This is the sort of thing that drives me crazy about the Democratic Party:
At congressional town hall meetings, on the patchy grass of the National Mall, and in the flood of comments posted on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Facebook page, it seems painfully obvious: Liberals are getting energized and exercised.
They have found a rallying cry in opposing President Trump’s policies on immigration, health care, and just about everything else that comes across his Twitter feed.
But a more subtle conversation is taking place among Democrats — particularly those in the Rust Belt states that lifted Trump to the presidency — who are feeling anxious about the tricky balancing act that lies ahead, between harnessing the base’s outrage and being devoured by it.
Their worry is that the party’s fired-up base, reacting to Trump, could push the party to the left when they have to figure out how to connect with the middle.
via The Boston Globe
There are two things that got Trump over the top in the Rust Belt states: racism and “populist” rhetoric.
We can’t compete on the first (Republicans own racism), and we shouldn’t. As to the second, the issues that Trump pressed were issues that should be owned by Democrats: opposition to trade deals, opposition to Wall Street, support for Social Security and Medicare, etc. Except for the racism, Trump will betray his base on each and every one of these fronts. Those votes are ripe for the picking, not from the right or the non-existent “middle”, but from the left. You can make a coherent argument that Bernie would have won some of those Rust Belt states because he was not only way more credible on those issues than Hillary, but he was also more credible than Trump. If you were a rust belt voter convinced you’d lost your job or your economic security to trade deals (which may in fact have been the case) it might have seemed to make sense to take your chances with the devil you didn’t know for sure would betray you than with the devil you knew for sure would do so. Let’s face it. Had Hillary won, right now we’d be seeing her pushing for a “modified” TPP. In reality, the trade deals have already done their worst, for the TPP was not really about “free trade”, but the perception mattered.
What these folks are worried about is the prospect of Wall Street dollars drying up if they double down on winning issues. The idea of connecting with “the middle” makes no sense in this context. Since when did Trump occupy the “middle”, even in a country where the “middle”, as defined by the punditocracy, drifts ever rightward.
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