Trumpist Dems? Oh yeah.
by digby
It was inevitable that what's left of the Blue Dogs would end up pulling their punches when it comes to Trump:
Moderate House Democrats are launching a new effort to highlight Russian election interference — while not directly tying the issue to President Donald Trump in a way that could alienate crucial swing voters in November.
The push by the Blue Dog Coalition — a group of 18 center-left House Democrats — comes as Democrats have struggled to determine their messaging on the Trump-Russia investigations ahead of the midterm elections. And it follows warnings by top intelligence officials this week that Russia is intent on disrupting the upcoming midterm elections even as Trump has seemingly done little to head off expected meddling.
[...]
Liberal Democrats have been happy to talk up the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia in 2016, going so far as to call for his impeachment and forcing impeachment-related votes on the floor. Democratic megadonor Tom Steyer continues to pressure lawmakers to back his multimillion dollar campaign calling for Trump’s impeachment.
But the aggressive progressive push has put centrist Democrats in an awkward spot. They too think the Russia investigation deserves attention, particularly with the looming midterm implications, but worry that tying it too closely to Trump will politicize the issue in a way that will drive away critical voters.
Democratic leaders are also wary of how much to highlight the Russia investigation in the months before the midterms.
This tracks nicely with news from yesterday that "strategists" are warning Democrats not to talk about Trump and instead concentrate on issues that people really care about. Those ladies of the Resistance should just shut up and fill envelopes. They don't know what they're doing. You must appease Real Americans by being the most boring, non-confrontational bucket of warm spit in the race. That's what gets people out to the polls.
This is an even more interesting move, however. One would think that a group that fashions itself as national security and fiscal hawks would go hard after the miscreant in the White House on just those issues. He is a disaster on national security and has just hiked the deficit by the trillions. But no. Instead they feel the need to shy away from criticizing the president, just like their cowardly GOP cohorts.
It makes you think that maybe they aren't all that sincere about their "issues" and instead just want to align themselves with Republicans, no matter what they do, without having to say so.
Just like their spiritual twins The Tea party and the Freedom Caucus, that cowardly inability to stand for anything, even their own alleged principles, is leading them inexorably to Trumpism.
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