Donald Trump’s first congressional address of his second term had many unifying moments. The only ones who seemed not to be on board were congressional Democrats.
Writing for the Free Press in December of last year, renowned historian Niall Ferguson described what he called a global “Vibe Shift,” a term he borrowed from writer Santiago Pliego. He wrote that
“If the vibe shift in culture is about founder mode versus diversity, equity, and inclusion committees, the global vibe shift is about peace through strength versus chaos through de-escalation. It’s Daddy’s Home—not the fraying liberal international order.”
In Pliego’s words, “the Vibe Shift is a return to—a championing of—Reality, a rejection of the bureaucratic, the cowardly, the guilt-driven; a return to greatness, courage, and joyous ambition.”
In the American context, the Vibe Shift is shedding a tear at the sound of the national anthem, not kneeling in protest during it. It is supporting the police, not the criminals. It is believing the military is for warriors, not diversity trainers. It is revering the great men who won the Revolutionary War and wrote the Constitution, not dismissing them as dead, white, male slaveowners. It is looking forward to the day on which great Americans will plant the Stars and Stripes on Mars. The Vibe Shift is a transition from “America is racist and genocidal” to “America is back, and America is good.”
A week after Donald Trump’s historic re-election, I wrote in these pages that the then president-elect had won a decisive mandate to secure the southern border, fight crime, solve inflation, and pursue a more moderate social policy. Exit polls clearly bore out this view.
But Trump’s victory was also the apotheosis of the global Vibe Shift. It was the clarion call of an electorate longing for a country that believed in itself, its history, and its promise.
In his inaugural address, America’s 47th president spoke to his fellow citizens’ deep love for their country, and their reverence for the epic, thrilling story of the American nation. In some of the most moving prose in modern presidential speechwriting, Trump recalled how
“Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness. They crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens, and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand.”
He concluded that “[i]f we work together, there is nothing we cannot do and no dream we cannot achieve.”
One can of course dispute the degree to which Trump has remained faithful to the democratic mandate I described above, or even to some tenets of the global Vibe Shift. For instance, one might question how the disgraceful treatment of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week fits with a foreign policy of peace through strength. It is also not obvious how the president’s love of tariffs fits with his vow to bring down inflation.
Still, Donald Trump has a knack for tapping into the prevailing mood, or vibe. For many millions of Americans, the president represents the patriotic yearning for an American golden age. Whether one believes that he can deliver it is another matter.
I previously wrote that in the aftermath of Trump’s victory, the Democrats who were in touch with reality acknowledged that their party had moved too far to the left on social issues, and that this radical turn was at least in part to blame for Kamala Harris’ resounding loss. I argued then, and still believe, that Democrats need to get back in touch with the people they wish to represent if they hope to avoid fading into irrelevance.
To this end, championing policies that Americans overwhelmingly support would be a start. Supporting the administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, decrease the hold of DEI on government and federally funded institutions, and protect women-only spaces, should be no-brainers.
But so should standing and cheering the capture of a terrorist who killed 13 American servicemembers during the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. It should be second nature for Democrats to applaud the release of an American who had been imprisoned in Putin’s Russia for over two years, or the honorary induction of a 13-year-old brain cancer survivor into the Secret Service. It should even be easy—hold onto your hats—to applaud statements of support for the parents of children brutally murdered by illegal aliens.
For those who missed it, these are all real things that the vast majority of Democrats failed to cheer during last night’s presidential address to Congress. If ever there was incontrovertible proof that one party in this country has completely missed the boat on the global Vibe Shift, this is it. Donald Trump may not be a perfect avatar for this shift, but at the moment, the Democratic Party is too busy scoring own goals to be a viable alternative.
It is a true pity that this needs saying, but Americans like when their military captures or kills their enemies. They do not like Americans being imprisoned by foreign dictators. They do like when those Americans are freed. They like 13-year-old brain cancer survivors throwing their arms around Secret Service agents during presidential speeches. They do not like when their fellow citizens are killed by thugs who had no right to be in their country. And they certainly do not like when politicians pretend to disagree with them on these matters to score cheap political points.
If flash polls are any indication, Americans loved their president’s speech. Once again, it is the Democrats who are firmly outside the mainstream of American political opinion. Their path back to relevance requires recognition of these basic facts. They should do themselves and their fellow citizens a favor, and at least pretend to be in touch with the country they serve. Voters may just end up rewarding them for the effort.