Democrats have done a lot of sit-downs complete with various analyses and dissections of what went wrong in their campaign to prevent Donald Trump from winning the presidency for the second time. But perhaps none have been more blunt than Van Jones.
Jones, who served in former President Barack Obama’s administration as a green jobs advisor and is now a CNN political contributor, has been on a tear since Vice President Kamala Harris’ humiliating Election Day defeat. He’s repeatedly told Democrats that they need to get out of their echo chamber and completely change the way they do things going forward because, in his view, Trump changed the game in 2024 with how effectively he campaigned and won over a unique coalition of influential public/political figures like Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Joe Rogan, and Tulsi Gabbard.
For instance, during a New York Times event earlier this month that featured some pretty big names in politics and the media, Jones talked to his fellow panelists about how Trump’s digital media game was far better than the Democrats’:
“First of all, digital is the new door-knocking. You’ve got to understand that,” he said. “We were laughing our butts off at Donald Trump for suspending his door-knocking campaign and letting [conservative activist] Charlie Kirk and [Tesla CEO] Elon [Musk] do a bunch of stuff online. We said, ‘These guys are idiots! These guys are stupid!’”“Then you start knocking on these doors … you know what people come to the door with? Their phone in their hand. They’re in a 24-hour digital surround sound that has nothing to do with CNN, has nothing to do with any of the stuff that we do,” he added.Jones argued that Trump managed to understand the changing political landscape better than the Democrats.
“The mainstream has become fringe and the fringe has become mainstream,” he also said.
Watch some clips from the event below:
Jones was even more pointed in a back-and-forth exchange with former CNN editor-at-large turned Substacker Chris Cillizza, repeating the “mainstream has become fringe” point and also pointing out that Democrats themselves are stupid to believe still Donald Trump is stupid after all this time:
Chris Cillizza: “How the hell did Donald Trump figure out that the mainstream media is the fringe and the fringe is now the mainstream? The 78 year old guy who doesn’t even have a computer and still, like, write handwritten notes? How did he become the guy who cracked the code?”Van Jones: “Everybody keeps I mean, the problem is you have a framework in your mind that how can Donald Trump, how could Donald Trump, how can our guys can we cut it out? Donald Trump is not an idiot. Donald Trump…let me just be very clear. Donald Trump is smarter than me. You and all critics. This dude is a phenomenon. He is the most powerful human on earth and in our lifetime. And we’re still saying, Well, how is this guy [doing it]? We look like idiots?”Cillizza: “You’re totally right.”
Watch:
He also told Cillizza that the Democrat Party was so “off” on what they needed to do to win future elections that they were “in a ditch, upside down, with wheels spinning going nowhere on fire, and the people driving are saying ‘this is fine, this is fine.'”
Watch:
Van Jones seems to have figured out that the legacy media is dying and being replaced in part by digital media, which includes popular Twitch streamers and TikTok influencers as well as podcasters like Joe Rogan, to whom millions more – including those in the disaffected groups Trump targeted – watch/listen to than they do legacy media outlets.
While Jones seems resigned to the fact that traditional media outlets are becoming irrelevant and taking a backseat to digital media and other alternative news/information sources, clearly he is (understandably) not happy that his fellow Democrats are behind and trying to play catch up with Trump on this matter, who did know all of this and exploited it to the hilt.
When the “stupid” guy beats you by completely rewriting your previously tried and true playbook, it’s gotta sting, which is why some five weeks or so after the election, a lot of sad trombones are still playing in Democrat World and will be for quite some time to come.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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