Trump was indicted. (Again.) But to make all these charges really stick, he also has to lose the next election. People are already gaming out how a newly re-elected Trump could wish away his legal troubles (by, for example, appointing a Trump-supporting Attorney General.) So I'm urging everyone to channel their excitement about the indictment into resolve: to do everything we can to win 2024's elections.
Biden's four more years in the White House would be just the beginning. (And the possibility he'd be the one filling any new Supreme Court vacancies.) Imagine Democrats taking back the House -- so we could follow-up on last year's climate legislation with even more green-friendly laws. I have a fantasy that Democrats also hold onto the Senate, but this time without Krysten Sinema or Joe Manchin. Then with Democrats controlling the Presidency, House, and Senate -- and without those two conservative Senators -- there's so many new possibilities for even more progressive legislation than we've already gotten.
But it's not just a hope. There's now a very clear new path to winning -- and not just in this election, but for decades to come. Democrats are "truly making it impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race" in Wisconsin, a Republican strategist told Politico. And not just any strategist -- he ran (president) George W. Bush's successful reelection campaign in 2004. So what is it Democrats are doing?
They're dominating elections in college towns.
In Wisconsin, in a sleepy mid-year election, turnout was higher than anywhere else in the state in the college town around the University of Wisconsin (which also provided the state's largest margin for Democrats.) And Politico writes that "it’s not happening in isolation. In state after state, fast-growing, traditionally-liberal college counties... are flexing their muscles, generating higher turnout and ever greater Democratic margins."
It's happening in presidential swing states like Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona, as well as states with crucial House elections like Colorado, Virginia, Ohio, and Iowa. But it's also even happening in Kansas, in Kentucky, and in Texas, Politico writes. "If the surrounding county was a reliable source of Democratic votes in the past, it’s a landslide county now," while even in Red states, "you’ll find at least one college-oriented county producing ever larger Democratic margins..."
The wisest political statement ever was from Ruth Ginsburg: "The pendulum always swings back." Yes, Republicans appointed three Supreme Court justices -- but that wasn't the end of the story. It angered large swaths of the population, including a generation of new young first-time voters, who are about to make their voices heard. Issues like gun control, climate change, abortion rights are motivating these new voters like never before. All we have to do is get them registered to vote -- and America's Congress will head in an entirely new direction.
It's easy to be worried about Democrats' prospects in elections -- but this time it's different. And it's not just that every election there's new voters casting ballots in their first election -- usually young voters who prefer Democrats by massive margins. It's that in general people tend to continue voting for the same party that they did in their first election. So the next election is just the beginning of a turning point for America's political history. Remember the "Red Wave" that never happened in 2022? That's because a wave of young Blue voters were pushing in the other direction. And there'll be even more of those young Blue voters in 2024.
"Combine university counties with heavily Democratic big cities and increasingly blue suburbs, and pretty soon you have a state that’s out of the Republican Party’s reach," Politico writes.
I'm channeling my excitement about the indictment into resolve to do everything I can to win 2024's elections. My wife and I are planning a 2024 road trip to swing states, where we'll spend about a year before the election registering young, first-time voters. I'd like to ask the Daily Kos community: where do you think we could make the most impact, and what groups do you think we should join up with? But even more than that, I
What are you going to do to make sure Democrats win in 2024 -- to make the indictments against Donald Trump really stick?
