Okay guys, we need to get our concerned faces on. The Democrats are up to something that they’ve totally never tried.

Thankfully, we have The New York Times, that bastion of journalistic integrity, to keep us informed.

Democrats are trying out a new attitude. It’s provocative, edgy and perilously toeing the line of not being too offensive.

Uh oh, are they painting their fingernails black and listening to The Cure?

There was a time last summer when the Democratic Party was cool.

Wrong.

Okay, I broke sarcasm there. But that was dead wrong.

Kamala Harris had just stepped in as the Democratic Party’s nominee for president in the waning days of Bratsummer. She went on the popular podcast ‘Call Her Daddy.’ Tim Walz’s outdoorsy drip led to a Chappell Roan-inspired camo trucker hat. The memes were flowing, and the party’s mood was high.

One thing I’m not letting Democrats live down is that they thought that Kamala Harris was a viable candidate. Auto-complete finished that sentence for me, and I’m not ashamed of that. Even now, Democrats still don’t know why they lost, and they’re looking like they’re going back to the same strategy.

But now, it’s looking like that’s all about to change.

As liberals try to get their groove back, some party insiders say Democratic politicians have been encouraged to embrace a new form of combative rhetoric aimed at winning back voters who have responded to President Trump’s no-holds-barred version of politics.

Remember when Democrats abrasively criticized you and your virtues to a pulp? Well, watch out! Now the Dems are getting serious!

It’s an attempt to step outside the bounds of the political correctness that Republicans have accused Democrats of establishing. And it requires being crass but discerning, rude but only to a point.

Online, it has a name: ‘Dark woke.’

Okay, I’m going to go ahead and bust out the laughing anime girls for this one.

You might remember that the left already attempted a “dark” branding with this confidence-inspiring gentleman:

“Being able to use this strategy of being raw and unapologetic and unabashed about our beliefs is something our base really wants,” Mr. Ossé said. He referred to a quote by one of Mayor Eric Adams’s advisers, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, who said, “When they go low, you gotta dig for oil.”

I seem to remember that leftists called people who disagreed with them Nazis, and attempted to get them regarded as such. It’s one of many reasons why you can’t expect a leftist to argue in good faith.

I also remember that a leftist Disney director had called for students to be thrown into wood chippers for smiling while wearing MAGA hats.

I remember that it was leftists who called out “punch a Nazi” and “bash a fash”, while implying that their political opponents are fascists, advocating for violence against them.

And while I can continue with the long list of examples, for brevity, I can point out that if leftists want to try something new, they can start by shutting their mouths.

‘We can be bold, we can be petty, we can be punchy and still have a moral compass. We don’t have to replicate the right’s formula.’

That’s exactly what the right does. And for the right, it comes natural. That’s because the right are the cool kids, not the edgelords who are trying too hard.

It’s not resonating with everyone. For some, the universal truism that it can never be cool to try so hard applies here. Others, too, have criticized Democrats for seeming to place a premium on affect over policy.

To be fair, NYT does seem to have some introspection, here. The problem that they point to, that Democrats favor affect over policy, is intrinsic to the feminized nature of the political left, tending to prefer the subject to the object. Their focus is on optics more than problem-solving, and the nature of this political environment has made it way too easy to maintain positive optics while being intellectually dishonest.

Alex Peter, a lawyer and left-wing commentator who makes content under the handle LOLOverruled, said the Democrats’ new focus on viral ‘dark woke’ posts was just ‘a lot of hot air.’

‘Part of the problem with the mainstream Democratic Party is that it all kind of rings hollow,’ Mr. Peter, 33, said. ‘I don’t care about another clapback. People want concrete deliverables.’

That, and the fact that “dark woke” is really nothing new. I remember that the left were the principle agitators behind the “Summer of Love” and the George Floyd riots. And now they mean to tell us that they intend to start dressing in black and throwing chairs in the ring?

It sounds to me like they’re continuing with the same failed strategy while trying to trick whoever’s listening into thinking that they’re trying something new.