Message to Dems: Stop Losing

According to the media today, Democrats are despondent and in a circular firing squad over their pair of losses in last night’s special congressional elections in Georgia and South Carolina. They should be, because the mistakes were self-inflicted. The truth is that resources and money were sent to the wrong race last night, and it shows the difference between hope and intelligence.

Why would the party think that Jon Ossoff, a guy initially funded by a left wing blog and who looks like the young carpet bagging transplant he is be able to compete against a far right GOP political hack who at least looked like a suburban mom from the district?

And why didn’t the party instead fund the candidate, Archie Parnell, who actually came close and could have beaten his opponent because he looked like the native he was, and didn't take himself too seriously?

Until Democrats get smart about who they are running in these districts, and stop letting the base import its flavor of the month into races against GOP candidates who at least look like they came from that district, Democrats will continue to be the minority party in the House. Simply put, recruit people of integrity from within the district who can do well in crowds and on TV speaking about issues that matter in that district. And stop running clay pigeons.

It'll Take More Than Russia

There's been some talk amongst the pundits over the last several days that the Democrats' relentless focus on Trump's Russia problem is letting him and the GOP get away with a lot of bad stuff under the radar. I agree. Upon reflection, I also think that all this talk about Trump getting impeached anytime soon is nothing more than wishful thinking. First things first.

While Democrats, MSNBC, and CNN have pounded the airwaves with the latest Trump scandal-du-jour, Mitch McConnell has been angling in the dark to draft and pass an Obamacare repeal bill. Sure, no one has seen the bill yet, no one knows what's in it, and McConnell doesn't yet have the votes for it. But that doesn't mean it wouldn't pass when it is dropped into the chamber in the dead of night one day next week. I don't think it will ever eventually come to pass because 1) there are still at least 3-4 vulnerable GOP Senate incumbents next year and moderates not up for re-election that would be damaged by anything that blows up Medicaid; and 2) the Senate's bill would have to skate through the House unscathed to actually reach Trump's certain signature, and that isn't going to happen either. But having said that, it's true that by focusing on Russia too much and not shining a light upon McConnell's shenanigans, Democrats have missed a golden opportunity to turn the heat upon those 3-4 senators now and make it impossible for them to vote "yes" on the bill. The DSCC should be running ads in those states right now targeting those GOP senators and setting the narrative, but they aren't.

And it's not just health care; Democrats are not shining a light upon Trump's war in Afghanistan, his war in Syria, his lack of allied support, and his lack of any overarching end game behind any of it. Democrats aren't making the point that the Trump/GOP effort to repeal Obamacare and any vote to do so is nothing more than a vote to destroy families so that Wall Street and the wealthy can get a tax cut. And Democrats aren't making the point that there still isn't:

1) An infrastructure plan that adds jobs right away
2) A border wall paid by Mexico
3) A rollback of NAFTA and thousand of new jobs
4) The Trump plan for a new climate agreement
5) A tax reform plan that helps the working class more than the wealthy
6) A draining of the swamp in Washington.

Democrats could be hammering Trump every day by saying "We're Still Waiting for You to Make America Great Again," and question all of his actions to the contrary, but they aren't. Which is why I think the impeachment talk is nothing more than wishful thinking at this point, because the congressional GOP will not turn on Trump until 1) his base sees that his campaign talk doesn't match his actions, and 2) Mueller drops the bomb on him. And both of those things won't be clear and known until sometime next year.

So wise up Dems. You still have to make a case against Trump and hit it over and over again, building a self-sustaining narrative that he is destined to reinforce by nature of his self-destructive DNA. Just saying Trump is in the pockets of the Russians is not enough to help off-year congressional challengers, nor enough to swing his base against him, because our body politic is so corroded now that millions of people will still support a treasonous criminal as long as he is their treasonous criminal.

Destined to Fail - Politically

While many in the media are fixated on the daily outrage(s) from the Trump administration, even the impending car accident of a Mueller firing (yes, Trump will be stupid enough to do this), not enough attention is paid to the basic political weakness of this president and his team - the abandonment of any real populist agenda in governing.

Neil Irwin of today's New York Times in The Upshot pens the real reason Trump will fail politically. Yes, Trump clearly acts and sells his limited accomplishments all as nods to his base (see Cuba, the Gorsuch confirmation, and killing the Paris climate accord). But Trump will not climb out of his terrible mid-30's approval ratings by only playing to that base, and he cannot get reelected (assuming he makes it to 2020, which he won't). He could however gain more political support, even with the daily drumbeat of investigations, if he actually carried out the populist agenda he ran on.

Irwin goes so far as to suggest how Trump could have done this, and yet it is too late for that because 1) Trump has now been exposed as the faux populist he was all along; 2) Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the Koch Brothers (Pence's handlers) want none of that agenda; and 3) Trump's persona and evaporated political capital make it now impossible for him to turn back and work with the Democrats and GOP moderates on any of it.

All of which means that after less than 180 days of governing, Donald Trump's presidency is stillborn, and the only thing that can save it, which George W. Bush knows all to well, is something to galvanize support behind a flailing president. I would normally be worried that Trump and his team are at work looking for exactly that catastrophe to prop them up, because he and his team are craven enough to let it happen.

But then I know that before that happens, Trump will do the one thing that will start Republicans heading for the exits: he'll fire Mueller.