Planning for a post-Trump era

Politics & Elections
1

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.)

2

Can’t assume we’ll win until we actually win. But if we win, yes, everything the GOP does for the forseeable future should be framed as Trumpian until the party, at large, violently (rhetorically speaking) repudiates its Trumpian phase and apologizes for it. One of the primary focuses of American politics for the next few decades should be a total repudiation of the Trump phenomenon and everything possible to make sure nothing like it ever happens again.

3

The Democrats’ ace in the hole are the teeming hordes of MAGA hat wearers. They will primary anyone who does not toe the white extremist line. If you’re a Republican who dares suggest working with Democrats on immigration or health care, you will not win the primary. This is going to make it easier for Democrats up and down the ballot to prevail over batshit crazy opponents. DJT enabled white nationalists to come out from under their rocks, now if they won’t go back under the rocks the GOP is in trouble.

4

This is a counsel of how to lose an election.

As a Senator once told me, there’s two ways to run. Scared and unopposed.

We take nothing for granted. We push and push on Trump and the existing GOP in 2020 and make sure we win. Independents? They can turn on you. Our own people? They can decide not to turn out. We have to keep moving the ball even when we’re ahead because the politic cycles turn quickly.

5

There is no “easy mode” for the Democrats these days. There would be if the Republicans were playing on a level playing field, but the right-wing have a powerful propaganda machine (primarily but not exclusively FoxNews), have been doing everything in their power to effectively disenfranchise Democratic-leaning demographics and regions, and (most worryingly) have been systematically removing protections against electronic and non-electronic tampering with elections over the past few years. Democrats will have to fight tooth and nail to counter every dirty trick thrown at them.

6

I love it when Dems get so cocksure they’re going to win the election that they start looking past it at what they’ll do with all their electoral spoils.

7

Yep. It’s nuts to think anything close to “easy mode”. Thankfully, virtually no Democrats I know are talking this way, but we’ll need to fight for every single vote.

8

I know! It’s so much better to vote for a party so morally bankrupt that, knowing it can’t gain a majority of actual votes, rigs the system instead.

9

Enough with the hijack, please.

10

We will spend most of the time in repairs.

11

A big question is: What happens now to the Republican Party? (I hope this is not a “hijack.” If we don’t find a way to learn from mistakes, they will be repeated.)

Look at their Presidential nominees over the past three decades: G.H.W. Bush — good-spirited moderate; Bob Dole — good-spirited moderate; G.W. Bush — too right-wing, but more stupid than evil; John McCain — a good man who never bought into right-wing excesses; Mitt Romney — moderate. Although the GOP has suffered under the yokes of Gingrich, Limbaugh, Ryan etc., when push came to shove, the GOP had adults ready to rise above GOP evil.

But that’s changed. Every single GOP Congresscritter has became a hypocrite who tied his or her future to this monster. I’m reminded of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the crewmates endorse the sin and make themselves accomplices. They have their giddy moments, happy that they’ve enriched the billionaires and pushed up the stock market:
Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Rational Americans now fervently hope that the GOP in its present form will suffer the same fate as the accomplices to the sinner in The Rime, when the Albatross begins to be avenged:
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

…
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
Ignorant middle-aged Fox viewers may be beyond salvation. But let’s hope that young voters never forget the Betrayal of America by the Republican Party. McConnell and all the other evil-doers should be left to contemplate only life without fresh water, and slimy things upon a slimy sea.

12

I don’t think bringing up Trump will be useful to Democrats in the post-Trump era. By the time Trump leaves office (especially if his presidency lasts eight years rather than just four,) the American public will be thoroughly sick of anything having to do with Trump. They won’t want to hear Democrats bringing up Trump in the post-Trump era as an anti-Republican argument point. They will just want to move on from the topic. So bringing up and harping on Trump, Trump, Trump in the 2022-2028 timeframe could actually backfire on Democrats.

13

This may be good for the Democratic party, but is bad for the country. While the Dems may be able to plant a flag, wave a big rubber finger and say “We’re #1” we will still have a totally divided nation that resists any form of compromise, and a divided gridlocked government to go along with it. Nothing will get done and Democrats who have been promised the stars will be demoralized, leading to the pendulum making another wild swing to the dark side.

We need to somehow reach the point where both sides recognize the others right to exist and compromise is no longer a dirty word. This may not be possible to achieve, and I’m not about to say that both sides are equally to blame for our current situation, but on the other hand we shouldn’t gleefully encourage this state of affairs.

14

Let’s look at what happens the last time the Democrats controlled everything: The Affordable Care Act. This was discussed in hearings with input from industry, consumer groups, etc. The Republicans were in the room. Democrats made concessions to Republicans, although Republicans still refused to give a single vote. But Democrats worked within the process, out in the open, and gave the other side’s views consideration.

Now let’s look at how Republicans passed their latest tax cut. No hearings. Democrats were not allowed in the room and had no input. They were given the bill only when it was finished and just before it was to be voted on.

I think it’s obvious that Democrats are the ones who will work with the other party.

15

First off, next year’s election is fitty-fitty. It will be more difficult for Donald to win because a couple million of his '16 voters are dead (and aren’t being replaced at the other end of the generational timeline) and because people who weren’t sure before now know exactly what kind of person he is when given power (remember the voters who said that he’d straighten up once he was in office; of course, there may be others who are delighted that he is even more of a dipshit than they had ever hoped). But American voters have a tendency to hold Dem candidates to higher standards than they do Donald – I don’t understand this but to deny it is impossible – and our bizarre electoral system gives him more than a fighting chance.

If we ever get the Senate back, I recommend lowering the age of Medicare eligibility by a year every year. I think that will break GOP opposition to single payer once and for all.

16

Suppose we assume that the Democrats take the White House in 2020 (I’ll give them slightly better than 50-50 odds on that) and the Senate as well (less likely, but for the sake of this thread we’ll say it happens). The OP only focuses on the battle for public opinion, and pinning evil Trump on the evil Republicans to show everyone how evil the evil Republicans are. The OP seems to assume that the Democrats are only going to focus on winning more elections, rather than on passing legislation, making appointments, and things like that.

In my lifetime, things have seesawed between the two parties quite a bit, and whenever one side wins, that side’s pundits spend a lot of time bragging about how they’ve won permanently and the other party will steadily shrink and become irrelevant. This happened for the Democrats in '92, the Republicans in '94, the Pubs again in '04, the Dems in '06 and '08, the Pubs in ‘10, the Dems’ in 12, etc… But it never actually comes true.

Just recall that in 2008, George W. Bush was the least popular President in the history of polling. The Dems not only won the White House by 7%, but also got 60 Senate seats and a huge majority in the House. Then two years later, the Pubs came roaring back, with the biggest Congressional gains by either party in my lifetime. There’s a lesson there.

There are three main reasons why neither party ever managers to dominate for all that long: (1) Infighting. (2) Legislation. (3) Events.

(1) Infighting is straightforward. No party is uniform. There are always conflicts about what should be done and struggles for control of the party.
(2) If your party is in control, you have to actually do stuff. But doing successful legislation is a lot harder than bragging about what you’re going to do. And if your legislation doesn’t live up to the hype, people start turning away. For example, Obama in '08 promised health care reform. Easy to promise. The actual legislation was hard to implement and alienated a lot of people. And in fact Bill Clinton had a similar problem when he took office.
(3) Stuff happens that no one can predict. When George W. Bush took office, no one was expecting a huge terrorist attack or a hurricane in New Orleans. Wars happens. Terrorist attacks happen. Economic disasters happen. Social upheavals happen. Natural disasters happen. Epidemics happen. And if you’re in charge you get blamed, rightly or wrongly.

So picturing our Democrats in 2020, how will these play out? Well for (1), if Democrats get the Senate, they’ll only have it by very small margin. Passing anything means satisfying both the moderates like Doug Jones and Joe Manchin, and also the Bernie/Elizabeth Warren wing. Inter-party conflict is already evident. Witness the dustups surround Israel and AIPAC earlier this year.

For (2), the Dems will have to pass a single-payer health care bill, that being the biggest promise that everybody is talking about. As they learned in 1993 and 2009, that can be quite difficult and time-consuming. After that, given the promises that the candidates are making, the voters will be expecting a ton of controversial and difficult stuff: a green new deal, court-packing, free college, higher minimum wage, and the list goes on.

For (3), ? That’s the point: nobody know what big events the next President will have to deal with.

17

I used to believe that until Trump won 63 million votes. No matter how crazy, irresponsible, incompetent, etc. the GOP are they’re guaranteed 60+ million votes.

IMO, the democrats will win big in 2020, and then the GOP will take back congress in 2022. I think the democrats will try to govern as consensus building centrists, and demoralize their liberal voters (who make up 30+ million voters) and a lot of them will stay home in 2022, handing the election to the GOP.

18

This is word for word what you could have said on November 7, 2016.

19

I agree 100% of course. I hope my post didn’t suggest otherwise. I was just arguing that being gleeful that the Republicans will continue to be insane ideologues because it will win Democrats votes is missing the big picture. Even if it costs us a few votes, having a sane opposition we can work with is much better than what we have now.

20

Abso-fuckin’-lutely.

So you can’t countenance any planning for more than two years ahead? I reject the idea that we always have to focus solely on the next election, total tunnel vision. And let’s put it this way: if we can’t win in 2020, we might as well fold up our tent. That is being served up on a silver platter, and if we lose it will be because of either of two things (or maybe a combination of both): (1) We are incredibly incompetent; (2) American voters are irredeemably awful on a vast scale that is impossible to overcome.

The fact that only 28% say they will definitely vote for Trump, and just another 14% are even willing to consider it, pretty much rules out (2). And last fall’s election results show that these poll numbers are not just somehow completely out of sync with what voters actually do.

I’m just saying that we shouldn’t just focus all our attention on that next election, and not even think with a few percent of our attention about how to press the advantage. Some people ITT seem to think I’m arguing that Democrats will be able to hold that advantage pretty easily, but I explicitly said the exact opposite in my OP.

Yeah, good point. That won’t necessarily hurt them in their solid red districts, but we need to make sure it sticks to them as a brand. And we should whenever possible emulate what Claire McCaskill did in 2012, and try to Bre’r Rabbit them whenever possible into nominating MAGA nutters that can’t win even in reddish-purple states.

Fair enough, but let’s call it “easiER” mode. You don’t really think if we zoom out and look at it fifty years from now, historians will say that Trump was the GOP’s most formidable candidate of the first half of the 21st century, do you?