Amy Walter makes a good point:
By now we are all familiar with the GOP formula in competitive House races. Take the Democratic candidate. Put his or her picture next to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi in a TV ad. Warn voters that the Democratic candidate shares Pelosi’s “San Francisco values” and will be a foot solider in Pelosi’s liberal army if he or she gets to Washington. Rinse. Repeat.
What we didn’t expect earlier this year, however, was that Democrats would make Republican leaders in Congress their own political boogeymen—their own Pelosi if you will. Past Democratic attempts to turn Speaker Paul Ryan into a political pariah by attacking the “Ryan budget” fell flat. This year, however, Democrats have a new ally in their battle to turn the GOP leadership into a political liability for GOP candidates: President Donald J. Trump. The more Trump fights with his own party, the more unpopular these members become.
Trump has his own reasons for trashing congressional Republicans, some of which make a lot of sense. But he’s going to have a hard time pivoting next fall and trying to convince his supporters of the importance of going to the polls to support the candidates he’s been excoriating.
There will also be some Republican candidates who having survived primary challenges from the Bannonite right will be even harder for Trump to plausible endorse.
There will still be a case to make that the president will be able to accomplish more (or, at least something) with bigger majorities, and maybe his supporters will conclude they need to show up to protect him from impeachment if the Democrats retake one or both chambers of Congress. But, overall, Trump is clearly functioning right now as an agent of voter suppression from his own base.
The Democrats will eagerly accept this gift.
What makes you think he will pivot? Trump is failing and more and more articles are coming out about his administration “unraveling”. About the only thing he has left is the abject loyalty of his idiot fan base. Without that the probability of impeachment rises towards 100%.
At the same time he has failed to deliver on the Wall, deporting 11 million “illegals”, repeal and replace Obamacare, a jobs bill, a tax bill, or anything else really. He has shifted the blame for all these failures to the GOP establishment in Congress and has engaged in a war against Ryan and McConnell, and now Sen. Sasser and Corker.
What can he do to “pivot?” Suddenly tell the voters that the Congress really isn’t to blame at all? Just vote for more Republicans and we’ll really show them Libtards? More of the same inside the beltway folks who he just spent a year and a half telling the base has betrayed him?
We know from Steve Bannon that NONE of the GOP Congress is safe from vilification and primary challenges. And he has his pet billionaire money to make good on his threat. In short, everything is shaping up for a inside the GOP Civil War.
The key point is that abject loyalty to Trump isn’t even enough. Nothing they do will be enough. Trump needs them to be the bad hombres – because otherwise voters might start to blame HIM, and that’s unacceptable.
So, he will campaign for some of them. But, will criticize them at the same time. And nobody will be able to predict who he will embrace and who he will reject. Some of them will need to be thrown to the wolves.
By next November, I think Paul Ryan will be happier in the minority so he isn’t responsible for doing all the impossible things Trump demands.
Pelosi hasnt already taken impeachment off the table like last time?
Yeah, what the hell was that? I just got angry all over again.
Baffling. Did she wake up with a horse’s head or something?
More like she woke up to Obama telling her not to rock the boat. It was going to be hard enough to get anything done without roiling the waters.
Why would she listen to him about that, in 2006?
A frosh Senator who was supposed to wait his turn?
I would think with all the right wing McConnell hate they could use him as well.
I wonder how much longer it will be before it is pitchforks,rail,tar and feather time for any and all that practiced collusion with mother Russia?
Trump is doing all he can to keep the people from focusing on it that is for sure.
Trump can throw up all the dust he wants to obscure his failures. But the new year will dawn and there will be no tax bill, no Obamacare repeal bill, no Wall, and meanwhile Mueller is just going about his business every day, compiling evidence of various financial crimes against the entire Trump crime family, and their cronies.
And Trump is going to have to do what Nixon did in the Watergate Scandal: throw everybody else under the bus in hopes of escaping with a whole skin. This will not leave a great deal of energy available to rally the troops for the 2018 election.
Right now, the Cook Report gives the GOP a narrow edge in holding both House and Senate. But, it’s early days yet. Wait till the dust settles a bit on this epic failure of an administration.
But, overall, Trump is clearly functioning right now as an agent of voter suppression from his own base.
Trump was loathed before the election, and the NeverTrump crew(David Frum … Evan McMuffin and a few others) couldn’t stop him. Hell, the Democrats didn’t come anywhere near winning back the House despite Trump’s unpopularity. We’ll see if it changes next year. Color me skeptical though. The DCCC knows how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Lord help us if the only actors moving in this direction are the DCCC.
Someone needs to say exactly why and which part of his base he is suppressing.
And there needs to be careful thought about the Democratic candidates who are being put up to take advantage of these opportunities. The 2006 class was very instructive in its inability to move the Overton window, unlike the 2010 GOP class.
The 2006 class was very instructive in its inability to move the Overton window, …
And who did Pelosi put in charge of 2006? Some guy who was caught covering up murder last year.
Bingo.
Democrats in 2016 spent their time arguing that Trump was an outlier for the Republican party and that sane Republicans should turn out but not vote for Trump. That was not exactly a recipe for gaining seats in Congress, and ultimately failed even to beat Trump. What is the D message in 2018? Not Trump seems to be it, and its iffy whether there are enough districts where Rs need to figure out how to distance themselves from Trump without turning off too many Trumpites.
“Trump has his own reasons for trashing congressional Republicans, some of which make a lot of sense.”
Which would those be?
Congress is more unpopular than he is.
Which members of Congress who are not retiring or will not decide to retire before the next election will this apply to? Specifically, which seats are open to this sort of tactic on a personalized basis right now?
Which members of Congress are likely to be facing primary challenges from one the other factions in the GOP caucus?
Which members of Congress are likely to face a Steve Bannon-endorsed candidate trying to pry open an alt-right caucus in Congress?
Supported “McConnell’s ineffective leadership” will cut it with how many voters? Or Ryan’s inability to create a consistent negotiating partner? What is is that motivates voters like the fear of Nancy Pelosi and her San Francisco values does for Blue Dog Democrats?
Trump’s strength for the past year and a half has been his unpredictability and his pugnaciousness. Using association as a GOP weakness means converting those two strengths into weaknesses with his former supporters and then associating the member of Congress with his 100% support of what is it that those swing voters would now find objectionable about Trump?
Did you guess “Blue Dog Democrats”? If so, congrats! You win . . . well . . . absolutely nuthin’.
If not, bigger (and actually sincere!) congratulations on your residence within the Reality-Based Community, reasonableness, sense of proportionality, and eschewing of Both-Siderism and Whataboutism!
‘Whataboutism’ is too good not to steal.
Sorry.
.
but not sure whom to give it to.
Trump is focusing heavily on an ever narrowing slice of the right wing base, and the more he does that, the more he turns off other constituencies the GOP needs to win; namely, independents, non-tea bagger types, and those republicans who are already less than impressed with Trump. And as rabid as that increasingly confederate/nazi base is for Trump red meat, their numbers alone aren’t enough to put the Trump/GOP over the top.
As we close in on 2018, I don’t see Trump even attempting to pivot. And with Bannon whispering the sweet nothings he loves to hear, that his crazy is actually strategy and its sticking a thumb in the eye of his GOP doubters, look for him to double down, also for no other reasons than to vengefully thwart the GOP consultant/polling/establishment class. And show ’em again he’s smarter than they are.
If dems play their cards right, 2018 could be the GOP’s Waterloo.
“The more Trump fights with his own party, the more unpopular these members become.”
Really?
In 2016 McCain and Rubio ran well ahead of Trump.
I don’t buy the assumption. It is just as likely that candidates will use their fights with Trump to prove their independence.