Those who thought Republicans could duck Donald Trump by just working their agenda and the refs found out last night that they’re in deep trouble. Turnout among rubes, I mean Trump supporters, is depressed. Many on the right argue it’s because he hasn’t enacted his agenda. In truth it’s because he’s tried. And enthusiasm on the Democratic side is through the roof, where it promises to remain as long as the Donald remains center stage to keep stoking the bonfire.
Despite all of this, the Don remains dangerously popular (if you’re a Republican). In other words, any which way you turn, welcome to the whirlwind.
Every day it becomes ever more clear that Trump’s agenda is no different from that of other Republicans except that he’s grossly incompetent. So what to do as a Republican? You’re being hammered by your donors to pass a desperately unpopular agenda. Those donors don’t care if you get re-elected unless you prove yourself useful. At the same time, choices have real world consequences. The rules of politics have not been suspended.
They could try to pass a tax bill and then turn on Trump, claiming their shocked!!, shocked!! by revelations of the Mueller investigation and sundry Constitutional violations. But then they’ll get their heads ripped off by freaks like Bannon. Or they could sing from the Paul Ryan hymnal about sticking with the guy they’re stuck with and keep on keeping on until 2018 is upon them.
Either way, the result will be brutal unless they can figure some way out of this. If there is such a way, I’m not smart enough to imagine what it might be. It’s a Hobson’s Choice if ever one were, so don’t be surprised if we see a number of folks lining up to say they need more time with family before lining up for a K-Street blowjob.
I think they go down with the ship. How can they avoid it? About 25% of voters are die hard Trumpers, so while that is a minority…it’s a huge majority of republicans. And as party identification shrinks as people change from republicans to independents, that number becomes more and more important.
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It certainly seems that’s the strategy they’re going with. Damn the torpedoes . . . There are, as of today anyway, a few voices calling for reform. But they’re still mostly former elected officials; not those in office (at least not in the House or Senate). They’re still more terrified of their right flank, though it should be clear after last night that what’s on this side of the aisle is every bit as terrifying. With Democrats stoked to 11, they’ve got to have the sense we’re coming for them. Perhaps they’re betting on, or at least hoping for, our ineptitude, our disunity, our enormous capacity to form circular firing squads.
That impulse seems alive and well here in Martin’s community. So much pettiness and sniping. Not from you, Nalbar. But from many. It’s why I don’t comment more often.
Oh, I can be petty, and snipe my share.
I just don’t see how they get away from him. Probably at first they thought he was a means to getting the laws they wanted, and they never saw the fractures in their party that Booman speaks of.
FOX news is certainly all in, and they lead the pack of jackals that used to be the Republican Party.
What we have witnessed is the most extraordinary example in incrementalism of my life time. Slowly slowly, until we are here…with one party being crazy reality deniers.
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Obama tried to warn them. They wouldn’t listen. Of course we need to work like crazy to make it happen but the possibility of a wave is obviously very real.
Your title:
Indeed they will.
So will Democrats.
And soon.
ASG
That’s not the lesson of Tuesday night. Seems Trump is providing more than enough glue to hold the party together.
You write:
Of course he is. It will “hold together” with the Republican center in order to stop Trump’s attempt to transfer a piece of the federal feeding trough to his own allies and/or wreck the whole system.
Is that what you really want from the Democratic Party?
It’s not what I want.
I want a true, powerful, progressive left. If the Dems won’t do it, then I want a third party. If a third party wrecks the Dems, then…tough shit. The fight continues, whether the neocentrist Dems want it or not. Eventually the bipartisan Kleptocratic Party will greed itself out, the federal kakistocracy will fall and then…and then?
May we all be born(e) into truly interesting times.
AG
I agree to an extent, Arthur. Democrats need to step back from the corporate trough. It’s tough in this political environment of unlimited money but both Barack and Bernie have demonstrated (as have Howard Dean and others) that a great deal of money can be raised through small grass-roots donations.
People are thirsting for authenticity in their politicians and they need real help. Our people and our party need to step up.
You write:
Truer words were never spoken.
However…since “our party” recently vaporized almost all of the dissenting, tactically non-centrist professional political minds in the DNC ruling hierarchy, who exactly is going to be doing this “stepping up?”
Damned if I know.
Joe Biden?
Please.
He and Perez are thick as thieves. Biden is a past master at non-authentic “authenticity.” He’s really good at it.
I think that the Democratic Party as it apparently now unassailably stands is a permanent part of a Permanent Government, the success of which is predicated on non-authenticity.
I await a third party movement.
I do not believe that such a thing would necessarily be a short-term winning movement, but it would definitely be a start.
How long did it take for the Tea Party to reach the White House? About ten years.
Gotta start somewhere…
AG
You, as the regressive, peculiar, anti-civil-rights libertarian you are, consistently offer your critiques here in extremely bad faith. But considering the fact that you came to this blog to organize against the Clinton campaign and for the Trump campaign from August 2016 to Election Day, your extreme bad faith has been going on for quite a while.
Here’s a particularly clear example.
“I await a third party movement.” This is your desire, your tossing in of the towel, your essential recommendation to others in our progressive community.
But then, sentences later, you write this: “How long did it take for the Tea Party to reach the White House? About ten years.”
This is interesting. Let’s review: did the Tea Party reach the White House because they brought on a third party movement?
FUCK NO THEY DIDN’T. Their movement gained enough persuasive ability with voters that they began taking out Republican incumbents who refused to bring the super-duper high-octane racist sexist oligarch-empowering government-destroying police state crazy.
You could have the guts to organize successfully for a renaissance in the Democratic Party in your region and throughout the nation. But you don’t have any guts, and you want to destroy the progressive movement, like any Ron Paul fan would. But you’re dishonest, so dishonest, about this.
Alternatively, you could have the guts to organize for the third party movement you claim we need. But no, you “await” it. Because you’ve got no fucking guts.
The oligarchs who almost entirely fund the Tea Party movement weren’t interested in pursuing a guaranteed-to-fail strategy.
Like “a third party movement”.
Good God, we’re in the middle of the terrible Trump Administration and you’re taking active but pathetic steps to prevent progressives from fighting back effectively.
Your writings here have been consistently hostile, evasive, dishonest and destructive for a long time now. But, incredibly, you’re getting worse.
I’m glad you haven’t been made to suffer by Trump/Republican policies. You’re so very fortunate. Too bad you show zero concern for the fates of your community members, or your former community members who have been deported or incarcerated, who are faring much worse under this despicable man and the cartoonish villains who do his will. One wishes you could manage that level of humanity.
You’re not the only one who’s noticed.
I don’t know if the guy has untreated mental health issues or a substance abuse problem or what but he seems to be headed for a full-on breakdown.
Please. Hold your breath until I have “a full-on breakdown.”
Please.
AG
P.S. No substance abuse, either.
Just an occasional, slight overdose of reality.
You oughta try it.
It is a great high!!!
A third party from the true Left is a real possibility if the Dems turn in another sorry performance in 2020, particularly if they run another soft-in-the-middle corporate centrist ticket like last time, doubly so if they again end up on the losing side against loser Donald Trump.
Though frankly if that happens, especially if the Donald wins in a dubious vote-suppressing manner, we’re likely to see outright civil war in this country before there’s any chance for a 3d party to get started.
Last Tuesday shows some signs of hope in some areas, though I fear Establishment Dems will take the victory for gov in VA a little too much to centrist heart and continue trying to peddle corporate centrist candidates.
Moi, I’m looking for candidates willing to step up and reject our corrupt moneyed interest-based political system and, secondly, I want to see more Dems than just one or two speaking out boldly against our policeman of the world FP and out-of-control Pentagon and IC spending. Medicare for All also ranks high on the list.
“I await a third party movement.”
I’ll let Ezra Klein of Vox answer that for me.
No, although that’s not really what I think you’re after. By the way, be flattered. I was going to post this in response to Brodie, but I decided you were more deserving. Besides, this comment will land directly below his anyway.
Every time it seems the sensible strategy is towards moderation of ideology they have chosen increased “conservative” extremism, until they are where they are, as nalbar says. Their saving grace right now is their successful destruction of the Dem brand and our inability to de-tarnish it.
The political danger is that they will find some way to mimic moderation over the next year. Modify the tax bill to actually provide some help to the median income household. Cutting taxes always remains popular with the gub’mint hating rube. That would quell the possible Dem uprising in the burbs.
And they need to find some way to respond to Mueller and his methodical presentation of the criminal Repub executive. They have no clue as to what to do or say on that front, as far as I can tell, and merely cower before every development. That’s the real conundrum for them.
In the Bush years, they managed to cut taxes for everyone. Nothing prevents them from doing so now except their greed. If they were willing to make smaller cuts for corporations, they could spread the 1.5 trillion around a bit better. It would still be unpopular but not nearly as toxic as the anthrax they’re about to spread all over themselves. This Congress is revealing that all the former talk about how Republicans are great strategists was nonsense. They know how to throw stones from the sidelines but nothing more.
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Their saving grace right now is their successful destruction of the Dem brand and our inability to de-tarnish it.
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Yes. Those with oatmeal for brains have bought it hook, line, and sinker.
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I think it has to be analyzed state by state – will depend if there’s any leadership on the state level about breaking with Trump [e.g. AZ], challengers to the Rs on the state level [MT] challenges within the party on the state level [WY governor race] and what’s happening with the state party – TX, for example is interesting b/c Cruz has an actual challenger and a number of House guys are already not running. each state has a different dynamic. yes. there’s conflict between the centrist and Bernie wings of the party but the “unity message” won the elections.
I’d say it was the mutual fear and loathing of Trump that pulled Democrats together. We should send him a card. Could say something like “Our Sincere Thanks to Donald, the Great Unifier.” He’d probably have it framed.
I disagree. did you see the interviews with the people who won the state elections in VA? they’re just people, fed up, yes, but decided to step up and run for office. they, individually, have programs – health care, education, doing something about gun violence (the news guy whose fiancee was shot on camera of course mentioned that but also health care). the woman from South Jersey who didn’t like the guys twitter response to the women’s march [do you think they’ll be home in time to cook dinner” he wrote] so decided to run, won.
I think ppl are worried about T taking our county backwards into an oligarchy, but they are running on issues not on anti-Trump. are you following the Beto O’Rourke campaign in TX? [iirc you are in MN?]
Are you saying Trump had nothing to do with that?
I have a friend who is literally moving cross country to run for political office. He’s middle aged, a Turkish immigrant, an attorney, a Qu’ranic scholar with ideas that would get him assassinated if he returned to Turkey, a former colleague of Erdogan who knows him from when they were both pushing for political reforms (he describes Erdogan as a guy corrupted by power), a veteran of numerous stints in Turkish prisons for his political views, and what inspired him to upend his life was Trump’s xenophobia.
His life story is atypical but his motives for running for office are not. He was inspired by Bernie, as were I’m sure many others. But it’s Trump’s vision of America that pushed him to action.
impressive guy, where is he running? But no, absolutely the fact that Trump won is what set it in motion, but ppl aren’t running on “Trump is awful, vote for me” they’re running on issues. From what Fladem writes and what I’ve heard from people involved in some campaigns, the dem party itself is split between Bernie wing and whatever it’s called, old guard wing which has yet to catch up. At least the split in the party apparatus isn’t holding ppl back from stepping up and running and they’re running on issues. The party apparatus is behind what’s happening on the grass roots.
As far as the Rs go, seem to be controlled completely by the donors. Incompetent though T admin may be, they have a plan for packing the courts [will find link], probably the Mercer side of his backers are on that.