Democrats keep telling themselves they lost in 2024 because their message didn’t get through.
But one of their rising stars just let the mask slip in front of a crowd of supporters in New York City.
And what U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said about the people who voted for President Donald Trump is something he probably wishes stayed in that room.
Murphy Tells His Crowd What Democrats Really Think of Trump Voters
Murphy was in the middle of a book tour stop at Judson Memorial Church in New York City recently when he let loose with what a lot of Democrats apparently believe but rarely say out loud. “There are lots of Trump voters who don’t know much about the facts,” he told the crowd.
The audience loved it. A woman sitting next to the senator sarcastically remarked, “Not if they watch Fox News,” which prompted Murphy to add, “Not if they watch Fox News, but, frankly, there’s other sources that are even further rigged than Fox News, more in the tank for Trump.”
And then came the kicker. “So, I think part of it is that there’s a big element of his base who just isn’t hearing the real story,” Murphy claimed.
There it is. Seventy-seven million Americans who went to the polls and voted for Donald Trump don’t actually know what’s going on. They’re just duped. Uninformed. Living in a fog of bad information. That’s the theory Murphy is selling to his base.
Never mind that those voters watched their grocery bills explode under Biden. Never mind that they saw the southern border collapse in real time. Never mind that they remembered what gas prices looked like before Democrats got their hands on energy policy. No, no — they just weren’t paying attention to the right sources.
This Wasn’t a Slip. It’s a Pattern.
Murphy didn’t stop at calling Trump supporters uninformed. During a recent appearance on *The View*, the Democrat described the MAGA movement as a “divisive, hateful community.”
That’s the same senator who, earlier this year, flew to Spain to deliver a speech at the Global Progressive Mobilisation conference. Murphy told the international audience, “I want to bring you greetings, as well, from a nation that is in crisis,” and added, “I’m not going to sugarcoat the gravity of what we face right now in the United States. This is the most significant threat to American democracy since the Civil War. Donald Trump in our country is trying to end our democracy.”
Think about that for a second. Murphy flew to Europe to tell a foreign audience that America is in the grip of something worse than anything since the Civil War. Then he came home and told a New York church crowd that anyone who voted for Trump just doesn’t understand the facts.
The condescension isn’t accidental. It’s the whole worldview.
Who Exactly Is Chris Murphy?
Murphy serves as the Deputy Democrat Conference Secretary and is said to be on the shortlist to one day replace Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in leading Senate Democrats. That’s worth keeping in mind. The man who thinks Trump voters are ignorant rubes could be running the Senate Democrat caucus before long.
Some lawmakers, including Murphy, have been conducting informal vote counts to gauge support for removing Schumer from his leadership post, though Murphy later said he does not recall referencing any specific tally. So he’s already positioning himself as the next generation of Democrat leadership, which makes his contempt for half the country even more revealing.
Murphy has a new book out, titled *Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America*, and the book tour is clearly serving double duty as an audition for a bigger stage. Murphy used the New York City event to criticize his party’s response to President Trump’s victory and lay out what he described as a bolder path forward.
Bolder. Right. Insulting the voters you’re trying to win back is bold, in a way.
The Party That Can’t Figure Out Why It Keeps Losing
The Times/Siena survey found that just 26% of voters felt satisfied with the Democrat Party. Only a quarter of the country is happy with what Democrats are offering. And yet Murphy’s solution is to go on tour telling crowds that Trump voters are just poorly informed.
Murphy has acknowledged, at least in some settings, that Democrats have a messaging problem. “I want the Democratic Party to really speak to where the people of this country are emotionally right now,” Murphy said, admitting that Trump has done a much better job than Democrats of speaking directly to the American people. But then he turns around and tells a friendly crowd that those same people just aren’t hearing “the real story.”
You can’t hold both of those positions at the same time. Either voters are rational people responding to real conditions in their lives, or they’re ignorant zombies who’d come around if they just watched the right news channel. Murphy seems to believe the latter when he thinks no one outside his base is listening.
But someone was listening.
The Larger Problem for Democrats
The Democrat Party has now lost the popular vote in presidential elections twice in the last six cycles, and they lost the Electoral College decisively in 2024. The working-class voters who once formed the backbone of the party have been drifting away for years. Blue-collar men, in particular, have moved sharply toward Republicans.
And the Democrat response, apparently, is to go to church basements in Manhattan and tell the already-converted that all those people who left just weren’t smart enough to stay.
Murphy’s call for a more aggressive political agenda comes as some polling suggests many voters already view the Democrat Party as ideologically left-leaning. A New York Times/Siena poll found that 46% of respondents said the Democrat Party is already too far to the left. Nearly half the country thinks Democrats have already gone too far, and Murphy’s answer is to push harder and blame the voters who disagree for being uninformed.
That’s not a strategy for winning back the country. That’s a strategy for feeling good about losing it.
The 77 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump didn’t do it because they were confused or misled. They did it because they watched what happened to their country under Democrat leadership and decided they wanted something different. They saw the open border. They felt the inflation. They watched cities burn while Democrat politicians cheered on the chaos.
But Chris Murphy, potential future leader of the Senate Democrats, has a simpler explanation. They just don’t know enough. They weren’t watching the right sources. They need someone like him to explain how things really are.
Keep talking, Senator.
Sources: Breitbart News, Daily Caller, Times/Siena Survey (May 2026), GV Wire, National Today/NYC Today, Breitbart News (April 2026)