The powers that be at the Democratic Party have decided on the original and provocative “For the People” as their slogan going into the midterms. Cue the laughter. Of course, far be it for a cynical wag like me to add to their eloquence by proposing a follow-up phrase along the lines of “From the People Who Brought You Detroit!” or “Real Communism Has Never Been Tried. Let’s Start Now!” or, a personal pick, “Because Government Doesn’t Have Enough Money to Further Ruin Your Life.”
Either way this is the Dem’s sad attempt at populism, to trump Trump.
The angle is a tad non-credible when you have various limo liberals running around doing all they can “for the people.” However, “the people” are limited to Hollywood airheads, DC denizens, and anyone who doesn’t have to walk too far to go to Zabar’s.
Oh, and the terminally gullible.
The rest of us, well, be damned.
The proof of this falls like summer rain over fresh political pastures. Nancy Pelosi and her “crumbs” line. Bernie Sanders and his specific band of very upscale socialism. The Pasionaria out of the Bronx, whose Jenny from the Block routine is undercut by her Westchester County upbringing. Oh sure, they make media common cause with the proles, but see themselves as the time-honored vanguard of said proles. Orwell put it better when he said in Animal Farm that, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
If they double down on this midterm’s message after the inevitable GOP mocking of it—you can hear the hungry baying at the Capitol Hill Club all the way to my Annapolis aerie—then they have truly fallen prey to ideology over common sense. Bad for them. Good for America. Better for the Capitol Hill Club, as I’ll have further interesting stuff to write about, get paid more, and then be able to pay my bar tab.
But how long can this continue, an America with one center-right party and one identitarian hard-left party? Who will speak for the center-left and other moderates?
I know we on the right like it just fine, as their lunatic ravings make them more and more unelectable on the national stage. But a responsible opposition is vital to a constitutional republic, as even true red conservatives have a spasm of confirmation bias and thus political weirdness every now and then.
The well-meaning folks who follow the ever-changing culty prognostications of “Q” are a case in point. Upon reading that last sentence some immediately banished me to the evil hinterlands of Pedopizzagate and the secret meetings, chaired by Queen Elizabeth II, of the International Heroin Conspiracy and One-Day Dry Cleaners.
Does that make me a dirty elitist? I certainly hope so. But one who defines elitism as an appreciation of excellence and who understands that in our political culture the best will never rule because the worst are drawn to politics as a career.
And on occasion even the center-left gets it right, say, like on the Iraq debacle and the War on Drugs. Reason to put them in power? Perish the very thought. Reason enough to hope their liberals win out over their Bolshies? Yes.
Which brings us back to the midterms. Because of their Liberal-Bolshie Civil War (aka ‘The War Between the Snakes”) and the president’s ability to do the maddeningly (to them) unexpected, Dem chances are not what they should be historically or even what they were weeks ago.
Empirical evidence says the Dems should take enough seats in the House to regain control of it, as the party not in the White House usually does well in the first midterms of a new presidency. Even Reagan lost a bunch in his first midterm in 1982. Remember what a hit Clinton took in 1994 and Obama suffered in 2010? The only modern president to gain in midterms was George II in 2002, and that was primarily because of support for his national security policy in the wake of 9-11.
The slack-jawed Mad Maxine Left is ginned up over the descending fascism of the Trump regime. If it is really descending, how they register their noble indignation outside of the barbed wire of a DHS detention camp remains to be seen.
But that combined with natural voter midterms fickleness, leftist media, sniping from Never-Trumpers, vast pop cultural bigotry in their favor, and lots of campaign cash from some (not so much from Big Labor after the Janus Decision, bwahahaha!) of the usual suspects could spell a GOP trouncing in November. But then, most of those things were present in November of 2016…and guess who was elected president?
The president is an instinctive hunch-driven gambler, like a James T. Kirk of American politics. Why else does he regularly defy all convention? Why does he hit an own goal speedbump in Helsinki and ask for a replay in DC right before the midterms? That sheer nerve is a factor that is hard to quantify in political forecasting. And then there’s the Mueller investigation and any October Surprise it may have waiting. Though given the loyalty of the president’s base they could not only discount it, it could motivate them even more so to get to the polls.
So the game’s afoot and the fog of war is too opaque right now to make a safe call. But then, I’m not known for being a man who tends to safe calls.
The GOP gains three in the Senate and keeps the House by less than five votes, thus making Supreme Court votes easier and legislation harder. It also gives Mark Meadows and the Freedom Caucus that much more clout. I base this, as I put finger to keyboard this last weekend, on the fervent loyalty of the Trump base, the proven ability of the Dems to be petulant and loony at the same time, and on the president’s penchant to upset the apple cart seemingly at his choosing.
A win for the GOP? No. A rescue from defeat? Yes.
In the midterms, that’s usually the best the party in the White House can get.
