cursing (to show how strong she is¹) and criticizing Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for their “oligarchy” organizing tour.

Also late last week: The director of the Port of Los Angeles warned that in two weeks the number of inbound containers being processed at the busiest facility in America will drop by 35 percent. “Essentially all shipments out of China for major retailers and manufacturers have ceased,” he reported. “And cargo coming out of Southeast Asia locations is much softer than normal.”

You can see this wave of declines coming by watching container ship departures from Asia, which are moving toward pandemic levels.

This week only 17 vessels with 85,486 20-foot-equivalents (TEUs) of goods are scheduled to dock in LA, down 28.6 percent from last week. Next week, that number will drop to 16 vessels with 74,925 TEUs.

We are seeing this story repeated in Seattle and Long Beach.

What that means: