Obviously we don’t want to take our eye off the ball, but it’s worthwhile to look more than two years ahead periodically. We have to make sure we keep the GOP pinned to the mat after their shit-flinging monkey is gone.
Without taking anything for granted, it sure looks like Democratic politics is going to get a couple years to operate in easy mode:
Checkmate.
But we won’t get to cruise along in that same easy mode in subsequent elections, just because “we’re still the nice Democrats and wait, does everyone not remember who these guys are? Did our people become apathetic non-midterm-voting slackers again?” (I know, I know: but I never fail to vote or for that matter to volunteer for and donate to Democrats.)
We certainly will need to muster a better effort than we did in 2010. Fortunately the demographics are better now, but so many white people have moved right to balance that out.
Leaving aside the demographics, the question is whether we’ll let them get away with only a quick time-out and rebranding. Will we fritter away our advantage by 2024, with some fresh new GOP face pushing the same old “afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable” policies? Which, even without the repulsive freak show dynamic, is still bad for America and the world, after all–even if it will probably not *seem * so bad by comparison to Trump (hence the danger).
It remains to be seen how skillful Democrats will be (unlike how feckless they were after Nixon) in really pinning the GOP to Trump as a legacy, one which will be increasingly toxic. “Grandpa, how could you support…Trump?” :eek: We should mercilessly tar anyone who was on camera, palling around with him at one of his fascist rallies. That might at least force them to put in a bunch of rookies off the bench, political greenhorns with no traceable social media Trumpiness to be found. We should not let them get away with any less.
Of course, in some of the deepest, reddest districts, it will still be an asset on an aspiring politician’s resume to have been a huge MAGA guy. All the better for Democrats. If the most visible “Meet the Press” Republicans, and their presidential nominees, are Trump-free or at least Trump-very-lite, we should keep reminding voters how they all work together in Congress. (If the GOP is clever, they will counter by nominating governors for president.)