Trump and the GOP Make the Case for Democrats in 2018 and 2020

If you set out to convince people to return power control of Congress to the Democrats in 2018, and the White House two years later, what would be the most effective way to accomplish it?

It could be, all you need to do is focus on the incompetence of Donald Trump and the most ineffective, GOP-controlled Congress in history.

Polls (see below) show that might be all you need.

If the election were held today, the GOP would be in well-earned and deep trouble.

But we can help speed the process if we approach the situation carefully. We can run strictly honest candidates in 2018 and 2020. 

That would be a start.

Also—Democrats could address the needs of older, white working class voters, especially men, who have seen their economic standing erode. We should keep championing the concerns of darker-skinned citizens, as well as women, and law-abiding immigrants, even undocumented ones. But we should be sympathetic to the financial concerns of many Trump supporters, realizing they are valid.

(We are liberals: we want to help the down-trodden.) 

You would also want to make a powerful case that it isn’t government that has screwed the average white, working-class man and woman. It was giant corporations that shipped millions of good jobs to low-wage nations. It wasn’t President Obama who forced those greedy companies to start operating in Vietnam, China and Sri Lanka.

Muslim Americans didn’t do it.

Mexican immigrants, legal or otherwise, weren’t responsible.

The CEO’s of corporations did it—and did it because CEO’s don’t bleed red, white and blue. They bleed green.

To the degree that President Trump has talked about bringing jobs back to America, his case resonates with many of our fellow citizens. The problem—and here, I am ignoring the fact that on many topics Trump sounds nuts—is that he represents a political party that has worked diligently to break fiscal back of the average worker. Expecting the GOP to push for policies that aid the working stiff is like expecting the Tooth Fairy to show up when you have impacted wisdom teeth, perform surgery, and leave $1,000 under your pillow.

It’s not going to happen.

At no point since the GOP took complete control of Congress has the approval rate of that august body reached 30%.

It would help if Democrats could make clear how little regard the ordinary GOP lawmaker has for the ordinary American worker. Consider the virulent Republican hatred for labor unions. Perhaps you’re too young to remember. But there was a time when no non-union worker dared pick up a shovel or swing a hammer on any unionized job site. (As a bonus, that meant no undocumented worker plucked off the street would have a chance to take a good American job; and, again, I do not mean to disparage those who come here from other countries in search of a better life). And why does the GOP loathe unions? For all their imperfections, unions exist to fight for higher wages and improved fringe benefits.

If you go back to the 1980s, Republicans were happy to argue that business leaders had every right to move jobs from Ohio and Michigan, where wages were “too high” and pensions “too good,” to states like Texas and Tennessee. There workers would expect less and there would be no unions to demand more.

Then the GOP used the same argument, and made it with increasing fervor, starting in the late 90s. If Apple or Ford or Caterpillar wanted to ship jobs overseas, well, that’s how the system is intended to work. The first, last and only imperative of a company is to make as much money as possible.

Republican policies were designed to facilitate that process, not to help the average worker. Tax shelters overseas, where giant companies could hide cash? Good idea! Special tax rates for hedge fund managers and Goldman Sachs banking executives? Just as Jesus intended! Tax cuts for billionaires? Just what the Koch brothers ordered! Raise the minimum wage, which would have a ripple effect for workers at the lower end of the spectrum, even those not directly covered? Can’t do it! That would cripple the U.S. economy! I once listened to a conservative friend insist if Congress raised the minimum wage a McDonald’s hamburger would suddenly cost $5.00. I said I was pretty sure his math was suspect, and he stalked away, muttering darkly that he was going home to turn on Fox News.

Now, is it okay if the typical CEO earns 300 times as much as the average worker? Does that raise the price of the hamburger? Not at all. According to the GOP, that’s why capitalism was invented.

In the same way, Democrats would be wise to point out that Republicans have been playing political “rope-a-dope” with their base supporters. While offering tax cut crumbs, and secretly smiling as hourly wages for those supporters declined, the GOP warned darkly that if Democrats regained control:

1. Gay marriages would ruin marriage for straight people. This was kind of like insisting: If your gay neighbors painted their house pink your formerly straight children would all come marching out of the closet.

2. Granny, kicking and screaming, would be carted away in a sinister black van, if Obamacare was enacted. There would be “death panels!”

GOP ineptitude has even convinced a majority of Americans the Affordable Care Act is good.

3. Speaking of “death,” Democrats would insist on innocent middle class Americans paying a “death tax.” I.R.S agents dressed like the Grim Reaper would show up at Granny’s funeral (see above). Granny would have to pay a huge tax on all assets, house, car and savings. Okay, don’t mention the fact the estate tax applies only to individuals who leave behind $5.5 million and couples that leave twice as much.

4. Also, if Democrats gain control, Muslims will enforce Sharia law in every village and town and every cornfield in Iowa. Even Mormons and Amish women will have to wear face coverings and long black robes.

5. If Muslim Obama (see above) was elected—and especially reelected—good citizens would immediately be required to give up all their guns. Even Nerf guns would be banned! And when Muslim Obama didn’t take away a single gun during his first term, or his second, well, it was a ruse, because Hillary was lurking in the wings ready to seize all the guns Obama was going to seize only didn’t. Meanwhile, worried Americans, their right to bear arms under terrible attack, ran out and bought another 150 million weapons, and gun-makers raked in the cash and happily raised CEO pay.

6. If Democrats ran Congress, we as a nation would lose the “War on Christmas.” We would suffer a catastrophic defeat in the “War on Coal” and even the “War on Ear Wax.”  After the government disposed of granny, your Christmas tree would get it too. And: no coal for the kids’ stockings!

7. Indeed, “tree huggers” would come to your house and take away your tree and trample all your ornaments; because they’re commies who believe in science and actually read NASA studies and think the earth is heating up in unnatural fashion. But the CEO’s of Big Oil companies and Big Coal know what’s best for all of us, and who are you going to trust? Scientists, or, say, guys who run Big Pharma?

The question, then, is how does our side counteract all the fear-mongering and make a case to vote “Democrat” in 2018 and 2020?

A little respect for the principles and beliefs, the valid fears and concerns of most Trump voters wouldn’t hurt.

And it might not be a bad idea to quote that great Republican president, a bit of a “tree hugger,” himself, Theodore Roosevelt:

The true welfare of the nation is indissolubly bound up with the welfare of the farmer and the wage-worker—of the man who tills the soil, and of the mechanic, the handicraftsman, the laborer. If we can insure the prosperity of these two classes we need not trouble ourselves about the prosperity of the rest, for that will follow as a matter of course.

  

Or, you might just enjoy the show as President Trump, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell bumble every issue and make a hash of the democratic process.

That clearly works, too.

Asked to choose: more Americans today would like to see the Democrats regain control of the legislative branch.