Regardless of the outcome of the midterm elections Donald J. Trump was going to declare victory. He was going to, and did, take exaggerated credit for any positive result and place disproportionate blame on others for the failures. He outdid himself by braggardly asserting that those Republicans that didn’t "embrace" him were (deservedly), beaten and those who “embraced” him were, (understandably) triumphant. He summed up his performance as being “very close to complete victory.”
Of course this assessment was amplified by his Fox echo chamber, his red capped warriors and sadly the remains of the GOP Congress who have drunk the Trump Kool Aid. Mystifyingly the Democrats were half mirroring the POTUS’S assessment and other than gung ho Nancy Pelosi retreated to their corners. In fact the Democrats had a remarkable conclusion to their herculean effort in terms of victories in the House, in Governorships, State legislature races, electorate share, the expanding demographic supporting them, acceptance of their narrative and results of ballot referenda. Not to mention that they received well over ten million more votes than the Trumpites.
Trump’s triumphs, such as they were, were attributable to his disgraceful racist tactics and only succeeded in making red states redder at the expense of losing all the other demographics. The Democratic supposed weak win was associated with the disappointing narrow losses of their marquee and exiting new young candidates in Red Texas and Georgia and Trump won state Florida. Trump’s achievement was a pyrrhic victory while the Dems disappointment was magnified out of proportion and in effect the result of those three races had many positive features. In fact two are so close that a winner has yet to be declared.
Trump acted swiftly in relation to his impending legal jeopardy and fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions replacing him with an nonentity whose only qualification was that he was openly antagonist to the Mueller probe.
TRUMP NOT IN TOTAL DENIAL AND MOVES AGAINST THE MUELLER PROBE
Just in case anyone believed that Trump was in total denial as to the jeopardy he is now in with the most powerful legislative body in the country, which has card blanche to investigate him, he responded by firing his Attorney General. The latter's crime was that he had refused to intervene on his behalf in the Mueller investigation. He warned the Democratic Party congress members lest that they should delve into his affairs that he would hit back at them through a body, that is apparently under his control, namely the Senate no less. He then tried to bully the Press core. What the POTUS doesn’t realize that the only crowd he can frighten is his own party.
Sessions's successor is a lawyer, Matthew Whitaker, who has stated that Mueller should have all resources removed from him. Just in case the new Acting Attorney General’s credentials were not unambiguous enough, he has pontificated that he personally would have charged “crooked” Hillary. But the cherry on the top of his resume was that he has concluded that there was nothing wrong with Donald Junior’s meeting with the Russians “To get dirt on Hillary”. It was perfectly legitimate. He has tweeted that the President’s lawyers should not cooperate with Mueller’s justice team who were a lynch mob. Many are interpreting this move as the beginning of the axing of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Senator Manchin has declared it a constitutional crisis.
THE MID TERM ELECTORATE
The turn out was at a historic high. A hundred and thirteen million citizens pulled the lever of which was thirty million more than in the 2014 midterms. Ten million of those had never voted in a midterm before. In that demographic there were twice as many Democrats as Republicans. For the first time only fifty percent of the white women voted for the GOP. This compares to fifty seven percent in 2016. It is reliably reported that a majority of white women in the suburbs were the factor in the Democratic wide spread success in urban and suburban constituencies across America. College educated women in particular as well as all those in the higher educated demographic voted in greater numbers against the party of Trump. In fact the only sectors where the GOP received higher numbers were white men and the elderly. They had their support mainly centered in rural areas while the Democrats prospered from the growing urban and suburban centers across the whole country.
To sum up the Trump effect created the generic GOP Trump voter who was more likely to be rural, white, male and elderly. Each sector of that profile is diminishing. The POTUS’S election coalition has already diminished by the loss of independents, Republican intellectuals and of course suburban and more educated women. There is very little room for growth as particularly the rural areas are being denuded of population and the old are passing on.
This resulted in a seven to eight percent advantage in the electorate by the Democrats. To show the impact of the Republican gerrymandering of the districts with that differential the Republicans picked up sixty - five seats in a previous midterm contest.
THE RESULTS - A BLUE WAVE
At the time of writing this blog the Democrats were on the path to win up to thirty five seats, but it could well be more as there were 5 outstanding House results in California. The Republicans will be rewarded with two to four seats gained in the Senate. But the real gains for the Democratic Party was in the State elections. They were seven gains in the Governorships - Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Kansas, Nevada, Maine and New Mexico. Added to Pennsylvania, these results mean that the Mid Western states that put Trump over the top in the electoral college are in the hands of the Democrats. Looking at the Governor and Senator races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio and Illinois won eleven of the 12 Midwest Statewide contests. That firewall puts Trump’s 2020 bid on life support.
But even more significant, for the moment, was the Democratic gains in the State legislatures.The Democrats flipped about three hundred and fifty State House seats which lead to alterations in the power structure in several states including becoming the majority in an additional six State legislatures. They won either Governorships or one or both Chambers in Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, Maine and Minnesota. They removed the possibility of the North Carolina Legislature to override the Democratic Governor’s veto by cutting meaningfully into the Republican majority.
The key demographic that the Democrats are placing their future hopes on, women, were elected to both national and State House in a record numbers. Of the approximately hundred females in the House of Representatives, eighty - two are from the Democratic Party.
STUNNING RESULTS NOT IN A VACUUM
Most significantly it has to be realized that all this did not all happen in a vacuum. From Day One of the Trump Presidency action groups sprouted up like weeds. They were heralded in by the Women’s March when millions marched in co ordinated efforts throughout the country. The organization behind that militancy has continued. The non profit body that merged as the center and co ordinator of the protests was the organization, Indivisible. They assisted groups throughout the country to form in opposition to Trump's agenda. They issued a booklet which showed, step by step, how to make an impact. Each unit functioned in their constituency, inter alia protesting, attending town hall meetings, visiting their congress representatives, educating and going door to door. In less than two years there are six thousand entities that have been established across the country.
Michael Moore set up a Resistance Calendar where all local activities of the activist groups were reported. A ten page folder set out a road map, “The Michael Moore Easy To Follow Ten Point Plan to Stop Donald Trump.” It was around that time that a determined effort was made to encourage and recruit potential candidates for every conceivable office. Women particularly were singled out. None of this infrastructure folds now. Rather they have been spurred, by success, to redouble their efforts to finish the job and Stop Donald Trump.
The civil rights activists have already mobilized with regard to the Sessions firing. Within 12 hours of hearing of the Sessions firing they had organized almost a thousand protest meetings.
THE CENTRAL ISSUES IN THE ELECTION
The number one issue on the ballot was the fearless leader both by design and necessity. Seven out of ten voters claimed he was a major influence in their decision. Of those twenty - five percent more voted against the Republicans than voted for them. Then the Democrats primary election message, health care, was favored by virtually every voter as one of the decisive factors in their decision making. The Republican obsession with reversing Obama’s Affordable Care Act proved to be a major handicap to the Trump candidates and the voters voiced their opposition. This resulted in Republicans, including the President reversing their positions almost mid sentence. Stricter gun control was another topic that the Republicans were on the wrong side of - sixty percent of the electorate being in favor and thirty seven percent being against.
Immigration, Trump’s trump card was supported by only fifty percent of the voters and forty three percent had it as their number one issue. Kavanaugh the other Trump triumph was a motivating factor in forty three percent of the electorate and demotivating in fifty percent.
The voting percentages for and against on these central issues more or less reflected the share the two parties received on November 6. This analysis confirms that all that Trump and Kavanaugh did was just bring out the base who would have come out anyway and this was reflected in the few Senate gains in red states. The Democrats picked up suburban and urban Republican women, independents and the majority of new voters as reflected by their large gains in the House, governorships and State legislatures.
“THE MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT” - FAILURE TO WIN IN THE THREE MARQUEE RACES
What contributed to the perception and the Democratic buy in that this was a lukewarm victory was the unrealistic expectation that the three Democratic wunderkinder in Florida, Georgia and Texas didn’t emerge triumphant. That was not the way fairy tales are expected to end. However the reality was that Georgia and Texas were red hot States that Trump won by about ten percentage points. Texas was won by Trump in the Presidential election and heading the ticket was a highly popular retiring Governor who distanced himself from Trump and had compromised on a number of issues including gun control.
The polls consistently showed that these races would be close. In fact Beto O’Rourke, in Texas outperformed the predictions cutting his percentage loss by half to three percent. Mayor Gillum in Texas was up one or two percent in forecasts and then lost by half a percent, well within the margin of error. Both the Texas Senate race and Gillum’s Governor race are headed for a recount as more and more votes are being counted.
The remarkable Stacey Adams was always a few percent behind in the polls and as matters stand is less than a percent behind with votes still to be counted as there are in the Texas Senate race. Neither Senator Nelson in Texas nor Stacey Adams and now Mayor Gillum have conceded defeat. Both in Texas and Georgia the Democratic wave heralded House seat flips in the wake of the marked inroads the exiting candidates made into the Republican party’s previous performances.
All in all pretty impressive performances by the three future leaders of the Democratic Party who will be heard from again and again in the future. In fact the pressure on the charismatic O’ Rourke to run for President will be massive. So by virtually all parameters the results were excellent.
TRUMP THE ILLUSIONIST
The forever underrated, to his opposition’s disadvantage, POTUS has perfected another skill to his armamentarium - illusionism. The latter is defined as performing tricks that deceive the eye, (and ear). All illusionists achieve their goals by diverting attention from what they are doing or what is happening so as to deceive you. This has been illustrated in recent days. Trump focusses on the few Senate gains and marquee races helping to create the illusion that his caravan tactics was responsible for the GOP's non existent “triumph”. Before that can be analyzed he diverts attention by firing Sessions who becomes the story. He then deflects attention from that disaster to abusing and censoring the media generally and a CNN representative specifically….. and so it goes, hopefully not forever.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
With all that in place and Trump’s stultifying effect on the Republican Party the Democrats can only expand their representation across the country in years to come. Special elections prior to 2020 will see them expand their gains, In fact one wonders how long it will take the Republican Party to recover, if ever, and remove the Trump sign from over their headquarters.
Trump is steadying himself for the fight of his life as he attempts to shield himself and his family from Mueller. What hope the Republicans have left to salvage any honor is at stake. One positive sign is that Trump’s old nemesis Mitt Romney who was elected the Senate has already tweeted that the Mueller investigation must be protected. Also Jeff Flake of the GOP and Chis Coons of the Dems have called for the Senate to shield Mueller.
The Democrats have to play their cards carefully combining a legislative agenda and their investigation of the President with just the right balance.
By the way has anyone heard or seen of Rudi Giuliani?
Where is he now that Trump really needs him?
Now that you mention it what happened to the impending invasion from the South. The President is not talking about it any more......
No comments:
Post a Comment