And the Senate is a lot more important than the House. Trump rules by decree when it comes to stuff the House of Representatives votes on. Where Trump is not enough of a dictator to dictate the result is on Senate confirmations, including the Supreme Court. This is my case for not thinking the Democrats will truly win this year.
There are two phenomena here that are, in fact, problems:
The nomination process is drastically over-influenced by people who have the time to attend caucuses and town halls and work on campaigns. This is hugely biased towards the unemployable and the insane. Normal people who have jobs to go to and value keeping them are effectively disenfranchised by the procedures, and the resulting ratchet effect of ideological extremism produces bad candidates.
The people who work as staffers for the DNC and elected officeholders are also extremely unrepresentative of not just the electorate as a whole, but even of the Democratic Party base. The typical staffer is 20-something, from a wealthy family, and to the left of 90% of Democrats on most issues.
Biden was in a huge fight over this from the beginning and ultimately lost it. He and his veteran advisors knew that he needed to disassociate himself from the craziest elements of the party to win in 2020, but ultimately the bill came due for the deals he struck to get Sanders et al to support him in the general.
This happened before, in 1972 when the party was taken over by McGovern and ended up being crushed to dust by Nixon because its nominee was way to the left of the median voter. The response was to change the primary procedures as a brake on this happening again. It’s obviously time for another re-evaluation of the process, with a particular focus on the composition of staff offices and the development of real, non-geriatric candidates from the mainstream liberal wing of the party.
Or maybe you’re just wrong, and things change, and a “leftist” with the ability to inspire and connect to voters could win the presidency. All you’ve offered are a bunch of assertions.
How do you define “win the midterms?” Personally I believe the Democrats have a very good chance of winning the House. The Senate is going to be much harder. Polling me now I’m a bit negative about the prospect.
So if you define winning the midterms as winning both houses I think very few people are assuming that. As for 2028 it’s way too early. The Democrats certainly have a lot of ammunition for the campaign but I wouldn’t even try to guess the candidates let alone assume a win.
I feel the same. My prediction is thar they’ll end up with a pretty big majority in the House, but the Senate will be very close. They may or may not have the majority in the Senate, probably not. The House majority will be enough to at least slow down the destruction we’ve been seeing over the past year and a half.
I don’t think “taking for granted” is the appropriate term I would use, but I do think there will be a blue tsunami in November. The reason is because the current admin shows little prospensity to change, so I don’t expect the political situation to change between now and the election. If anything, Trump will do something to make the tsunami bigger.
If SCOTUS doesn’t strike down the decision today by the 5th Circuit blocking access to mifepristone by mail, I imagine Senate races may well shift toward the D candidates. In purple states for sure and even in some red ones. 1 or 2 points in some states could make a difference.
Thank you for helping to clarify the problem. Anyone who has a problem with a land acknowledgment is an asshole. (I’m not directing this at you, personally. We are talking about voting trends, and this isn’t the Pit). Yet again, we are reminded about how many millions of assholes live in the US – so, we are not (to quote the OP) taking anything for granted.
But we (Democrats and those who generally support them and most of their ideals and policies) won’t transform ourselves into the kind of person that would object to a land acknowledgment. We just can’t. One cannot become a narcissistic jerk with the snap of one’s fingers. *It’s too deeply ingrained in one’s soul. (Obviously everyone has flaws, even deep ones. I certainly do. That doesn’t invalidate my point).
*“It”=“not being a narcissistic jerk” – but also, alas, “being a narcissistic jerk.” In other words, there have always been millions of n. j.'s in the US, and millions of non-n. j.'s. If one’s basic personality almost never changes across a lifetime, and we happen to live in an era where one party overwhelmingly attracts the n. j.'s, how can any election’s outcome be in doubt? Several reasons: it comes down to turnout; who can attract the truly clueless voters who aren’t really aware of either party’s stances; and personal characteristics of particular candidates.
Excellent points – for real. I’m not trying to blunt any harshness in my previous post. This is a real problem.
(I would just add “retired people” and “spouses of breadwinners in single-income households, especially without children at home” to your list of “unemployable” and “insane.”)
Only two states have a Dem primary based upon a Caucus system.
Wrong. It is biased towards the retirees. You must be a registered democrat, and they start at 7Pm, so workers can certainly attend. And
Unlike casting a vote, which you can often do in just minutes and often have a window of days to do, the caucuses require people to be physically present for a few hours. That makes participation difficult for people who can’t get or afford child care, people living with disabilities or mobility issues, people who lack transportation, and people who work evenings. However, the Democrats recently have changed their rules to allow for mail-in participation.
Yep, just wrong, they dont understand how caucuses work, the rules, and how the DNC operates.
But also- wrong points.
Yes, the GOP has more states which caucus, and afaik, they dont allow mail in voting.
People say that “just being anti-Trump” is not a coherent platform or a winning message. Maybe that’s true. But it seems that a lot of the Democrats’ version of “anti-Trump” is complaining about his verbal crudeness or launching pie-in-the-sky attempts to cut off his power through impeachment or lawsuits that have no numerical chance of success.
I would like to see the Democratic Party unify behind a list of every actual law and executive order that Trump has implemented that they will reverse on day 1 of holding power, written into an omnibus bill that their candidates pledge to vote for, and make the elections about that initiative. I question why this hasn’t already been done, though I have my suspicions.
Because it can not be possibly be done. It takes time to get a Bill thru.
Watch - “I’m just a Bill” School House Rocks some day.
Next- it shouldnt be done, because voters dont like the assumption that someone is gonna win. Not to mention, some single issue voter might go “Nope” based upon that.
I am sure the Dem leaders have shopping lists drawn up and some bills in draft form.
Some people have unrealistic expectations of Politics.
Also, Trump himself is a much better political target than some bill that would of necessity be a huge mass of confusing (and ever-changing) legalistic details.
Strict unity is a formula for Mike Johnson retaining the gavel.
Democratic House members from Trumpy districts have to stand up to leadership. Otherwise there will be virtually none from districts that trend Republican, which is the GOP situation (just 3 GOP House members in districts that voted for Harris).
Think back to the last time Democrats had a veto proof majority. It was because the majority of the party tolerated segregationist members. We shouldn’t sell our souls that thoroughly, but to even get a working majority, you have to let candidates take the positions they need to win their districts. All politics is local isn’t as true as it used to be, but it still has some validity.
These sound like arguments against having any policy positions at all. We’re back to “we need to find the guy with the best-looking hair to swindle voters into doing something, though I’m not sure what.”
This sounds good in theory, the problem is the things that Democrats are allowed to break from the party line on are topics that should be a matter of principle (abortion rights, anti-Semitism, the basic worthiness of the United States as a political project) and the things where strict discipline is imposed are either symbolic nonsense or hugely unpopular.