The most shocking epiphany Trumpism has foisted is the ease with which American politics, media, law enforcement and citizenry have digested a now near daily menu of unprecedented outrages. Anybody predicting back in January, 2017 that Trump would brazenly steer the premiere conference for Western allies to one of his resorts, and then cart out his chief-of-staff to flip off reporters and assure them taxpayers, who will foot much of the event’s bill, were not privy to the selection process, would have surely been labeled an alarmist.
Ditto for the surreality of the same servile minion admonishing the press to “get over” it’s interest in a quid pro quo for extorting a foreign government to screw with a Trump political opponent that the lackey was in the process of admitting to. Mindless authoritarianism requires the hits to just keep coming, and we’re doing our best to keep integrating them into lifestyles still attuned to the pre-2016 luxury that our politics can be categorized from our daily routine. As our mad king does his worst, most simply now rely on Decision 2020 to deliver us, even as more than a few mutter it’s the Democrats we really have to worry about, at least Trump’s a capitalist.
The canvas of the US electorate has never been more discouraging. As Democrats argue over plans for everything from tax policy to health care to gun control, one seems to always come back to the disclaimer “what does it really matter?!” Whatever merits or liabilities reside in any particular plan, the sad fact is there are precious few left whose vote next November actually rides on any distinctions. Abiding this conclusion makes the other night’s Democratic debate seem futile, almost an exercise in collective delusion. It also makes candidates concerned about dotting policy i’s and t’s appear petty and needlessly combative. After all, the menace we face is nihilist populism; the bar is very low for demonstrating wonkish bona fides.
Thirty-five years ago GOP god Ronald Reagan was clear as he could be that assault weapons belonged only on the battlefield. Now the Republican Party will crucify any of its own for the suggestion such guns even deserve additional scrutiny, or modifications to make them even more lethal may need to be prohibited. Do what you will with that information, but it strikes me anyone all in with that proposition isn’t voting for anybody on the stage last week. Moreover, it’s doubtful they are very receptive to any details of a buyback program, which is more for reassurance there will be some carrot with the stick than any step-by-step blueprint.
Yet there was Mayor Pete disdaining Beto O’Rourke’s plan to insist on gun sanity with jabs that the plan isn’t fully thought through. Does anyone believe the people who own these weapons care about the details right now, or are they simply ready to burn Beto in effigy for proposing it. In other words, at present it’s the balls that count, not the cerebral specifics. Following one mass killing after another the real issue is will one party demand we return our national sensibilities to what even the Gipper was glad to embrace. No program for doing it is going to be pretty because most of the people it effects are ugly on the issue. And they will surely get uglier regardless of details. Dismissing the moxie to insist on it says, at least to me, more about trying to gain traction with debate points than a focus on the crisis at hand.
Democrats make a needless mistake by failing to distinguish positions that reflect the existential battle against Trumpist nihilism and those where intelligent people can reasonably disagree. Culture war issues for the most part reflect what was either settled before 2016 or should be finally settled after it. Banning assault weapons, gay rights, abortion law, voting rights, climate change awareness and other environmental safeguards, the assumption arbitrary tariff regimes are economic liabilities, all of these areas were under an umbrella of national consensus before 2016, reflecting the fruits of American progress we attained through often painful trial and error.
That Fox/AM retrograde madness has assaulted such hard-earned lessons, should be labeled what it has been, a destructive aberration, going into next November. In other words, you think Climate Change is a hoax, that’s your problem, we’ll trust science and our own eyes; there is no discussion here, we’re going to get back on track. Now, is there really any chance a voter who wants to make that conflict the crucible of their decision going to vote Democrat under any circumstance? Of course not. Getting rid of assault weapons should be like the sun comes up in the east as far as the Democratic platform is concerned. Why pick a fight about details more than a year out? Thoughtful gun owners will draw a distinction, radicalized dittoheads won’t.
Conversely, arguments concerning health care or tax policy or higher education assistance should follow a different path. Details matter. We’ve seen before exactly how public fear and uncertainty can weaponize GOP messaging which now knows no restraint when it comes to the slimmest obligation to fact. Debating big approaches to policy and their execution is prudent, although one minute debate snippets are not exactly explanation-friendly.
Yet and still, whatever the time restraints, any discussion of Democratic ambitions must be tied at the hip with Trump’s wretched record on the matter. Constantly, relentlessly. Democrats suffer for intelligence in the messaging wars. The GOP has long known repetition is the key, boredom be damned. And while it’s true a smarter audience may demand more variety, the same thing can be pressed in different ways.
Whether it’s Medicare For All (MFA), a more relaxed hybrid or simply fixing Obama Care, the alternative is Trump’s nihilist policy of trying to wipe out all progress that has been made with nothing else on offer. Talking about one without assailing the other lets failure off the hook. If you are self-employed another Trump term will end your coverage., that simple. Tax policy? Well after Trump has needlessly blown up the debt during full employment with a near $2 billion giveaway to the upper brackets, here’s a plan to restore some sanity and economic equilibrium. One 30 seconds must always either proceed or follow the other 30 seconds of the answer. Every time. Without fail.
It’s inconceivable the coming Presidential election should be anything but a referendum on Trump’s disastrous first term. By next November his re-election should be a horrid specter to anyone other than his wretched core, who any effective campaign will do its best to identify and segregate; they are lost to us. More than a few worry making MFA a campaign centerpiece could scare undecideds into voting Trump for fear of losing their private health coverage. While I won’t dismiss such a concern, supporting MFA in itself won’t result in a Trump win. Only embracing a “horse race” strategy that fecklessly assumes the onus is on Democrats to “win the battle of ideas” and then offering policy seminars as campaign speeches instead of taking dead aim at our current pestilence will snatch defeat from victory.
This isn’t going to be Jimmy Carter futilely attempting to paint Reagan as the end of days in 80’. This is whether a Democrat will be determined and insistent enough to force undecideds to look past the unemployment rate and Dow to admit what most understand…. it has been four years of the perilously abnormal and four more years will only bring worse. The President at all times wants to be the centerpiece issue; next November is one time he should be. Trump’s term in office has been one vile outrage diluted by the next, creating a web of chaotic confusion. His effort to get re-elected must become a reckoning, a public education of how harmful he and the GOP have been, if for no other reason than we can be sure of where things stand the first Wednesday morning next November. If Trump is gone, it should be a mandate for never again. If he isn’t we’ll be certain what Americans want, or don’t want, and decide accordingly on how to proceed. BC