Absent Any New Leaders or Ideas, Flailing Democrats Grasp at a Favorite Theme
Summer used to be a slower time of year. Not just in the news business. And not just because of the heat: Vacations. Picnics. Baseball. And there was nothing called social media.
One summer early in my journalism career, I got a story on the front page of a big-city newspaper about a dog who found his owner’s lost wallet and brought it home. I might have been more excited than the owner.
That was then. This is now: Los Angeles. Iran. Israel. Ukraine. Gaza. Donald Trump. TDS. China. In the old days, members of Congress would go home for the summer. Now, they mostly live in Washington and make trouble year-round.
Instinctively, a N.Y. Times newsletter writer in the northeast, dramatically overstating the country’s divisions, opined: “The nation is a cauldron of anxiety and anger as it enters the weekend at a moment recalling some of the darkest periods of its history.”
As usual, it’s the coastal cauldrons, both East and West, making the most dramatic news, not the sturdy Heartland that steadies the nation — and, oh, by the way — elected the president and government now attempting to clean up the rotting mess so willfully inflicted by the thankfully departed previous president.
A significant part of that ongoing mess is being maintained and intentionally inflamed by the Democrat Party, the country’s oldest party and acting like it is.
American political history suggests that liberal grouping will eventually shuck off its contemporary ancient leadership and progressive paralysis to discover new leaders and new priorities. As Dems finally did eventually after their abiding 19th century support of slavery that caused the Civil War, the Ku Klux Klan, and decades of resistance to black freedoms.
From 1860 to 1932, there were 15 men elected president. Only two of them were Democrats.
From 1968 to 1992, Republicans ruled again; voters chose the GOP in five out of six presidential elections. That long-running dominance was ended by Bill Clinton, who forced Democrats to the ideological center. There, they won five of the next eight elections.
So, it can be done. It's not rocket science. At the moment, however, things look grim for the party of Jefferson. First, the billionaire Trump is a unique political phenomenon, one of those extraordinary comets that rarely streak across the sky.
He launched his candidacy and political career just 10 years ago this week. As a complete rookie then, he was unaware of the impossibility of turning the long-running party of business into the party of American workers. So, he did it.
Among 17 GOP opponents in 2015-16, most of them party veterans, the real-estate mogul who literally lived in a Fifth Avenue penthouse, was the only one to grasp the Heartland’s pent-up anger and frustration with the bipartisan cynicism, broken promises, and empty blather of the country’s way-too comfortable political establishments in Washington.
He sensed it, bottled it, spoke it, and promised change. Trump, you may have noticed, is not a usual politician, which is why I think so many voters believe him. Perhaps to his own surprise, in 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, whose two New York Senate campaigns he helped finance.
And then – are you sitting down? — to cement the fierce fealty of his newly-heard political followers, Trump actually kept his campaign promises. He actually did. Who does that once they get to Washington?
Trump’s doing it again this time, too. And well past the traditional first 100-day benchmark.
Trump can be loud, vain, and profane. But, by golly, the man did what he said he would, as successful deal makers keep doing. And then, of course, he told us about it several times.
Despite their personal disdain for Trump and for their own benefit (which is how politics work), congressional Republicans like Mitch McConnell (KY) engineered not one, not two, but three Trump Supreme Court justices.
After 49 years of Republicans saying they would overturn Roe v. Wade, Trump’s Supreme Court actually did it.
And now, that court has become a legal backstop against Democrats’ frantic efforts to stop everything, anything the incumbent president tries.
One of Trump’s strongest super-powers is actually out of his control. Just by being, Trump inhabits opponents’ minds. He’s there when they wake up, when they lunch, when they look in the mirror, or try to sleep.
Even mainstream media, which hates him, is obsessed with Trump. They can’t help themselves. Trump is like a never-ending mosquito bite for them. You hate it. But, man, it can feel good to scratch it, sometimes so hard it hurts.
As a result, Trump seems to be everywhere every day. This fuels Democrat anger and fears, Trump’s ego, and his supporters’ perverse delight. Democrats and the Cheney crowd cannot purge him.
It also helps explain Dems’ recent four years of ultimately futile and patently unfair efforts to break the man, his finances, his campaign, his reputation. All of which built sympathy and admiration for Trump, and that makes them even madder.
Trump’s continuing mental presence has forced obsessed Democrats to do not only stupid things, but self-destructive things.
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