The Democrats are at their lowest point since the outbreak of the Civil War. Derangement by definition means acting in self-destructive ways, and mass derangement, specifically Trump Derangement Syndrome, is the animating force behind a large share of the thoughts and actions of both leaders and followers of the world’s oldest political party. Put starkly, the crazies have grabbed control and reinforce one another, spinning farther and farther away from the mainstream of American political life. A few vignettes this week illustrate the crisis.

The circular firing squad

As of two weeks ago, there have been 389 violent attacks against Trump supporters. But a hallmark of true frenzy is when those violent impulses turn against ostensible allies who are just not pure enough. The Bernie Bros now are morphing into the Bernie Brownshirts, with a strong undercurrent of fratricidal violence that comes to the surface when Project Veritas films campaign workers threatening to burn down Milwaukee if their leader is not the candidate chosen by the party. That threat is already manifesting its early stages.

Nick Arama writes in Red State:

On Monday a group of Bernie supporters surround the care [sic] of Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Betsy Dirksen Londrigan as she was leaving a campaign event in Champaign, Illinois. They were demanding that she debate socialist candidate Stefanie Smith.

The people on the video can be heard yelling “where did she go,” “block her in” and “get by her window!” One demanded to know if she that she would “support Medicare for All.” The video says “January 24” but it actually happened on February 24. According to the CBS Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Maxwell, Smith is a fringe candidate who “only has 2 donors from Illinois.” Most candidates in such a situation would have disavowed it if their supporters did anything like that. Not so Smith. Smith praised the group for their actions, thanking them in a Facebook post,. “I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when I watched the video of what happened — when I saw red umbrellas go up.”

The crazies have all the momentum. Nancy Pelosi has outright surrendered to The Squad, approving the disastrous impeachment that strengthened Trump’s approval ratings.

Self-destructive behavior

Having learned nothing from their impeachment disaster, Democrats press ahead with words and deeds that alienate the mainstream. Openly hoping for, even urging on an economic disaster that would harm most people, in the hopes of damaging Trump, for instance. Or sponsoring legislation to halt work on the border wall to purportedly fund coronavirus countermeasures (even as President Trump specified money will be no object) in the face of Chinese nationals being smuggled across the Mexican border.

Suggesting that a virus originating in China be called “Trumpvirus” makes sense to people deranged by hatred, but strikes the other 75% of the populace as mean-spirited at best.

The Democrat presidential candidates have been outright lying about the state of American readiness so blatantly in their efforts to disparage the man leading us through the crisis that even the Associated Press publishes a scathing fact check.

None of this inspires any public confidence in the Democrats as the party to lead us through perilous times.

Demoralization

The Bernie faction is able to command a third to a half of the primary vote, which is a fraction of the fraction of the voting public that identifies as Democrats. Driven by anger, they make the effort to turnout at caucuses and primary elections. But they are not attracting much new support, and there is evidence that they are demoralizing the rest of the party and repelling the non-Democrat voters, who report unprecedented levels of satisfaction with the way their lives are working out under President Trump.

Rahm Emanuel, who guided Barack Obama to victory in 2008, sees what is going on: disappointing turnout:

It is hard to see sanity returning to the party. It may well require a thorough drubbing in November before the sane remnant (if any) is able to pick up the pieces and head back toward the mainstream.

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