Posted on 07/13/2017 8:14:08 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Last week, the Democrats released a new bumper sticker for their 2018 Congressional campaign: I mean, have you seen the other guys?
Its not a bad political notion so far as it goes opposition in politics is an effective tool, as Democrats learned from Republicans, who campaigned against Obamacare and Democratic spending policies to the tune of 1,000 state legislature seats, 12 governorships (including in states such as Michigan and Massachusetts), 10 Senate seats and 63 House seats. Now Democrats hope to reverse the math.
But theres something else going on here, too. Democrats hope that campaigning as #TheResistance will suffice to prevent voters from looking too hard at their own moral and political shortcomings. Thats because for all the talk by Democrats about Republican extremism, Republicans actually have moved closer to the center on policy, while Democrats have embraced an ugly combination of Bernie Sanders-style socialism and college campus-style intersectionality.
Leave aside the boorish antics of President Donald Trump and the incompetence of Congressional Republicans. Here is the fact: Trump is the most moderate Republican president since Richard Nixon. He has successfully passed almost no major policy in seven months. His foreign policy on North Korea and Syria is barely distinguishable from former President Barack Obamas. His approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been praised by Palestinians and former Obama officials. Hes the most pro-LGBT Republican in presidential history; his stance on abortion has been vague; his White House chief strategist has openly embraced higher taxes on upper-income earners, as well as a massive infrastructure spending program; he has embraced the central premises of Obamacare. Trump may act in ridiculous ways that defy rationality his Twitter feed is littered with stupidity and aggression, of course but on policy, Trump is closer to Bill Clinton of 1997 than President Obama was.
Democrats, meanwhile, are moving hard to the left. When former Clinton adviser Mark Penn wrote an op-ed for The New York Times calling for Democrats to move back to the center, he was roundly excoriated by the leading thinkers in the Democratic Party. He was an emissary of the past; he had to embrace the new vision of the leftist future. That leftist future involved radical tax increases, fully nationalized health care, and most of all the divisive politics of intersectionality. Sens. Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) may own the policy side of the Democratic coalition, but the heart of the Democratic coalition lies in polarization by race, sex and sexual orientation. Forget a cohesive national message that appeals to Americans regardless of tribal identity: The new Democratic Party cares only about uniting disparate identity factions under the banner of opposing Republicanism.
The clearest evidence for that alliance of convenience came earlier this month, when Democratic darling and Womens March organizer Linda Sarsour was caught on tape promoting jihad against Trump. Sarsour said that the sort of jihad she liked was a word of truth in front of a tyrant or leader. But she deliberately used the word jihad because of its ambiguity, not in spite of it: Sarsour has stated that pro-Israel women cannot be feminists; she supports the imposition of Shariah law in Muslim countries; she has stated of dissident and female genital mutilation victim Ayaan Hirsi Ali that she wishes she could take her vagina away; she has long associated with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood; she opened her jihad speech by thanking Siraj Wajjah, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who has repeatedly advocated for a violent form of jihad.
Democrats rushed to her defense nonetheless, hoping to preserve the intersectional concerns that animate their base. Never mind that Sarsour is no ally to LGBT rights, or that she blames Zionists for her problems. She represents an important constituency for Democrats, and so she must be protected. More than that, she speaks anti-Trumpese fluently, and thus is an important figure for Democrats.
This isnt rare on the left anymore. Much of the Democratic establishment supported Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), a longtime Nation of Islam acolyte who spent years defending that groups most extreme anti-Semitic rhetoric a man so radical that he openly associated with the Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, which recently labeled Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) an Israel Firster.
Even as the Democratic Party embraced Sarsour and defended her ambiguous use of the word jihad after all, she was opposing Trump the Impaler leftist spokespeople rushed to microphones to denounce President Trumps speech in Poland, in which he called for a defense of the West and our civilization. Leftist columnist Peter Beinart labeled the speech racist. As Jonah Goldberg of National Review points out, we now have a Democratic Party that spends its time defending the use of the word jihad against the president but labeling the phrase the West a problem.
Bold strategy, Cotton. Lets see how it works out.
And so Democrats must focus on President Trump. They must hope that he smacks himself in the face with a frying pan. They must bank on some sort of Trump-Russia collusion revelation. They must pray that the focus stays on Republicans rather than turning back to Democrats. After all, Sanders-Sarsour doesnt sound like a winning combination.
....How the Dems can lose 2018...
Simply by putting candidates up for election.
The Rats are an arm of the Venezuelian Government.
Will we snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?
What could Trump do legislatively with an RNC that’s collective head is so far up its ass that it thinks acting like Democrat-Lites is the proper course of action?
But Trump has been far from inactive. His activity as an administrator, with respect to EOs in particular, have not been as I would personally prefer: to be like an axe wielding maniac hewing down whole swaths of code; however, he has been far from inactive.
While recognizing the metaphor has limits it seems like he’s playing Jinga with the regulatory state, pulling out pegs at a somewhat steady pace but not so whole functions collapse (I’d like to see progressivism collapse, personally, everything from FDR forward). He’s doing more than making scalpel cuts and acting like he’s marched through Georgia as other presidents have done (or so it has seemed to me). If that can be kept up for even 4 years, 8 plus Pence and then some would be better, he will have done a lot even without having accomplished much with Congress.
Remember the so-called “Clinton Surplus” that only existed because the Contract With America changed us back to zero-BLB rather than the form of BLB that assumed across the board increases (that Democrats introduced just before Reagan too office)?
Not doing much can still accomplish much if “not much” is even merely slowed growth of government.
In a real #RustyIrony, DemWits don’t understand President Trump and his supporters ARE #TheResistance! DemWits seem stuck on “when insulting the voters don’t work... insult them more”. A winning 2018 strategy for sure! #LOL
Republicans do have a penchant for that, don’t they?
Chief of which is the assumption that some in the media now seen to be trying to push: that Republicans won’t pay a price for acting like Democrats.
How foolish an assertion unless you were trying to convince Republicans it’s true! It is Democrats who’ll stand with anything the DNC does. Republicans hold grudges and easily get discouraged so they stay home.
But look for nitwits in the RNC to act like they CAN assume republican voters ... they’ve done it before and they can do’ed it again! The same result will happen too.
The Senate. The 2018 Senate class is overloaded with Democrats. If the states go in the same direction they did in the 2016 presidential election, the Republicans should pick up 9 seats, leaving the Senate 61R - 39 D+I.
If the Republicans have a filibuster proof majority in January 2019, what will their next excuse for surrender be?
You mean the Democrats did NOT win both the House and Senate in 2016?
Coulda fooled me.
“His foreign policy on North Korea and Syria is barerly distinguishable from former President Barack Obamas.”
Hey Shapiro: FU and the neverTrump horse you rode in on. You are a waste of talent.
Democrats 2018: More anti-Russian than Joseph McCarthy.
MSM will say they win by losing.
In a Great position for Dem Presidential win bringing in House & Senate majority.
YES!! It's about time. I've been posting this for a while now - they need to go hard left, so hard left that Karl Marx would object that they're extremists. Once they do that, EVERYONE will vote for them. I know I sure will. It's the only way to ensure the survival of America and the rest of the world.
Frikken Shapiro at it again.
Eugene Delgaudio Retweeted KatieB @RavenNightMyst 18h18 hours ago
🇺🇸These Are #Democratic Senators In States @POTUS Won Coming Up For Re-Election In 2018-VOTE THEM OUT & Replace With #MAGA Patriots🇺🇸 🚂🇺🇸❤️
I was just about to post this great graphic, of the vulnerable Dem Senators up for re-election, in 2018.
Thanks and BTTT!!
1) Primary RINOs with conservatives
2)Tell your friends about Dems being anti-American.
3)VOTE!!!
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