It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.
- Mark Twain
I think a lot of the D wave optimism going around right now is based on circumstantial evidence that in many cases belies and ignores the actual power of GOP campaign activities and the reality of an under-performing Democratic Party Leadership.
I see a lot of news about early voting statistics but I haven’t seen anything that incorporates the reality that both sides are now voting early in higher numbers. In that trend of assuming Democrats are winning because early voting is so high I see disturbing similarity with the Hillary disaster. We might be blowing the doors off this thing, but the only way to ensure it is to follow through by refusing to assume it is true.
The possibility of re-taking the Senate is gone for the Ds. That seems clear. I think the Ds can and probably will retake a House majority but at a much lower, nail biting, majority than the polls are modelling. I suspect 3 -12 seats , and closer to 3, will be the actual result.
Whatever happened to Hillary on election day: Manipulation, fraud, deception, stolen votes etc, is very clearly still happening and I don’t see a shred of left-side push back on any of those impacts that will matter in the real outcome.
The left has some kind of inane vulnerability to sentimental, almost childish optimism in the face of a huge treacherous dragon that keeps getting stronger and stronger. It is wonderful, at a human level, to be on the side that believes in human equality and the potential for compassionate, heartfelt influence of government. However, I also think that organization and engagement on the left is non existent at a national level even compared to a year ago. This headline alone should be a national shame for the DNC “leadership” in 2018:
Gallup: Republicans more popular than Democrats ahead of midterms
There seems to be, especially visible on KOS, an attitude that all we need to do is keep pushing left, creeping sentiment and attitudes leftward and the GOP will melt away in the middle. Meanwhile the GOP is beating, bribing, berating, cheating, blackmailing, manipulating and discording their way to victory. They have absolute power in this country today. Absolute.
I see the party leaders, all of whom are geriatric for some reason, allowing themselves to be co-opted into a repeat of the Sanders’ 2016 party suicide battle. This is specially evident in a suddenly flashing Sanders-Warren conflict which, again, feeds raw meat to the right-media campaign at the critical moment of the cycle. It seems small and irrelevant but that is exactly the kind of discord the GOP is gifted at seeding. They understand that what matters on election day is a 3% bandwidth of moderate and skeptical young voters. The GOP continues to own these votes, often with last minute stunts, tricks and manipulations that highlight a very real strategic vulnerability in the left’s ability to appeal to those key voters.
There are only two things the Ds can do (right now ) to reclaim any kind of majority status now or down the road in this country: Successfully address their massive inability to gain support from centrist moderate regular voters. And, get every single over - 60 years old candidate to retire from politics. Both elements will require a sea shift in the left’s willingness to do real battle in the real world against real tyranny. Only then will there be a chance to re-invent the party’s base behind a platform embracing the future. The ability to have a voice in how America manages the Future of health, of safety, of security, of environmental viability, and how we face the extant threats caused by media discordance and technology’s hastening attack on identity-sovereignty are at stake today.
In 2018 the GOP is not going to let a foolish thing like a few percentage points of actual electoral disadvantage keep them from retaining power. The left should be prepared to face another very harsh November, one which makes them smaller, more disillusioned, less organized and less effective. I know some very wealthy, very intelligent and very politically experienced Republicans in my personal life. They all expect to retain the House in November and above all else they laugh openly at the left for failing to understand the true nature of a war that the right has so successfully waged since the 1950s.
Obviously when it comes to campaigns and elections the left operates under a set of ethical and legal rules that simply do not now apply to the right. The right often mocks the left for this perceived weakness. The left keeps bringing knives to a gun fight. It is, I think and fear, far far worse than any of the activist cheerleaders around here seem willing to admit. This disparity of ethical conduct is used as party-defender’s excuse over and over again to explain why the left has now lost every leveraged foothold of participation in our government. The bully of the GOP is real, make no mistake, but when this bully-surrendering reality is used as an excuse to justify prior defeat it ensures future defeat.
Here is one small example of how all all these nexus strings play out: That illegal immigrant parade headed north is clearly a GOP benefit and has very probably been planned and organized by them. The immigrant march from Guatemala will be on every news outlet, left and right alike and all over Twitter when they rush and “Assault” our border in the days before the election. That alone will inspire a large enough turnout burst for Trumpists to close the gaps in many of the elections the D’s think they will win. I want to post-edit and re-iterate a comment here: That immigrant group might cost Democrats the House.
The Democrats need to spend real effort and real money to organize effective all-media counter tactics on this issue. Honestly, they should even be on the ground trying to turn these people around. The current party leadership holds to a mindset that engagement on that level is beneath them when it is in fact above them. They simply don’t have the temerity or adaptability to wage political combat at that level. Personally I do not care why that is: I only care that the battle for my children’s right to a safe, stable and free America is (still) being lost at the margins of a real-world political battle in which The Left cannot seem to find traction to fight back.
The Democrats took the human race to the moon because it was difficult. We must now be willing to embrace sacrifice and meet the challenges of technological complexity on the political frontier if we truly intend to reclaim every American’s right to equal and well defined freedom.
The outcome matters more than than any ego, cult like celebrity politician or individual issue at this point.
*I edited some slop out of this and added the highlighted sentence above after many of the comments below here have been posted. I don’t think I altered anything substantially relevant to the comments but I am a shitty writer so feel free to call me on it. Being dyslexic stinks.