Then I apologize for shouting because you and I are on the same page when it comes to 2020.
However, I don’t share your optimism about any incumbent Republican being willing to work with any Democratic President in 2021-2022.They didn’t run on a platform of bipartisanship, they didn’t survive primary challenges by being partisan, and they weren’t elected to be bipartisan.
And sure enough, this showed up in my “here’s what you missed last week” feed this morning.Alexandra Petri agrees with me.
In those specific competitive states actually some had run more centrist campaigns and were elected to actually get shit done.
But no question the idea that there will be, after a Trump loss, enough GOP senators willing to deal that some actual work can get done, is, as Cilizza put it, a radical position. The popular perspective within many D pundit and social media circles is that GOP = evil, that there is no working with them, there is only destroying them.
Go through the list of states the GOP will be defending in 2022. Many are far from GOP slam dunks. Do you think that after Trump loses in those states those GOP incumbents will stay hitched to that wagon?
Trumpism will outlast a Trump presidency, but enough in the party will be very aware that the rocky core of Trump cultists are not going to be enough for them to have any chance at winning their seats statewide. They need those who had been in their camp but who have left under Trumpism and its base turnout approach to come back. They need suburban voters to win. They were those who had been talking about trying to build support in growing demographics before.
Minimally despite its being a radical position I think it is more what more voters want to hear.
I think their Democratic opponents will do everything possible to convince voters those politicians are hitched to the Trump wagon, even if the incumbent wants to become unhitched.
Based on Nixon, Clinton and Bush, I’d guess it will take at least two Congressional elections to reform the party that gave up the White House.
And not only do we agree I hope those Democratic opponents succeed and win the seats!
But meanwhile in 2020 to 2022 those GOP incumbents in those states very likely will be trying to become unhitched … and to do so making showy displays of bipartisanship, of going against the wishes of leadership’s party lines. In a closely split Senate all it takes is a couple who decide to work to an acceptable compromise to get something passed.
And while these general election head to heads are not very predictive of 2020 results, Fox saying that evenWarren would beat Trump if the election was held today is something.
Heck, not just Warren, not just Biden and Sanders, but even (by a hair) Harris and Buttigieg!
If I’m Donald Trump and I’m polling behind a 37-year old gay mayor of a mid-sized city in Indiana who got only 37% of the vote in his one bid for statewide office, I’d start to wonder about my reputation as the outsider candidate.