What we do now by @BloggersRUs

What we do now

by Tom Sullivan

The electoral college margin in 2020 could be razor-thin.

What we do now will define who we are as a people for generations. One of America's major political parties has degenerated into a cult of personality. The acting president is a failure at the job, a failure at business, a failure as a human being and as a father. If his Department of Justice does not succeed in quashing investigations into him, his business, and his seedy circle of friends, we are likely to find out they are the least of his problems, and ours.

One of Donald Trump's few talents is for picking fights he thinks he can win. Often, he picks new fights to get himself out of fights he thinks he's losing. To stop him, Democrats need to stop taking the bait.

Democrats' lack of discipline could hand Donald Trump a narrow victory in 2020. He's running an even more demagogic game this time. An openly racist one. His rally Wednesday in Greenville, NC demonstrated that.

Decent Americans, horrified, recoiled at the Trump cult chanting "Send her back! Send her back!” about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Omar is all the cult's hates and fears rolled into one, as Adam Serwer observed. She is a Somali immigrant who arrived a refugee not heir to a fortune. She is black, a woman with courage Trump lacks, and a progressive member of Congress wielding power.

In attacking her and the other women of color in The Squad, Trump is just getting warmed up. No one should be surprised if "Send her back!" morphs into "Build the camps!" before the GOP's nominating convention next year in Charlotte.

Frank Bruni offers Democrats some blunt advice on responding to that:

If Trump has his way, this campaign will be a bogus referendum on a bastard definition of patriotism. It will be a race-obsessed and racist jubilee. Don’t play along.

Respond to his depredations once, loud and clear. "Maybe say it twice. Then move on," Bruni writes. "Stop talking so much about the America that he’s destroying and save that oxygen for the America that Democrats want to create."

Bruni suggests Democrats stick to the center, avoid issues such as single-payer health care, and look more to "more restrained" Democrats who turned out Republicans in 2018 as models. Blue Dog Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, for example. I disagree. But his point about not playing Trump's game on Trump's terms is spot on. So is his pitch for Democrats emphasizing the America they want to create.

Trump throws out red meat for his base. But he also throws red capes in front of the left, knowing instinctively we'll be unable to resist responding, and that we'll keep responding for days. He stays on the attack. Democrats stay on defense. He stays on the front pages. Democrats' plans stay below the fold or buried.

Ron Brownstein believes Trump's electoral path is narrow and getting narrower. He's done little to expand his base. He's simply working to consolidate it:

Trump's victory in 2016, and his consistent support in polls from about 40-45% of the population, shows there is a significant audience for his hard-edged message on immigration and demographic change more broadly. But there is also a clear cost. In effect, Trump's bruising racially-infused nationalism is forcing the GOP to trade support among younger voters for older ones; secular voters for the most religiously conservative, especially evangelical Christians; diverse voters for whites; white collar whites for blue-collar whites; and metro areas for non-metro areas.

[...]

In 2018 House races, Republicans suffered only very modest losses outside of metropolitan area districts. And they gained three Senate seats in states with large populations of white voters who are rural, blue-collar, or evangelical Christians: North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri. But the party was routed in metropolitan House seats that contained significant populations of minorities, immigrants, singles, college-educated white voters, or all of the above. After sweeping losses in suburban districts from coast to coast, the GOP under Trump has been almost completely exiled from the dynamic metropolitan areas that account for the nation's vast majority of job growth and economic output.

That means two things. Democrats need to be less worried about attracting Obama-Trump voters than promoting policies that will energize their own base to turn out in blue, urban areas. Especially younger voters who have more "skin in the game" than many realize. They have the power to change the game. They have the numbers to be in control. They just have to reach out and take it. The Squad did.

Second, Trump's electoral path was desperately close in 2016. It could be even tighter in 2020. Democrats need to place more focus on competing in rural areas and rural states they've too long conceded to Republicans. They don't have to win there, and many won't expect to. But narrowing Trump's margins there (via Democratic coattails) could mean not only denying him Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, but picking up seats in (and even flipping) state legislatures that will draw new districts in 2021. Republicans strategists attempt almost nothing that's not at least a twofer. It's time Democrats tried.