At the Wall Street Journal William Galston writes about Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer’s unenviable chore:
Sen. Schumer’s overriding political imperative is to prevent Republicans from widening their Senate majority next year. To maximize his chances, he will have to allow endangered Democrats to go their own way on votes that could be used to bolster their opponents. This means defending them when they break with blue-state Democrats while doing his best to forestall debilitating primary challenges from disgruntled progressives. The formula for Democratic victory in North Dakota and West Virginia is very different from Vermont and Massachusetts, a reality that the supporters of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren must be persuaded to accept.
This is Mr. Schumer’s thankless task, which he cannot evade, whatever the short-term impact on the support he enjoys from his party’s left wing. The alternative—an ideologically driven purge of Democratic moderates—could consign the party to minority status for a generation.
That echoes Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s remarks to the effect that Democrats need to pick up some more seats and “chill out”, one of the relatively few times in which I have been in strenuous agreement with him.
Democrats should be thinking about reapportionment as well and redistricting as well. Stoking the flames may bring out rioters. Whether that will bring out more people to vote for moderate Democrats in Missouri, North Dakota, and West Virginia remains to be seen.
One thing the Democrats can probably count on is arrogance and overreach by the GoP. It’s part of the circle of political life in this country.
I do think there’s a political realignment in the works and in my view the direction both parties are taking is not a good one and doesn’t bode well for our future as a Republic.
There is zero chance of Democrats taking back the Senate in 2018, so I disagree that should be Schumer’s central goal. This is deeper and more disturbing than the next election. The job of Democrats is to hold our turf – the culture: civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, diversity, tolerance, science, reality.
The GOP has succeeded in largely invalidating the democratic process through gerrymandering, repeal of voting rights laws, and swallowing Putin’s interference whole. We are no longer in a world where the next election is the goal. The political process is no longer the point. What we have now is a sort of low-grade civil war. We will never accept Trump. We will never accept the Nazi Bannon or the Klan fan boy Sessions. We own the west coast, New York and New England. They own the confederacy, the phony states and the rust belt. We’re going to fight them with the weapons we have: demonstrations, law suits, state level resistance, financial pain, eventually perhaps national strikes.
Trump and Trump voters are a disease from our perspective. A cancer. We are going to try and keep that cancer from eating the rest of the country. This isn’t a fight for the Senate, it’s a fight for the future. It’s a fight against evil, and job #1 is not recapturing a spineless Congress, it is to strengthen the national immune response. #Resist.
I agree with Andy’s paragraph 1 comment, as I naturally would, having made same somewhere in the Nov 9-12 range.
However, today, what Dave is laying out is the antithesis of what the Dems should be doing. Public displays by entertainment stars littered with vulgarities, strutting around triumphantly at the latest building set on fire, and obstructing always and everywhere, whether in the press or halls of government, will result in less than robust voter support in sufficient numbers until fatigue sets in years from now. Until then Dems reliance on lunatics is simply on public display. Don’t forget, the Dems losses have been deep and 10 years in the making.
Gerrymandering is bipartisan. Illinois, with a legislature dominated by Democrats for generations, is probably the most gerrymandered state in the Union.
I’ll summarize what I argued in an OTB thread a few weeks ago – Democrats should pick their battles carefully. I think a successful Democratic strategy requires giving President Trump some rope to hang himself. By contrast, energy spent on every Twitter outrage is a waste of time.
Any successful strategy must focus efforts on the critical nodes that will actually impact President Trump’s support. Progressive cultural values are not one of those key nodes – if they were, Trump would never have been nominated or elected. Also, I don’t think calling people who voted for President Trump “cancer” will do much for the Democratic cause – at some point, Democrats will need those voters.
BTW, I agree and disagree with different parts of Michael’s comment above. I agree with this:
I’ve been saying that for some time. My concern is that the strategy he seems to be advocating is more rather than less likely to turn that “low-grade civil war” into an actual shooting one.
However in this:
I can’t help but wonder if he’s mistaking the lightning bug for the lightning. Take women’s rights, for example. IMO the extreme positions are both insane, just insane in different ways. And I don’t see Red States becoming oppressive hellholes while Blue States are becoming heaven on earth. What I see are genuine differences of opinion about what most people want that can’t be resolved with any grand solutions.
As to science and reality, I think both extremes have gone completely off the deep end and political posturing has been turned up to 11.
Like Andy, I think what we’re seeing is a major realignment rather than progressives fighting the good fight from their strongholds.
“What I see are genuine differences of opinion about what most people want that can’t be resolved with any grand solutions.”
If only more people believed in federalism.
I will be pleasantly surprised if we manage to avoid serious violence. On Trump’s side are actual Nazis, Klansmen and gun nuts; on our side are college kids, black activists and Latino activists. BLM has done great work keeping their demos mostly peaceful, but college kids are college kids and the debate now is whether or not it’s okay to punch a Nazi.
I’m undecided.
When Trump fails to deliver, his people will refuse to accept reality and Trump will give them scapegoats. I’d say we have a 25% chance of right-wing death squads – KKK or Nazis – operating in the south and the rust belt. I will be entirely unsurprised to see lynchings.
The best hope of avoiding violence from the left is Barack Obama. If we can stay Martin Luther King about it all, we will prevail. If it gets nasty then it’s anyone’s guess. But I’ll tell you something: the right better understand that we can buy guns, too.
Elect an idiot, racist, caudillo and you don’t generally get peace, love and understanding. The 46% screwed up very, very badly. Perhaps even fatally.
I’m not sure that “college kids” describes what’s going on adequately at some of these demonstrations. Sure, the majority are probably college kids. But there’s a core of professional agitators and “anarchists” who travel from demonstration to demonstration. I believe they’re the ones responsible for most of the violent crime associated with the protests to date and they’re hardly college kids.
I know people describe Trump people as being loathsome fringe groups. However, most of those attending rallies have been families, blue collar workers, clean-cut looking kids, seniors, etc. In fact I haven’t seen anyone with white sheets, swastikas, even tattoos are infrequently observed.
These same boringly average Trump supporters, though, have been pepper-sprayed, spat on, knocked to the ground, beaten up, threatened personally or on social media sites. Anti-Trump events also have attracted anarchists, communist, revolutionary groups, many Soros supported partners ships, and violent Latino activists who burn and overturn cars, smash Windows, vandalize private property, spew threatening slurs, advocating all kinds of intimidation to shut down the free speech of those who voted for Trump. As for the BLM movement, they too have lots of camera shots and sound bites recorded calling for the death of white people.
civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights, diversity, tolerance, science, reality.
Michael Reynolds:
Can you think of any group, former Dem. supporters, not listed here, who may have abandond her becaused THEY felt abandoned?
Thanks, Jan(: