Brian Laline saw the crime scene — then fled before naming the killers.
LUTHMANN NOTE: Staten Island Advance Managing Editor Brian Laline accidentally proved my point. His own column admits Democrats are not offering voters a winning vision. They are hoping Trump stumbles and calling that strategy. That is political vulturism. Kamala Harris did not lose because Biden hid her. She lost because America finally saw her — and saw the party behind her. Inflation. Migrants. Censorship. Lawfare. Gender insanity. Elite contempt. Now Republicans are finally closing ranks against the Democrat machine, including racially engineered congressional lines dressed up as “voting rights.” The autopsy is done. Cause of death: reality. The voters wrote it in red. This piece is “Common Sense Democrats?”
By Richard Luthmann
(STATEN ISLAND, NEW YORK) – Staten Island Advance Managing Editor Brian Laline almost wandered into the truth — then turned around before the crime scene tape. His latest “Letter From the Editor” attempts to re-frame the Democrat Party’s utter defeat in 2024, and hoodwink the masses into believing 2026 will be different because of “Common Sense Democrats.”
That’s his job. He’s a paid HACK for the Left.
Kamala Harris does not need an “autopsy report” to explain 2024. She needs a mirror, a priest, and maybe a Coast Guard escort to that Aruba beach Brian mentioned. The Democrat Party did not lose because Joe Biden kept Kamala in the shadows. It lost because when the curtain finally opened, America saw what was standing there: a cackling DEI hologram with no platform, no gravity, no connection to working people, and no answer for a country getting mugged by prices, migrants, criminals, prosecutors, censors, and bureaucrats.
Laline’s own language proves my point:
“The only reason Dems think they have a chance in November’s midterm elections, and in ’28, is because Donald J. Trump and his cronies keep shooting themselves in the foot.”
Dear old Brian concedes that Democrats are not offering America a winning affirmative vision, and in so doing, accidentally confesses the whole crime.
Democrats do not think they can win because voters love their agenda. They think they can win because Trump might trip over a landmine. That is not leadership. That is political vulturism. Laline’s own sentence proves the Democrat Party has become an opposition cult with no engine, no soul, and no message beyond: “Maybe Trump screws up.”
That is not a campaign. That is a hostage note written by consultants.
Brian also says Common Sense Democrats know what went wrong with Kamala. That is generous.
Common Sense Democrats are now an endangered species. You see one in the wild about as often as you see a clean subway platform, a balanced New York budget, or a left-wing judge who understands the First Amendment.
The Democrat Party did not just run a bad campaign. It runs a bad civilization. Kamala’s message was abortion, transgender rights, vibes, and word salad. Trump’s message was groceries, gas, borders, war, crime, and survival. That is not complicated. That is not “messaging.” That is the difference between a man talking to Americans at the dinner table and a faculty lounge scold reading from a Soros-funded clipboard.
Brian writes that Trump promised to cut grocery bills, end wars, and close the border “on Day One.” Yes. Because Trump understood the assignment. The American people did not want another lecture about “our democracy” from the people who weaponized courts, censored speech, opened borders, and treated parents like domestic terrorists. They wanted a wrecking ball.
They voted for one.
And here is where Brian goes soft: he says Democrats need to drift back to the middle.
Drift?
They need a forced extraction. The Democrat Party is not a little off course. It is in the political psych ward, eating paste, wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, and explaining why men belong in women’s prisons. You cannot “drift” back from that. You need detox, exorcism, and maybe a RICO investigation.
The border was not an abstraction. The migrant crisis was not some MAGA fever dream. New Yorkers saw hotels, schools, shelters, budgets, services, and neighborhoods bent under the weight of an ideology that put illegal migrants ahead of citizens. Staten Island saw it. Queens saw it. Chicago saw it. Denver saw it. Florida watched the whole blue-state circus and said, “No thanks, we’re full.”
And Brian still wants to frame this like Trump simply told people what they wanted to hear.
No.
Trump told people what they were already saying when the cameras were off.
✅ He said the country was being invaded. It was.
✅ He said inflation was eating families alive. It was.
✅ He said the justice system was being weaponized. It was.
✅ He said the media was lying. It was.
✅ He said the establishment hated you. It does.
That is why Trump won. Not because Americans were tricked. Because Americans finally found a candidate willing to say the quiet part through a bullhorn.
Kamala, meanwhile, gave America the political equivalent of a corporate HR seminar after a building fire.
❌ “Reproductive justice.”
❌ “Gender-affirming care.”
❌ “Equity.”
❌ “Joy.”
❌ “Democracy.”
Lady, people could not afford eggs. And it’s not because we had a President who would not permit theocratic psychopaths nuclear weapons to destroy New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Washington, D.C., in one volley while the Chinese and the Russians laugh.
Brian is right that abortion was not the “most extraordinary issue” for most voters. But let us say it harder: Democrats tried to make 2024 a national Planned Parenthood telethon while the country was living through a border crisis, a cost-of-living crisis, a crime crisis, and a legitimacy crisis. They thought suburban moms were worried about drag brunch jurisprudence. Suburban moms were worried about fentanyl, school bathrooms, grocery bills, and whether their daughters could walk through a parking lot without getting followed by some lunatic released under progressive bail reform.
That is the autopsy. Cause of death: reality.
Brian also says Democrats are making a mistake by running against Trump because Trump is not on the ballot in the midterms.
Wrong again.
The Democrats do not need better candidates. They need better instincts. They need to stop hating the people whose votes they want. They need to stop treating normal Americans as bigots, rubes, fascists, extremists, racists, transphobes, election deniers, conspiracy theorists, and threats to democracy every time those Americans ask why their cities are collapsing, and their kids are being used as lab rats in a gender-theory experiment.
Brian’s final point is that “buyer’s remorse” will not work. He is correct. But the reason matters.
Buyer’s remorse will not work because Americans remember exactly what they bought from Democrats last time: inflation, invasion, humiliation, censorship, lawfare, weakness abroad, chaos at home, and a vice president who sounded like she was assembled by a malfunctioning NPR algorithm.
So here is the real autopsy report, Kamala and Brian:
The Democratic Party died from elite contempt, open-border insanity, economic gaslighting, transgender extremism, censorship fever, lawfare addiction, and a fatal allergy to normal Americans.
No need for a blue-ribbon commission. No need for consultants. No need for another retreat in Martha’s Vineyard, where millionaires discuss “working families” over white wine.
The Common Sense Democrats already wrote the report. They wrote it in red.
About The Author
Leave a Reply