How Democrats Should Run

Don’t make this election about Trump, but draw a sharp contrast with Trumpism.

--Advice of Democratic political consultants for 2022 Congressional candidates, reported by the WashPost

I think that advice is pretty good.

I try not to focus on Trump at all on this site (though I lapse sometimes, like when I got recently fascinated by the theory of Trump and "the Drunken Fist"), but "Trumpism" became a search label on WataugaWatch before 2020 and has racked up many pings in 2021 and 2022. The Trumpists are raging. They're mad. They smell blood (which may turn out to be turtle poo), and they have plans for you. Especially you. They aren't afraid to say what some people consider outrageous things because they're just being themselves, finally released from the bindings of political correctness. 

Women, they have further plans for you. And you, the young and the restless, and you, Black and brown people, and newcomers to these shores from non-European nations. They have plans for all of you (and their Christian nationalist branch has definite plans for public schools and public libraries and the regulation of private behavior.

"The Purge," 2013, Universal Picts.

Gosh. The Trump GOP has created a brand -- "We stand for cruelty and force" -- that just might scorch them. 

What does it mean, after all, that Trumpists love a purge? They run off their best talent, censor them, vote them out in nasty primaries. Because those people do not kiss the ring. Those interior eliminations by the Republicans themselves become ultra mean because that's the way their leader behaves. That's his identity, and now it's become the identity of an entire political party. Hey candidates: do your best Trump, talk tough, spout conspiracy theories and rabid ideas, make your nonsense sound unassailable, and push extreme laws that strip, say, women of equal citizenship in the name of religion. 

Today it's as though Liz Cheney got denounced to the Congregation of the Holy Office (Inquisition) and was quickly condemned to an auto-da-fe ("act of faith") when the Pope Hisself marked her for death, and the Republican voters cult-like piled up the dry wood for her immolation. She's being (by all reliable reports) burned at the stake today, an actually thoughtful, knowledgeable, philosophically consistent member of Congress whose integrity cannot be abided by Trump or by his Trumpists.

Because counter-reformation Christians considered it an "act of faith"
to burn certain people at the stake, the above is a contemporary illustration
of an Auto-da-fe in Valladolid, Spain, May 21, 1559

“I think this is much bigger than Trump. This is about a radical MAGA Republican Party that wants to take away your rights, your benefits, your freedoms,” DCCC Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) said. That's it, that's the message and the issue that can energize the Democratic base and draw the Unaffiliated.

Democrats Dissect the Corpse

 

While the Republican Party didn't even put out a party platform in 2020, saying "It's just anything Trump wants," and is totally allergic now to any post-election soul-searching -- since Trump really won, dontcha know -- at least Congressional Democrats have done a deep dive into understanding why they lost 11 seats in Congress last November.

Bottomline: Democrats underestimated the number of hard-core Trump voters who would turn out. Polling totally missed the Trumpist surge and overestimated Democratic performance. Which led the guys in the DCCC to assume that freshmen elected in 2018 were safe -- which they most decidedly were not -- and to pump money into more long-shot challengers in districts where the eventual Republican/Trump performance kept their incumbents safe. Six Democrats from the class of 2018 lost by less than 1.5 percentage points (which was pretty close to the margin for most of the losing Democrats in NC for Council of State seats).

The autopsy of Democratic losses also calls for an overhaul of campaign spending. Too much money was pumped into useless TV ads late in the game. Too little went to on-the-ground organizing and digital outreach.

The single ray of sunshine: Trump's not being on the ballot in 2022. “The Republican Party is betting the ranch that they can do Trump’s toxicity without Trump’s turnout," said Rep. Sean Maloney, chair of the DCCC. "And I think that may end up being a terrible mistake. There’s that old saying that when the tide goes out, you find out who’s skinny-dipping. And if this tide of Trump turnout goes out in 2022, the Republicans may end up skinny-dipping.”

That both Democrats and Republicans are depending on the presence/absence of Trump's political and personal bile is the tragic story of American democracy's current brush with authoritarianism. The only thing that may ultimately save us is the presumed justice and force of law in our legal system.

Ben Ray Lujan for DCCC

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has chosen New Mexico Congressman Ben Ray Lujan to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the very important "chief campaigner" position that recruits congressional candidates and raises money for the 2016 races.

Not Jim Himes.

For which we're grateful.

Lujan is Hispanic. His father was Ben Lujan, who once served as speaker of the New Mexico House of Representatives, and his cousin is Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, another member of New Mexico's congressional delegation.

Who knows if he's the right person for this job, but he's young, he comes from a political family, and he seems to represent a grassroots rather than a Wall Street approach to the direction the party needs to take.

Nearer, Our Wall Street, To Thee

Our own dyspepsia with the Obama administration grew after January 2009 the closer to Wall Street the president cozied up. The damping down of economic populism throughout the Democratic Party, from the top down, is at least partly to blame for the following recent developments: the electoral losses in 2010 and 2014, the blossoming of the Tea Party, and the Occupy Wall Street (and everywhere else) movement. Some of us believe that the loss of our populist edge is largely to blame for those displays of discontent.

Do you hear the loud smacking of lips coming from the canyons of Wall Street at the prospect of a Hillary Clinton candidacy? Yes, it's drowning out progressive and populist groans at the thought of even more sell-outs to the bankers and the other "lords of the universe."

That's why the Elizabeth Warren talk isn't going away. She looks very much like the best potential candidate, with plenty of economic smarts and a toughness of spirit. Hillary is stale bread compared to Elizabeth.

Jim Himes

Now comes news that the leading contender to become chief Democratic campaign operative, candidate recruiter, and fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is a former Goldman Sachs vice president and hedge fund suckup, Jim Himes of Greenwich, Conn. Nancy Pelosi gets to make the appointment.

Robert Kuttner asks, rhetorically, "So the last thing Democrats need going forward is an even closer affinity with Wall Street, right?"

Goddamn it all to hell if this comes to pass. The love of money is the root of all evil. I learned that in Sunday School. If the Democratic Party wants to become fully irrelevant, or merely the semi-official handmaiden to the billionaires (which is essentially what it's been for the last six years), then by all means, Nancy, signal your abandonment of the people by the appointment of Jim Himes as head of the DCCC.

Swing State Project: Carter Has Overtaken Foxx

We saw this very effective video yesterday: "A Goldstar Mom, Ignored by Virginia Foxx." Best political spot we've seen in a long time, especially one aimed at The Madam.

Swing State Project reports that new polling shows Coach Roy Carter pulling ahead of Foxx in Surry and Allegheny counties.

Why won't the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee take some notice of Carter and the valiant race he's run against The Madam?