Duh. Of course they do.
But I fear a lot of Democratic “leaders” don’t see it this way.
2018 is the whole shootin’ match. If we can’t take the House with Trump dragging Republicans down,
1) when will we?
2) if we don’t stop them in 2018, by 2020 there will be nothing left to defend.
The right-wing network of think-tanks, funded by the Koch Brothers and their allies, has been scheming to undo the New Deal (and most of Teddy Roosevelt’s reforms as well) for 40 years. They have never in that time enjoyed control of all three branches of government. Until now.
Fortunately, they had to do it by hitching their wagons to a mentally unstable gaffe-prone idiot. If we think its bad now, wait until he is tested (he will be). If he is not impeached before 2018, he should be a liability giving Democrats an 8-12 point edge in the generic House polls.
I can’t emphasize enough that… if we give this group 4 years, they will rip apart public schools, the EPA, Medicaid, Medicare and eventually Social Security. Literally our entire way of life will be up for grabs. Let alone civil and voting rights, immigration and foreign policy. If the Democratic party really stands for the environment, the Great Society program and civil rights, it has to go all in.
Here is what I suspect.
I think some Democrats don’t really stand for those things. That some Democrats, so long as their big money bank and Wall Street base are not in peril, will have no problem letting go the ship, and making flimsy excuses along the way. In other words, I suspect that some in Dem leadership, via their privileged existence, aren’t taking this as seriously as they should. Witness the business-as-usual race for DNC chair.
What does going all-in mean?
1) It means having a 50-state strategy and challenging candidates in all 435 House races. You don’t know how weak a Trump-enabling Republican is until you actually challenge them. Or how pissed off their constituents really are.
2) It means seriously targeting the top 65-75 races (the 23 Clinton winning Trump House districts and on down the list). This is with money and CANDIDATES.
3) It means recruiting BIG NAME candidates to run for House seats, even if they serve for 2 years as placeholders, to ensure we have the House for the last 2 years of the Trump-Pence debacle. It means finding people who would never consider running for the lowly House (a Caroline Kennedy, a local celebrity with a good reputation, ex-Senators with good names like a Russ Feingold, popular retired Pols who come out of retirement to save the Republic, ex-military leaders/veterans like Jason Kander — he didn’t win for Senate, but I bet he’d give a sitting Republican a hell of a race) to challenge these top 65-75. It means we are all-in. The House is the new Senate.
4) The House can investigate. The House can subpoena. The House can cut off funding for deportation forces, or foreign policy follies. Again, even if it is for two years, this is our chance to STOP them.
If we can’t, with all the damage Trump is doing, the Democratic party is inept and should be replaced. This is a time of national peril, and not a business-as-usual, win-some-lose-some. If we can’t muster greatness from this, why even have a political party.
Some things we may hear:
Its too expensive to run a 50 state strategy.
We just can’t support 65-75 candidates.
There are some seats no one will run for.
You can’t nationalize a House election (really? see 1994)
There will be voter backlash/too risky to put all our cards on opposing Trump in a nationalized election (this is pure bullshit)
My power base in the party needs to be in charge or I’m not helping
Horse shit. All of it. We should be able to target every Republican who has even a chance to lose their seat. And we should be able to do this and still help Senate candidates and candidates down ticket (you know what helps state legislators? Having your party engaged in a dogfight for the House race, driving interest and turnout.
I live in KS-03, Yoder, where Hillary beat Trump. I am on the frontlines here. Kevin Yoder took a drunken skinny dip in the sea of fucking Galilee on a junket.
And you can’t beat him in a district where his party’s Presidential nominee is deeply unpopular?
Great Democrats have met the tests of their times: FDR saved us from the depression and WWII, Truman reconstructed Europe and post war America, Kennedy pointed the way to the future, Lyndon Johnson used his vast talents to pass civil rights and conduct a war on poverty, Bill Clinton presided over an economic boom after years of Republican decline, Obama got us out of a calamitous possible 2nd Depression.
Whether this Democratic party can lead us to victory in the House, which is really our only chance to salvage our Democracy and the society we know, is their great test.