The Lincoln Project: Twilight, Red Dawn
These people get it.
Republicans have provided some political gifts to the Democrats that, if used properly, will go a long way toward reversing the trend of the party in power losing the mid-term elections and actually expand Democrats influence in Congress. There's not a lot of time, and the defeatist attitude, and acceptance of the "status quo" has to go. No turf should be ceded, including rural areas of red states and specifically, the Evangelical right wing.
You Can't Change the Policy if You Don't Win the Election!
The intellectual war has already been won by Democratic party policy wonks. The Republicans, frankly, have been heading toward autocracy and have been fighting against representative democracy and government "of, by and for the people" for a long time, even before the beginning of the 21st century. January 6th was the nail in the coffin of their fight for the American Democratic Republic, the Constitution and American values.
The American people, specifically the electorate, has shown this. Nationally, the GOP has won only one Presidential election, in terms of the popular vote, since 2000, and that was George W. Bush's narrow win in 2004, eked out over John Kerry in the aftermath of the Iraq war, before the truth started coming out about how the attack was made on a false pretense. Democrats have won all the other popular vote totals this century, and the margins keep increasing to the 8 million vote shellacking Biden laid on FP45. The majority of ballots cast in Congressional elections has also increasingly gone Democratic, though the Republicans have weaponized the failure of the courts to enforce laws against gerrymandering, otherwise the makeup of Congress would reflect the roughly 55-45% split, Democrat over Republican, in the overall vote.
Being policy wonks hasn't worked as well for Democrats as being election strategists has been for Republicans. Bjorn Beer, of Christian Democrats of America, calls what's happened to Democrats over the past couple of decades a "Hindenburg disaster," and he is exactly right. Republicans captured state legislative seats and governorships, the power to appoint or elect judges, and more importantly, the power to manipulate election outcomes by drawing lines on the ground which lump Democratic majorities into single districts, while isolating enough of them elsewhere to have just enough of an edge to elect their candidates. The courts are reluctant to, or refuse to, acknowledge gerrymandering and enforce the law.
We Know All That, So Tell Us Something New!
I like Beer's analogy. But we now have some political gifts, wrapped up, sitting under the tree, waiting to be opened. We're not talking some major political shift here. Every one of these gifts has enough value, in terms of percentage of those who will shift their vote, to win enough elections to matter.
My personal preference is opening up all of the glorious corruption, immorality, cheating, fraudulent business dealings, phony charities and the overall mental instability of FP45, keeping all of that circulating, and watching as it silences some of his former Evangelical cheerleaders. It is finally starting to sink in among some of them that they are being held accountable, and made to own everything that went along with supporting him. They're paying for it. They have the "cover" provided by the pandemic on which to blame steeply declining offerings and contributions and declining church attendance and membership, but there are some who are now openly acknowledging that it's not the pandemic, but the consequences of their support for FP45.
There's January 6th, which is now moving very well and headed in the right direction. It will be hard to stand by the former President once the full scope of his intentions are out there for everyone to see. The arguments that they were just tourists, or that they were patriotic Americans participating in legitimate political debate don't seem to be providing much cover any more. January 6th actually carries the potential of disqualifying FP45 from running for office, and perhaps even more serious penalties can result.
The icing on the cake is how deeply involved Trump was with Putin, helping to accomplish his goal of denigrating and neutralizing the NATO alliance. That's been Putin's goal all along and it's why he didn't go after Ukraine when Trump was in office. If Trump had succeeded in his attempt to subvert the constitution and the peaceful transfer of power following his election loss, Putin's goals would have been achieved and he would have had little to no opposition to taking over all of the former Soviet republics in Europe, along with the former Soviet satellite states.
And how involved was Putin in interference with the 2016 election? One of his spies was working with Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager. Watch this clip from Chris Hayes, "All In" March 4, 2022.
Why Putin Didn't Attack Ukraine During the Trump Administration
I Love the Lincoln Project!
They're Republicans calling out their fellow Republicans on the selling out of their party's values and ideals for loyalty to a candidate, not a cause. But loyalty to a person, even a President or former President, is not loyalty to America. They've got the right idea. They aren't going to flip the whole party, but they have had a significant impact on elections in multiple locations. Just a few percentage points on some of those margins makes a big difference.
In Georgia, a state where there are a large number of Evangelicals, that six percent difference in white Evangelical voters supporting Trump, along with a 5% decline in the actual number of Evangelical voters between 2016 and 2020, made the difference, turned Georgia blue, and gave Biden a 50-50 senate, of sorts. It was also likely the difference in Wisconsin and Michigan.
It would be worth the small investment it would take for Democrats to have some resources invested in working toward pulling Evangelical voters off the GOP margins. There are people who know enough about their culture and influences to make this work.
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