With sixteen months to go before voters go back to the polls to cast ballots in what will be a referendum on Trump's second term, there are some signs showing that Democrats might wind up doing better than the poll numbers we are seeing at the moment would indicate. Frankly, the poll numbers indicate that the American electorate is ignorant and unaware of what Congress is doing, and they are also frustrated by what they see as a lack of anyone actually doing anything except spending an inordinate amount of time raising money for their own campaign. Congress is not popular right now.
And for that matter, neither is the President, who is getting the worst polling numbers any President has received at this point in their term. If these polls are accurate, once again that's a big "if", we are able to say that two-thirds of American voters are now against him. And I'd say that's a good guess, given the fact that we don't know everything we think we do about the 2024 election, and by observing what has been happening around the country with regard to resistance.
Let me clarify one thing for the sake of this discussion. "Resistance to Trump," and "the Democratic Party" are not synonymous. Yes, there are a lot of grass roots Democrats who are helping form the base of those who are resisting this convicted felon demagogue who sits in the White House now, but the movement has gone beyond the Democratic party's ability to control it, or to provide a political foundation for it. It is based on opposition to the things this President is doing to undermine and destroy the Constitution and the democracy that established and ordained it.
The Great Republican Foot-Shooting Contest
I can't remember the last time one of the political parties passed legislation through Congress that they were afraid to let the American people know exactly what was in it, to the point where they started a legislative session in the middle of the night to hide what they were actually doing. Deliberate dependence on the ignorance and willful unawareness of the voters is dangerous. When voters are made aware of what this bill will do, in order to participate in an opinion poll about it, three fourths of them disapprove of it, including a majority of those who identify as Republicans.
So, this can be a midterm campaign issue, provided Democrats are successful in their efforts to create widespread awareness of exactly what this bill has done, and tie the consequences of it to the Republicans in Congress who supported it. There were plenty of Republicans who didn't want this bill, either, but they no longer have a functioning party. Their elected representatives, right down to the few house members and senators who claim differently, are rubber stamps for this President, and that has the potential to end their power in Washington as a result of the 2026 mid-term elections.
The Republicans have shot themselves in the foot, and now must work to try and undo the damage they have done by keeping American voters in the dark.
What Democrats Must Do To Take Advantage of This GOP Blunder
I'm not a big fan of James Carville, but he's a fairly accurate predictor of election outcomes. He often gets off his own script, and lets himself get carried away, and he, like every other political pundit, can make some blunders, but he's usually pretty observant and he uses fact, not off the top of his head babbling. Carville predicted that Trump's big bill will create a "mass extinction event" for Republicans, claiming that the Democrats could easily pick up 40 house seats as a result.
"Political anthropologists are going to look back on this and it's going to be called a 'mass extinction event,' because there are a lot of them going to go extinct when people go to the polls examining on this," he said. I agree with his assessment, provided the Democrats are unified in their messaging and keep hammering away at the theme that is killing the GOP, and that is they are giving tax breaks to billionaires, at our expense. It cannot be simpler than that.
And that's what worries me.
The Republicans just invested most of their political capital in promoting one of the most unpopular pieces of legislation Congress has ever led get out. The momentum is on our side, if we stay on task and on message. Goodness, if Carville is optimistic, then the politics must be lining up with the Democratic party. What could go wrong?
We need an active, enthusiastic, visible Democratic National Committee. Frankly, we haven't had this, and my optimism has dampened quite a bit with the criticism of, and then departure of, David Hogg. Wrong move, there. This moribund organization has still not been able to get its collective rear end in gear and become productive. Sorry, but there's no evidence that can be pointed to which would change anyone's mind, and I see no plans and no follow through, even as this bill made it through the house this past week. I'm still waiting for the "War Room."
And while we are headed toward the midterms, now sixteen months away, who is keeping an eye out for massive voter fraud? Of course they're going to try. When a state like Georgia, for example, arbitrarily purges its voter rolls of what they call "inactive" voters, who gets in touch with those people and makes sure they register again? And in those states where Republicans are, by every piece of polling data imaginable, underwater, who is going to make sure that all of the things they've charged have happened over the years will not be something they try to pull? Because they are going to try.
Sixteen months will go fast. I get all kinds of emails from random candidates here and there asking for money. But I see no real organized effort to get these candidates on the same page, and convince people to vote for them again. There are three special elections coming up soon, in districts that Democrats held, and need to keep. And I have that sinking feeling, once again, that no one is paying attention and the party is going to let these seats go for lack of trying.
The other party has handed us the biggest political favor they could have done, in getting a lot of publicity for a bill of which the vast majority of Americans, something like 2/3 of them, don't like and believe is a mistake. Democrats cannot affort the luxury of sitting back and protecting their own jobs and turf, but must, instead, make bold, risky moves to protect our Democratic government and keep it going.
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