By Jeffrey A. Rendall
Dems can’t use Trump and the Iran War to save them from themselves this year, but…
Ask a sampling of political observers whether they see promise – or doom – for the Republican Party in the upcoming campaign season, many, if not most of them, would choose the latter alternative.
“History says Republicans will wage an uphill battle to maintain their House and Senate majorities.”
A lot of us don’t need to read a typical news report on the topic to figure what it’s going to say.
But other conservative commentators glimpse a brighter outlook for the GOP. Delving below the surface, Democrats have backed themselves into a corner with their unrelenting march towards communism/socialism. And even before the Democratic Socialists of America practically hijacked the hearts and minds of the leftist party base, there were a ton of not-so-good factors for Democrats to worry about and confront.
Will Democrats blow themselves up before they even realize it?
In an opinion column titled, “Democrats Are Walking Into a Minefield”, the always aggressively assertive Kurt Schlichter wrote at Townhall last week:
“[T]he decades of corporate footsie with Democrats will end as the business world realizes that the DSA types can’t be bought off like the old school Pelosi Dems could be. Plus, there is a generalized anti-woke counter-reaction that places PC Democrats with their spouting off on woke nonsense outside of the zeitgeist. Their own base won’t let them moderate; they’ll be telling us dudes can menstruate for another decade even as over-it normals shake their heads in disgust.
“So, I like how the Republicans are positioned over the next decade or so. In the short term, the Trump economy is going to take off again. We’re going to clear out the illegals one way or the other, and we’re going to continue to drive crime down. Long-term, we’re having babies, and the future belongs to people who show up. Importantly, we’re not traitors colluding with a foreign government to undermine our country.
“But then again, we are Republicans, and the fact remains that the Republican Party is the only party that can summon up enough dumb to squander these advantages.”
All too true, unfortunately. Over the course of time, Republicans have demonstrated an uncanny ability to pull defeat from the jaws of victory, though it may be getting harder for even the feckless and blind Republican establishment to perpetuate that feat for long.
I wouldn’t suggest Schlichter is being overly optimistic about the GOP’s chances this year, though the trends appear to be going in the right direction for conservatives who hope against hope that Americans are starting to come to their senses about leadership choices. The Republicans’ generic ballot deficit has shrunk to about three points, and a recent wave of redistricting improvements in Republican states will make the party’s majority chances even greater as we head towards the fall campaign.
But, as Schlichter touches on in his column, the Republicans’ good fortune is due in large part to the Democrats’ demonstrated inability/unwillingness to assess the mood of the American people. The liberal party’s violent lurch to the left and tolerance for contrary-to-good-sense ideological leanings will only speed up their self-inflicted undoing.
As I watched a news clip of Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett seemingly unable to figure which side was more racist in the Argentina/Spain world cup final, the thought occurred to me that this woman nearly won a place on this year’s ballot to compete for the Lone Star State’s U.S. senate seat.
Crockett lost, of course, but the candidate who did win, James Talarico, was just as deranged as the fringe wacko from the Dallas area. Jasmine could not possibly appeal to anyone who regularly uses their brain to help make their candidate choices – as opposed to basing everything on emotion and immutable surface characteristics – but therein synopsizes the biggest issue for today’s Democrats.
Democrats don’t care about who you are as much as they favor “what you are” office seekers.
The party’s consultant base could do themselves a favor by putting their “woke” biases to the side, at least temporarily, and try to pin down exactly what it is that the majority of voters in the state or district likes about living there.
James Talarico ain’t it, either. I don’t know a great deal about the individual Texas race, but seeing clips of Talarico has revealed he’s little different/better than repeat-failure Beto O’Rourke was, and there wasn’t anything the campaign brains could do to make that phony privileged idiot palatable to the voters.
Schlichter is 100 percent correct in saying the Democrat base won’t allow the kooks to moderate, either. Whereas conservative voters, at least until recently, had to put up with a Republican establishment that refused to move off the party’s snobby/out-of-touch country club reputation (and hence lost many an election because they ignored the true base of populist/conservative Americans), Democrats have fallen victim to the “free everything” communist/socialist mentality of the young generation.
“What does your ideal America look like?” – Anath Hartmann, The Washington Times’ deputy commentary editor recently suggested posing the question to this year’s candidates, implying that the Democrats’ perfect nation would include: No Borders, No Prisons and No War.
The fact is, most Democrats change the subject whenever pressed on what their ideal America would look like, instead switching to talking about “affordability” or “wars of choice” in reference to President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, or airy impossible notions like “Free Palestine” – whatever that means.
This is barely cloaked anti-Semitism in its most vile form.
Democrats cling to “diversity” as though logic-grounded American voters pay any attention to mandatory race preferences in daily living.
It’s all part of the “minefield” Schlichter claims the Democrats are walking into. Unless the Republicans clear the field before them, of course.
The Trump administration’s continued inconsistent messaging on the Iran War could be one of the means to sweep the “mines” away, regardless of how crazy, unbalanced or downright awful the Democrats’ candidates are.
It looks as though Trump and his advisory team miscalculated on how long the Iranian leadership could hold out in that tumultuous region. And, judging by the recent deaths of American military personnel, the rogue Islamic state’s ability to fight back has not been completely eradicated as the president has repeatedly promised.
The Iranian navy may be at the bottom of the sea, but their cheap and plentiful drone force seems like it’s still alive and kicking.
Which leaves the Republican leaders in a bind as summer passes and the conflict persists. The pesky problem in the Strait of Hormuz won’t go away, either, which could keep gas prices inflated for the foreseeable future.
Democrats will make up for their lack of substance by lying and deflecting and demagoguing to the public as they always do, but all of the good things the Trump people have accomplished threatens to be undone by simple kitchen table matters that eventually will dissipate but likely can’t be undone quickly.
So yes, Democrats face an uncertain future, but the American voting public is susceptible to message manipulation from a liberal party whose candidates will say anything to win.
And, I should probably point out, it provides little comfort for conservatives to think that the long-term future looks bright for the GOP if the present seems foggier. The inability of the John Thune-led Republican senate to move and pass the SAVE America Act has considerably dampened the mood of voters wondering why it wasn’t accomplished.
If Republicans can’t get it done on a cut-and-dried issue like elections and securing ballot integrity, what can they do?
Thune is guilty of not doing everything he could possibly do to put pressure on the holdouts in his own caucus, but reality suggests there’s not much that could be done to get the filibuster eliminated for good or possibly even win a straight up or down senate vote.
Is it simple math? Every Democrat is a no. Mitch McConnell’s a no on SAVE America. Thom Tillis is a no. Lisa Murkowski is a no. Bill Cassidy is a probable no on the filibuster. Susan Collins is in a tight reelection race. She’d be a “no” on terminating the filibuster.
Sorry to say, a large chunk of the American electorate takes a “what have you done for me lately” attitude towards politics, and the party in power invariably suffers from the comparisons between the “what could be” prospects and what is happening now.
As I’ve repeatedly argued, Republicans must home-in on the persuadable slice of voters who will make a difference in November, the fence-sitters and “independents” who base their decisions on tangible and visible results. The Republican Senate should take heed. So should President Trump.
The future may look bright, but we’ve got to power through the cloudy days first.
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .