What the Hell Is Wrong With the Democrats?

The Democrats have an 85 percent chance of winning control of the House, at least according to Nate Silver.  They likely won't win back the Senate, but they stand a good chance at keeping the 49-seat caucus that they have now.  And the stand to win at least eight governorships. 

So why does it look like they're going to blow it again?

Democrats have been losing the momentum in the final weeks of the midterm campaign to the Republicans not just because of Judge K, the controversy over whom has died down somewhat since he joined the Supreme Court, but because Donald Trump is throwing out all sorts of non-issues - an immigrant caravan that's trying to get into the U.S. but can't even get though Mexico, Middle Eastern terrorists in the caravan, mom mobs - and they're resonating. Democrats have the high ground on several issues that are real but they're not throwing out anything.

And now it turns out that the majority of early voters are . . . Republicans!

Democrats had been cautioned not to talk about Trump but instead talk about issues that matter.  Many of them apparently were counting on anti-Trump sentiment to carry them over the finish line.  Except that Trump now has a 47 percent approval rating - not great but higher than the 46 percent of the vote in 2016.  And the economy?  Democrats were counting on low wages to help them. Wages are starting to tick up now.  Republican chances of holding the House, which is still statistically unlikely, may be ticking up as well.  The Democrats have talked about health care but have failed to realize that this is not the only issue voters care about.  Trump hasn't talked about infrastructure lately - but neither have the Democrats. And even though no one in their right minds would be for illegal immigration, Democrats can't bring themselves to come out against it while stressing that they only want to expand legal - legal - immigration because they think that co-opting the Republican talking point against illegal immigration will alienate Hispanic interest groups.  This is ironic, because Democrats haven't been reaching out to actual Hispanic voters.

Democrats may have a chance to preserve their prospects for the House of Representatives thanks to Trump's latest lie.  He says that Congress is ready to pass a middle-class tax cut resolution in the coming week, even though taxes are decreed by law and not by resolution and Congress isn't in session right now anyway.  Democrats have an advantage on the middle-class tax issue.  Now's their chance to call Trump out on an issue that they can win on.  But will they do it?  (One candidate who likely will is New Jersey Democratic House candidate Mikie Sherrill, who, running in my district, has made taxes the centerpiece of her campaign.)

Twenty eighteen is not a presidential election year, but the ghost of Winfield Scott, the last Whig presidential candidate, could unexpectedly hover over the Democrats in two weeks and change.  The Democrats, despite Trump, could still . . . Whig out.  

Supreme Injustice

Liberals are tearing their hair out over Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement from the Supreme Court, but before any of you get heated up over it (isn't it hot enough outside?), bear these things in mind:

First, it is true that Justice Kennedy was a swing vote on key issues.  He was the swing vote on marriage-equality issues, all right, but he was also the swing vote on the Citizens United ruling and the upholding of the Trump travel ban, ans his parting gift was a ruling gutting public-sector unions.  When he first joined the Court as the replacement for Lewis Powell (no liberal himself), he was a more reliable conservative.

Second, the Court's entire composition changes with each new member, just as the Who were a different band after Keith Moon did. The chemistry changes, the power shifts, and someone else becomes a swing vote. The likeliest candidate for that position now is Chief Justice John Roberts, who is a reliable conservative but is also a minimalist who cares about the Court as a impartial, nonpartisan institution ans was the justice who saved President Obama's health insurance mandate (which Congress has since repealed).      

Third, it will be tougher for Trump to get a Supreme Court nominee through, because Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has to deal with a 50-seat caucus (Arizona's John McCain is still out of commission), from which a couple of Republican senators might defect when voting on a nominee.  The Senate Democrats running for re-election in states carried by Trump in the 2016 presidential election are in a more secure position now then they were when most of them voted to confirm Neil Gorsuch.  They're likely to be less intimidated now.

And by the way, I've been led to understand that many Democrats feel they should have made more of a fight to get President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland a hearing and a vote.  Oh, now you think of that?  You certainly never thought Hillary would lose the 2016 election and the Democrats would stay in the minority in the Senate going into the current Congress, mainly because your imaginations weren't elastic enough to ponder the idea that Hillary was not, in fact, inevitable.  You were even hoping Hillary would appoint someone else because you didn't think Judge Garland was liberal enough, so you didn't even bother having his back.  You'd thought the Hobby Lobby decision on employer-provided contraception coverage would make the Court an issue and arouse the base in the 2014 midterms - yeah, why did you lose the Senate then?  The truth is, Democrats have always gone soft on the issue of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary and have had no strategy to appoint judges who are on their side.  When it comes to packing the courts, Republicans play chess.  Democrats play checkers.  

Well, Dems, you'd better learn how to play chess fast, because, regardless of what I've said here, this Supreme Court vacancy could still very well be for all the marbles!  If you wimp out here, you might as well Whig out.      

Vote, Dammit!

I don't want to hear any bellyaching from the Democrats about the Supreme Court upholding the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries or anything else the Court does.  Because they brought it on themselves.

Blaming the victim, you say?  You bet!  For decades, Republicans have kept their eye on the federal judiciary and have been systematically been packing it with conservatives, while Democrats have been too wimpy to retaliate much. And when they do retaliate,  they play checkers while Republicans play chess.  Democratic Party voters haven't been very engaged either.  Because they failed to come out in the 2014 midterm elections, the Republicans took over the Senate and then blocked President Obama - whom Democratic congressional candidates in 2014 (most of whom lost) refused to link themselves to - from making a Supreme Court appointment.  A Democratic Senate being seated in 2017 could have approved an Obama pick for the Supreme Court in the waning days of his administration, but the Democratic electorate largely stayed home in 2016 and let the Republicans keep the Senate.  And the Democratic National Committee gave the Presidency to Donald Trump by promoting Hillary Clinton.

Maybe Democrats - which I am not one of - should start voting more regularly.  Otherwise, the party will be so weakened and beaten up that it is going to be doomed to Whig-like extinction.