Are the GA-6 and SC-5 losses the beginning of the end for neocentrist Dems? The beginning of the end for for the whole Russiagate kerfuffle?
I am beginning to think so.
My evidence? The same sort of “evidence” upon which I relied when I began writing about the probability of a Trump win as early as March, 2016. Seat of my pants evidence, observational evidence that I saw recently on another couple of little car trips through flyover America.
Read on.
I wasn’t exactly “looking” for this evidence, I was just enduring a really long, traffic-poisoned 10-12 hour car trip (Both times including fierce Friday late afternoon/early evening traffic jams coming back.) up and back from the Bronx to an area in Massachusetts called The Blackstone Valley. It is maybe 40 miles west/southwest of Boston, but more Rust Belt than Harvard by a long shot, as are the GPS-recommended routes through mostly rural CT and MA that took me there. I had made the same trip exactly one week before this one, but things had changed for the Dems in the interim. The GA-6 and SC-5 losses had happened despite Dem optimism similar to the high hopes for HRC’s “landslide victory” over Trump. Similar, but more restrained…somewhat chastened to say the least.
Deservedly so.
As is my habit, I kept the radio on…AM and FM both…listening to the talk shows, and when I made pit stops I kept my eyes and ears open.
Here’s what I heard and saw on the second trip.
I heard that the Russiagate effort has failed, and with it, so eventually will the current form of the Democratic Party. I was astounded at how much I heard from normally fairly left-leaning, pro-Dem public broadcasting stations regarding the utter failure of the Democratic Party to effectively regroup after getting its ass kicked by the Trump win. I heard repeated calls for new leadership. I heard almost no continued harping on the whole attempt to link Trump to Russia like the still running…but I notice much more muted…WAPO/NY Times/CNN routine. I heard fewer attacks on Trump. I heard rightiness talk shows gloating about the true end of the Obama era. And I heard…and saw on my pit stops…an exhausted working class/middle class/road trip class America plodding along through it all in what appeared to me to be some form of coma. During the entire trip I only encountered three intelligent, engaged faces…all about the same age (late teens, early 20s), all working at roadside, mass transit, slopfest “food” providers, all appearing to me to be working their way through some form of higher education. Everybody else? The families on their way to or from someplace? The other low-wage workers at the food joints? Clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp!!! I am finally beginning to understand the popularity of the whole Living Dead movie thing. Our exhausted working people relate to the zombies, not to the supposed heroes. Duh!!! And the Greying of America contingent!!! (I would say upwards of 40% of all of the travelers I saw.) Lord almighty!!! You could almost smell their Big Pharma overdoses as they stumbled on by. Eyes glazed, scared shitless by the media, worried about how they are going to survive in a downturning U.S. …they were so sad to see!!! (A note here…they are pretty much my contemporaries, only I take no Big Med drugs and I am still full of fight and life. Just lucky, I guess.)
The most impressive radio thing I heard was on the way back. A couple of millennial wiseguys on a PBS-style/college-style station did at least 20 fine, totally improvised/stream of consciousness minutes on the total assholeness of Johnny Depp (He recently spoke about assassinating Trump. Remember?), that sad comedienne who did the bloody Trump head thing (I can never recall her name, mostly because I have never heard her say anything even remotely funny), Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. And the music on those leftiness stations? About 85% New Americana…country and blues-influenced but somewhat artified. White “people” music, only pared down and made more elegant. On the commercial stations? The usual dreck. Oldie and commercial rock, rap, commercial latino and Nashville-style dumb country. I skip by them quickly. Oh. And a couple of lame “jazz” stations, promoting truly mediocre, passionless, 3rd and 4th generation rehashings of the music that captured the U.S. citizenry…especially the intelligent ones…from the ’20s right on into the late ’60s/early ’70s. If I hear one more sad Miles Davis imitator? Im’a gonna have to start considering retaliatory violence, myself.
Anyway…there ’tis.
A trip through the northeastern U.S. hinterlands.
Watch.
The Pelosi/Schumer brigade will hang on through sheer monetary power for a while, but one or two more electoral ass-kickings will be all it takes for the money people to start looking for other people to do their political dirty work for them.
Watch.
And…stay tuned.
I am spending the next week working in another heartland area, Eastern PA, and then through July/August/early September I’ll be doing a number of other trips through Central NY and on up into rural New England, spending a lot of time in the car and working…performing and teaching with great, living and burning contemporary jazz musicians (The ones that you assuredly will not hear on almost any so-called “jazz” radio stations.) in college towns. Those of you who don’t get out much or are stuck in some urban/suburban/middle class timewarp might do yourselves a favor and listen to the heartland people. They may not be “right,” but they are most certainly numerous.
And they vote, too.
Just sayin’…
If you want progressive ideas and ideals to take root in this country, you need to pay attention to the “deplorables”…aren’t you glad HRC didn’t say “disposables???”…of all races and economic levels.
All of ’em.
They’re a majority now.
Bet on it.
Later…
ASG
P.S.
Dems push leaders to talk less about Russia
Frustrated Democrats hoping to elevate their election fortunes have a resounding message for party leaders: Stop talking so much about Russia.
Democratic leaders have been beating the drum this year over the ongoing probes into the Trump administration’s potential ties to Moscow, taking every opportunity to highlight the saga and forcing floor votes designed to uncover any business dealings the president might have with Russian figures.
But rank-and-file Democrats say the Russia-Trump narrative is simply a non-issue with district voters, who are much more worried about bread-and-butter economic concerns like jobs, wages and the cost of education and healthcare.
In the wake of a string of special-election defeats, an increasing number of Democrats are calling for an adjustment in party messaging, one that swings the focus from Russia to the economy. The outcome of the 2018 elections, they say, hinges on how well the Democrats manage that shift.
“We can’t just talk about Russia because people back in Ohio aren’t really talking that much about Russia, about Putin, about Michael Flynn,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) told MSNBC Thursday. “They’re trying to figure out how they’re going to make the mortgage payment, how they’re going to pay for their kids to go to college, what their energy bill looks like.
“And if we don’t talk more about their interest than we do about how we’re so angry with Donald Trump and everything that’s going on,” he added, “then we’re never going to be able to win elections.”—snip—
P.P.S.
Some House Democrats mull over how to oust Pelosi as leader
A dozen or so House Democrats want Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to go after a dispiriting loss in a House election in Georgia. They just don’t know how to make it happen.
“We can’t keep losing races and keep the same leadership in place. You have a baseball team that keeps losing year after year. At some point, the coach has got to go, right?” said Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., on Friday.
The frustrated Democrats met in Rice’s office a day earlier to discuss their options as they face long odds of knocking out the woman who has led the Democratic caucus for nearly 15 years from minority to majority and back, raised tens of millions of dollars and has had multiple legislative successes. Their action plan: Keep talking. Keep raising the concern that something needs to change within the ranks of the party’s leadership.
It’s about all they can do.
“Right now, what I’m pushing for is a conversation within the caucus,” Rice said.
A defiant Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she was “very confident” about the support that she had from fellow Democrats who now number 193. When it comes to her detractors, Pelosi said “my decision about how long I stay is not up to them.”
The main argument against Pelosi from her Democratic detractors is that more than 30 years in Washington and hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads against her have taken their toll when it comes to public opinion. Millions were spent in Georgia with ads linking Pelosi to Jon Ossoff, who lost to Republican Karen Handel on Tuesday. They argue that Democratic candidates will have a better shot on Election Day if they’re not tied to Pelosi.
“The issue I think strategically is that Trump energizes their base and Leader Pelosi energizes their base,” said Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who was unsuccessful last year in trying to unseat Pelosi.
—snip—
This stuff is just the tip of the iceberg.
Watch.
