Bill Belichick Has a Lesson for Democrats

With Trump back in power, there’s too much at stake for the party to stay mired in the past.

These are not the best of times for former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, now head coach at the University of North Carolina. His very public relationship with a 24-year-old second runner-up in the Miss Maine Contest, who is now his "business partner," is painful, but one of his famous lines is advice the Democratic Party should take to heart.

"On to Cincinnati."

He said it after a 2014 humiliating 41-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in a post-game press conference when he refused to answer reporters’ questions about what went so wrong. This was a 2-2 Kansas City team with a quarterback named Alex Smith, not Patrick Mahomes. Tom Brady threw two interceptions and was strip-sacked to set up a field goal.

"On to Cincinnati," Belichick repeated the line five times and mentioned Cincinnati fifteen times. Cincinnati was the next game, and the most successful coach in modern pro football was focused on the future, not the past. The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that year, and when Belichick was holding the Lombardi Trophy over his head after a last-minute victory over the Seattle Seahawks, no one was thinking about a 41-14 loss.

I find the Democratic Party's self-flagellation over the 2024 presidential election to be both silly and dangerous. The Democrats lost an election. It happens. Republicans have won the popular vote only twice since 1988. Despite Donald Trump's belief to the contrary, in a democracy, someone has to lose. The Dems lost. Get over it and move on.

Yes, losing to a felon from Queens out on bail is a shock to the system, but every day spent wailing "I can't believe we lost to this guy" is a good day for the felon. Donald Trump on the ballot did not change the fact that President Biden had a 40% favorable rating and the percentage of the electorate who thought the country was heading in the right direction was down to 27%. In modern politics, no incumbent party had received more than a 2% higher vote share than the incumbent president's. No party has been returned to the White House with a national right track lower than 45%.