Do Democrats Want Donald Trump Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsberg?
I already harped on this a couple of times previously. For the Democrats in 2020 the question is very simple. Do you want to be right or do you want to win?
Young liberal Dems seem to be the most energized part of the party. I would classify them as the only Democrats with as much energy as Trump's legions of hardcore supporters. In 2020 Trump will have more than 60 million voters turn out and attempt to re-elect him. Political passion, articulation, intelligence and bright ideas are not what elections are all about. Elections are about numbers. Presidential elections are about Electoral numbers. That's all.
So the wonderful ideas of change and a supposedly "better" world and so-called "progress" are bankrupt without the numbers supporting them.
Do the liberal Democrats think there are more of them than there are conservative Republicans? If they do, they are dead wrong. There are not enough rabid liberals in America to offset the rabid conservative vote. Conservatives outnumber liberals by a 35% to 26% margin. Meanwhile, 35% of the rest of the country considers itself "moderate." The number of liberals has increased in recent years as the number of moderates has slightly decreased. The number of conservatives has remain largely unchanged since the 1990's. Obviously, both sides need moderate support to win the presidency. The question is, which side wants it more?
According to another Gallup Poll, Democrats favor moderation more than Republicans, but not by much. While 54% of Dems favor moderation, 41% of the party favor left-wing politics. That is a significant minority that can easily win the primary season if no one in the crowded Democratic candidate fails to inspire the centrist base. A failure to inspire the moderate Democrats is numerical suicide when it comes to electing a presidential candidate as opposed to merely nominating one.
Extremist views tend to do well in primaries because these preliminary elections are local and regional in nature. This is basically how Donald Trump managed to emerge victorious over moderate Republicans in 2016, much to ire of liberals, who were demoralized after the election.
Now this demoralization has been transmuted into liberal fire. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So says Newton's Third Law. And so it goes in 2019 for the Democrats. Frustrated and angry about Trump's election, they seem hellbent on offering an equally extreme alternative from the other side of the political spectrum. This is understandable but it is also dumb politics.
Consider these news items from today:
CBS is worried that Joe Biden will be "too moderate" to win the Democratic primary. Uh oh. I'm no great fan of Joe Biden but if victory in the primaries depends on someone to the left of a centrist candidate, then Trump will be re-elected.
Quoting RedState: "The latest polls have Biden out in front of all other potential 2020 candidates, and he has kept that place for some time. Meanwhile, the 'woke' parts of the Democratic party fully reject Biden, and despite being apparently smaller in number than the quieter moderate Democrats, they are horrifically influential.
"In fact, their influence is so great that they catapulted Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif) from somewhere in the back to third in the polls after her CNN hit. Her qualifications and accomplishments as a politician aren’t many, but for Democrats who rely on identity politics to guide them, Harris fits the part optically.
"The problem is that many in the Democratic party are too moderate for a radical like Harris, and a third have already expressed interest in jumping ship to a 3rd party candidate like former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has exhibited moderate left leanings.
"Democrats best bet in 2020 remains Biden, but between now and the elections, Biden and the Democrats could do any number of things to self-sabotage."
It is worth restating, as of today 33% of likely Democrat voters have "expressed interest in jumping ship to a 3rd party candidate." If that continues to hold true, Trump will get to do whatever he wants with a second term.
Media liberal darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (ACO) has aggressively attacked moderate Democrats, indicative of the momentum of the liberals who, as I have shown, don't stand a chance to getting a president elected without support from the very moderates they are bullying. In some sense this is nothing new.
"Liberals and moderates battled in the early 2000s over how to shape policy – including what became the Affordable Care Act. Then Democrats, many of them moderates, were wiped out in the 2010 election. Now they're back in power, thanks to dozens of Democrats who won in red and purple districts. Those representatives want to hold onto their seats, but they're fighting to separate themselves from a progressive wing of the party that has become expert at using social media to draw attention to their policies."
Meanwhile, seeing all this happening, Bill Clinton's former chief-of-staff Rahn Emanuel sees the Democrat's "left turn" as making Trump's re-election more likely. Quoting Emanuel: "The last thing we should do is serve him slow pitches over the plate that allow him to define us on his terms. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Democrats have been doing since he went before Congress in early February. It’s almost as if we've been duped into reading from his ready-made script.
"Earth to Democrats: Republicans are telling you something when they gleefully schedule votes on proposals like the Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and a 70 percent marginal tax rate. When they're more eager to vote on the Democratic agenda than we are, we should take a step back and ask ourselves whether we're inadvertently letting the political battle play out on their turf rather than our own. If Trump's only hope for winning a second term turns on his ability to paint us as socialists, we shouldn't play to type."
Extreme liberal bias in the Democratic Party is making Trump more palatable to mainstream voters. This article in The Daily Beast laments that: "The Democrats could try to show decency, expertise, and competence and advance a center-left agenda. They’d win easily. But no, that’d be too obvious."
Further: "As it stands right now, the Democratic Party is going out of its way to alienate a lot of middle Americans who still matter greatly in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Donald Trump’s radical presidency has created a backlash so great as to render his adversaries virtually unelectable."
I'm not sure that Joe Biden is the "best bet" for the Democrats in 2020. But, quite clearly, the loud and forceful liberal wing of the party is pulling away from the moderates and risk alienating them. If moderate Democrats don't show up at the poles in November 2020, or, worse, if they flip for Trump as the "lesser of two evils" then Trump will be re-elected. And Ruth Bader Ginsberg, unless she continues to serve until she's 100, will likely be replaced on the nation's highest court by a judge more favorable to Trumpism.
This is a slow-moving train wreck. It's still avoidable, but the Democratic field so far seems hellbent on driving centrists away even more than Donald Trump's heinous behavior can. Or, perhaps more likely, the moderates may become disenfranchised and decide not to show up at all in 2020.
That is more or less what happened to George McGovern in 1972. Richard Nixon was a dirty crook but he was re-elected by the greatest landslide in American Presidential history. Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it. "So many Americans do not like Donald Trump, just as so many did not approve of Richard Nixon. But just as Nixon's negatives were overshadowed by fear of the leftist McGovern, so those of Trump may be overcome by revulsion against the new socialist Democratic left."
Its high-time to open your history books my liberal friends. Your self-righteous fantasies are overriding the reality of the numbers it takes to win. Sure you can win in New York, Massachusetts, and California. But to defeat Trump you will need to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. You will need to put traditional "red" states like Georgia and Texas into play. Can you see any liberal making either of these last two states competitive? If so, please seek help. See a shrink.
Do you want to be right or do you want to win?
Young liberal Dems seem to be the most energized part of the party. I would classify them as the only Democrats with as much energy as Trump's legions of hardcore supporters. In 2020 Trump will have more than 60 million voters turn out and attempt to re-elect him. Political passion, articulation, intelligence and bright ideas are not what elections are all about. Elections are about numbers. Presidential elections are about Electoral numbers. That's all.
So the wonderful ideas of change and a supposedly "better" world and so-called "progress" are bankrupt without the numbers supporting them.
Do the liberal Democrats think there are more of them than there are conservative Republicans? If they do, they are dead wrong. There are not enough rabid liberals in America to offset the rabid conservative vote. Conservatives outnumber liberals by a 35% to 26% margin. Meanwhile, 35% of the rest of the country considers itself "moderate." The number of liberals has increased in recent years as the number of moderates has slightly decreased. The number of conservatives has remain largely unchanged since the 1990's. Obviously, both sides need moderate support to win the presidency. The question is, which side wants it more?
According to another Gallup Poll, Democrats favor moderation more than Republicans, but not by much. While 54% of Dems favor moderation, 41% of the party favor left-wing politics. That is a significant minority that can easily win the primary season if no one in the crowded Democratic candidate fails to inspire the centrist base. A failure to inspire the moderate Democrats is numerical suicide when it comes to electing a presidential candidate as opposed to merely nominating one.
Extremist views tend to do well in primaries because these preliminary elections are local and regional in nature. This is basically how Donald Trump managed to emerge victorious over moderate Republicans in 2016, much to ire of liberals, who were demoralized after the election.
Now this demoralization has been transmuted into liberal fire. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So says Newton's Third Law. And so it goes in 2019 for the Democrats. Frustrated and angry about Trump's election, they seem hellbent on offering an equally extreme alternative from the other side of the political spectrum. This is understandable but it is also dumb politics.
Consider these news items from today:
CBS is worried that Joe Biden will be "too moderate" to win the Democratic primary. Uh oh. I'm no great fan of Joe Biden but if victory in the primaries depends on someone to the left of a centrist candidate, then Trump will be re-elected.
Quoting RedState: "The latest polls have Biden out in front of all other potential 2020 candidates, and he has kept that place for some time. Meanwhile, the 'woke' parts of the Democratic party fully reject Biden, and despite being apparently smaller in number than the quieter moderate Democrats, they are horrifically influential.
"In fact, their influence is so great that they catapulted Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif) from somewhere in the back to third in the polls after her CNN hit. Her qualifications and accomplishments as a politician aren’t many, but for Democrats who rely on identity politics to guide them, Harris fits the part optically.
"The problem is that many in the Democratic party are too moderate for a radical like Harris, and a third have already expressed interest in jumping ship to a 3rd party candidate like former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has exhibited moderate left leanings.
"Democrats best bet in 2020 remains Biden, but between now and the elections, Biden and the Democrats could do any number of things to self-sabotage."
It is worth restating, as of today 33% of likely Democrat voters have "expressed interest in jumping ship to a 3rd party candidate." If that continues to hold true, Trump will get to do whatever he wants with a second term.
Media liberal darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (ACO) has aggressively attacked moderate Democrats, indicative of the momentum of the liberals who, as I have shown, don't stand a chance to getting a president elected without support from the very moderates they are bullying. In some sense this is nothing new.
"Liberals and moderates battled in the early 2000s over how to shape policy – including what became the Affordable Care Act. Then Democrats, many of them moderates, were wiped out in the 2010 election. Now they're back in power, thanks to dozens of Democrats who won in red and purple districts. Those representatives want to hold onto their seats, but they're fighting to separate themselves from a progressive wing of the party that has become expert at using social media to draw attention to their policies."
Meanwhile, seeing all this happening, Bill Clinton's former chief-of-staff Rahn Emanuel sees the Democrat's "left turn" as making Trump's re-election more likely. Quoting Emanuel: "The last thing we should do is serve him slow pitches over the plate that allow him to define us on his terms. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Democrats have been doing since he went before Congress in early February. It’s almost as if we've been duped into reading from his ready-made script.
"Earth to Democrats: Republicans are telling you something when they gleefully schedule votes on proposals like the Green New Deal, Medicare for all, and a 70 percent marginal tax rate. When they're more eager to vote on the Democratic agenda than we are, we should take a step back and ask ourselves whether we're inadvertently letting the political battle play out on their turf rather than our own. If Trump's only hope for winning a second term turns on his ability to paint us as socialists, we shouldn't play to type."
Extreme liberal bias in the Democratic Party is making Trump more palatable to mainstream voters. This article in The Daily Beast laments that: "The Democrats could try to show decency, expertise, and competence and advance a center-left agenda. They’d win easily. But no, that’d be too obvious."
Further: "As it stands right now, the Democratic Party is going out of its way to alienate a lot of middle Americans who still matter greatly in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Donald Trump’s radical presidency has created a backlash so great as to render his adversaries virtually unelectable."
I'm not sure that Joe Biden is the "best bet" for the Democrats in 2020. But, quite clearly, the loud and forceful liberal wing of the party is pulling away from the moderates and risk alienating them. If moderate Democrats don't show up at the poles in November 2020, or, worse, if they flip for Trump as the "lesser of two evils" then Trump will be re-elected. And Ruth Bader Ginsberg, unless she continues to serve until she's 100, will likely be replaced on the nation's highest court by a judge more favorable to Trumpism.
This is a slow-moving train wreck. It's still avoidable, but the Democratic field so far seems hellbent on driving centrists away even more than Donald Trump's heinous behavior can. Or, perhaps more likely, the moderates may become disenfranchised and decide not to show up at all in 2020.
That is more or less what happened to George McGovern in 1972. Richard Nixon was a dirty crook but he was re-elected by the greatest landslide in American Presidential history. Those who fail to remember history are doomed to repeat it. "So many Americans do not like Donald Trump, just as so many did not approve of Richard Nixon. But just as Nixon's negatives were overshadowed by fear of the leftist McGovern, so those of Trump may be overcome by revulsion against the new socialist Democratic left."
Its high-time to open your history books my liberal friends. Your self-righteous fantasies are overriding the reality of the numbers it takes to win. Sure you can win in New York, Massachusetts, and California. But to defeat Trump you will need to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. You will need to put traditional "red" states like Georgia and Texas into play. Can you see any liberal making either of these last two states competitive? If so, please seek help. See a shrink.
Do you want to be right or do you want to win?
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