Nancy Pelosi bets the House on ‘We are not Trump.’
Distracted by Donald Trump’s disputatious style and flagrant violations of political norms, Democrats have consistently underestimated his political appeal.
No way he could beat their candidate in 2016. But he did.
No way the New Yorker would actually make a conservative Supreme Court nomination, let alone get it through. But he did.
Trump signed tax reform and repealed Obamacare’s core mandate, too. Plus dozens of executive orders contradicting his predecessor’s efforts.
Now Democrats and their sympathetic media are eagerly awaiting the oncoming annihilation of many of Trump’s congressional ground troops in the midterm elections. Maybe so. Republicans losing one or both chambers would stymie Trump’s agenda for at least two years, not to mention his district and higher court judicial appointments.
But Democrats appear to be making a familiar mistake again, one that’s become chronic for them this century. That is, in the words of another Republican president they misjudged, “misunderestimating” their GOP opponent.
Presidential midterms are usually political report cards on the party controlling the White House. Bill Clinton got shellacked in 1994. Riding support after 9/11, George W. Bush gained House and Senate seats in 2002, but then lost both houses in 2006.
All signs so far indicate Democratic candidates and the moneystrapped national party are counting on winning back at least part of Congress, specifically the House, this year by playing off the country’s widely held displeasure or disgust with Trump. They are confident that “We Are Not Trump” is sufficient to carry the day Nov. 6.
Anti-Trump animus might seem a tempting bet. A majority of Americans have disapproved of Trump’s job performance seemingly since within minutes of his taking the oath 53 weeks ago. Although eight-of-10 Republicans have stuck with him, Trump’s overall job approval has bobbed along from the low-forties to mid-thirties, historically low for a new chief executive.
Trump was elected by a dedicated plurality, promising to shake up Washington’s comfortable self-centered ways on both sides of the aisle. He’s shaken things up from a style perspective, even going after his own party’s establishment leaders.
Pelosi dismissed as “crumbs” the tax-reform-fueled corporate contagion of $1,000 employee bonuses. She’s a multi-millionaire, of course, so $1,000 is walking-around money.
What big midterm policy goals are Democrats driving as alternatives to Trump and the GOP? You know, the positive talking points they recite in unison day after day on every channel that will have them?
That is, the talking points other than “We’re not Trump, he’s terrible.” Anyone?
Can Pelosi and her doddering crew persuade enough Americans that she and her party should retrieve the speaker’s gavel without outlining specifically what, if anything, positive they propose to do differently? Other than, of course, not being Donald Trump.