They're losing -- keep fighting
The rank-and-file of the enemy are beginning to notice that, despite now controlling the House, Senate, and Presidency, their Republican champions aren't getting very much done. For many, the recent spending bill seems to have been the last straw. Religio-wingnuts are furious that it preserves funding for Planned Parenthood (check out the comments thread at that posting too), as are their somewhat more secular comrades at RedState. Cuts to science, the EPA, sanctuary cities, etc. are gone or negligible, and there's no money in there for the wall -- even Trump is starting to realize Republicans got pwned. Limbaugh and RedState are disgusted.
Beyond the spending bill, the ACA hasn't been repealed, and increasingly looks like it can't be. Prospects for "tax reform" in Congress don't seem any better. The Muslim travel ban is DOA. Real wins since Trump took office amount to, well, Gorsuch and not much else. Trashing Michelle Obama's education initiatives is pretty thin gruel to the knuckle-dragging hordes who idolized Trump as the avatar of an all-out revolution against liberalism.
It matters, because a frustrated wingnut is a demotivated wingnut, at least when the frustration focuses on his own party. Yes, I've seen the polls showing that most Trumpanzees would vote for Trump again -- but this reflects the natural human resistance to admit having been conned (which will erode as the evidence of incompetence and inaction mounts up), and besides, Trump will not be on the ballot in 2018. Our task for that year is to win a majority in one or both houses of Congress, and as many state legislatures as possible (especially with the 2020 redistricting coming up, and the need to roll back state laws that discourage minority voting for the next Presidential election). The rank-and-file right wing has for years been prone to seethe that their men in Congress can't get anything done, with Obamacare repeal heading the list. With a Republican President, they were sure, that would change.
But more than three months in, it hasn't.
This is another reason to keep pressing our Democrats in Congress to fight back against every atrocity the Republicans come up with -- and to keep up the pressure on any Republicans who can be swayed too, via town halls, phone calls, and the like. We must ensure that the next eighteen months resemble the last three. Let the enemy's divisions, cowardice, and ineptitude continue to take their toll, racking up failure upon failure, and ever more wingnut voters will ask themselves Limbaugh's question -- why bother to vote Republican if the agenda nevertheless gets stymied at every turn? It will also be beneficial to the more perceptive minority among them to see our side saving their health care, Social Security, and so forth from their own side's efforts to take those things away.
If we do this, then at best, perhaps five or ten percent of Republican voters will be discouraged enough to sit 2018 out. With so many states so close, five or ten percent will be enough.
posted by Infidel753 at 4:36 PM
5 Comments:
Thanks for this, Infidel.
I have to admit that I have been facing rather bleak moments since the election, along with periods of raging anger--at the GOP, at the media, and at some on the far Left who are furiously not only washing their hands of this, but in some cases appear gleeful at the potential damage that was going to be inflicted on this country. In their case, it was to sneer "This is what you get for not voting for Bernie!"--which totally missed the point.
And yet, yes, the TrumpTrain has jumped the tracks. There have been those Executive Orders, but some have been challenged and stopped in the courts. The more the GOP pursue their goal to destroy the ACA, the more they look like the cruel SOBs they are. And Trump's doublespeak/mangling of the language--okay, let's just call them what they really are--outright lies--can no longer be avoided by many in the media.
The turnout for the marches against Trump have easily been far higher than those that attended his inauguration. The "pro-Trump" rallies have anemic turnouts. The town halls for the GOP Reps and Senators have turned into nightmares for them as the crowds have let them know that a) they are pissed off and b) they will remember in 2018.
Lurking behind all of this is the specter of the Trump/Russia affair--already the testimony given at the open hearings has been devastating to Trump and company, and several of the members in his administration are under investigation and have had to either recuse themselves or quit outright.
Yet I still worry. Some in the media continue to give Trump the kid-glove treatment. Some on the Left have instead chosen to attack Hillary Clinton and former President Obama while also dismissing the Trump/Russia affair and others, like H.A. Goodman (yep, him again) have called for the destruction of the Democratic Party if they don't embrace Senator Sanders. Oh, and they are apparently fine with Trump dragging the country through the mud. Those nihilists, I tell ya....
Still, I thank you again for this. Sometimes I do let things get me down when in fact I should see that the resistance is working--and that it is ordinary men and women who are making it so.
The House is set to vote on repealing the ACA today, but will it pass in the Senate? Doubtful.
That's a big promise I don't think Trump will be able to keep.
One thing, however, I will keep in front of any reader of my blog is the fact that Trump and his administration are under an FBI investigation.
And Hillary is not.
I do read the far right blogs and news sites, and they are very frustrated. Trump gave them ample evidence of his incompetence, ignorance, and sleaziness, but they were sure he'd charm everyone into going along with his terrific deals and in taking away vulnerable people's health insurance.
Marc: Thanks. I've actually been very heartened by how effective the resistance has been, and by how inept the Republicans have been. The Republicans have a fundamental problem -- much of their core agenda, if actually enacted, would seriously harm their own voting base. They survive as a major political force because most of the said voting base is too dumb and misled to figure that out, but if they ever actually did manage to enact it, that would end.
They're finally doing a House vote on ACA repeal today. I'm betting it still won't pass. But even if it does, it will die in the Senate -- and most House Republicans will be on record as voting to take away the insurance of millions of their constituents.
I hardly worry any more about the nihilists in the Democratic party. The only thing that matters is whether they represent a large enough voting constituency to hurt us, and I'm satisfied that they don't, given that Hillary got more actual votes than any previous Presidential candidate except Obama (always remember that she had a margin of three million over Trump, and "lost" only due to the Electoral College). The primaries showed that Sanders could not appeal to blacks and Latinos, without whom we have zero chance of ever winning nationally. Sensible Democrats understand this. The Mello kerfluffle is energizing a lot of feminists against the bitter-end Bermie-bros too.
Don't get me wrong, Sanders contributed a lot and his positions are the real future of the economic aspect of the left. He's just not the right guy to lead.
As I was reading this, imagining it was like a sportscaster giving the info, the first half of it had me laughing, listening to you describe the players and moves, heh, heh, heh, heh, heh {:-)
Shaw: I still think Trump will ultimately be impeached. He's an embarrassment to the Republicans and they'd prefer Pence.
Ranch: It would be a funny game to comment on, with one side repeatedly scoring against itself.
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