In the commentary regarding Conor Lamb’s brilliant (and increasing verified) defeat of Republican Rick Saccone in the blood-red 18th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, there has been no shortage of analysis regarding the Democratic candidate’s approach to attracting votes from the base of conservative, erstwhile Trump voters he needed to win that District.
We have learned that Lamb was a particularly stellar candidate, with a military and prosecutorial background perfectly suited to appealing to those who crave a straitlaced, “law and order” personality in their politicians.
We have learned that economic issues such as tax fairness and health care are not issues that Democrats should shy away from, but rather, vocally and enthusiastically embrace.
We’ve learned that unions still matter, quite a lot, in fact, as Lamb’s opponent lost major credibility (and votes) by espousing so-called “right to work” laws that are nothing more than thinly disguised corporate efforts to decimate unions and the equal playing field they offer American workers to negotiate wages and job security.
But the focus on this particular race has tended to overshadow the very large elephant in the room—that the much-vaunted “enthusiasm” that prompted the fervent Democratic turnout necessary to secure Lamb’s victory is, above all, a function of the boiling anger felt all across the country by Democrats of every stripe, in every region of the country, from the most wealthy enclaves of the coastal cities to the reaches of northern Appalachia, at the horrific behavior of this President and his enablers over the past fourteen months.
The awesome and unprecedented power of that anger is captured by Jason Sattler, in an opinion piece written for USA Today on the day after Lamb’s victory:
Anger at President Trump can inspire amazing things.
***
When Democrats focus their rage at Trump into amassing donations and motivating volunteers and then run against the actual Republican they’re facing, they’ve been winning, even seats they shouldn’t win. That worked in Virginia, Alabama and now in the Rust Belt. And it’s a formula that could be the tidal force behind a blue wave in November.
Sattler’s point is that what the country faces in 2018 is not merely an election, but a national emergency. And it should be continually viewed by Democrats with all the urgency and intensity that implies. After their actions of the last year, the prospect of the Republicans retaining both Houses of Congress threatens more than just an existential crisis for the Democratic Party—it threatens the very existence of the country that we know.
Most if not all Republicans who now hold elective office have shown themselves wholly bereft of any moral compunctions or sensibilities regarding this President’s behavior, or their own. In the furtherance of pleasing their obscenely wealthy donor base--a tiny sliver of the actual American population--they have shown themselves perfectly willing to destroy the livelihoods of the rest of us, by attempting (and almost succeeding) to repeal health care for millions, by gladhandling the most revolting and corrupt corporate behavior in approving—even applauding-- this President’s noxious Executive appointments, by pursuing an agenda of mindless deregulation in the pursuit of profit at the expense of the environment and public safety, by looting the wealth and resources of this country out of the hands of ordinary Americans and shifting it to a tiny minority, and possibly worst of all, by deliberately ignoring an unprecedented threat to our American Democracy in the form of hostile Russian manipulation of our elections.
And all of this flows from their conscious and willing embrace of the most venal, corrupt and morally bankrupt President in this country’s history:
If Republicans kept their House and Senate majorities, it would vindicate their focus on obstructing investigations into the Trump administration instead of digging into what is already the most felony-ridden presidential campaign in living memory, and the first president who refuses to divest from business interests that continue to occupy at least a quarter of his time.
This is in addition to the moral and civic rot, racism and misogyny that poisons our social discourse every day by this President’s didactic pronouncements through his Twitter feed, the constant lies emanating from his spokespeople, and every fresh revelation regarding his awful personal behavior and that of seemingly everyone inhabiting the Oval Office. This may be the most pernicious form of damage because eventually it can corrode our institutions beyond recognition, but the nature of that corrosion is ongoing and only visible in hindsight. It is hard for people to appreciate in the instant the scope and extent of the harm this Administration is causing.
Conor Lamb’s amazing victory in the 18th District, as well as Doug Jones’ capture of a Senate seat in equally blood-red Alabama, carry a lesson that Democrats ignore at their peril. If our focus and energy are directed at Trump and the Republicans, not at our own, we win. If there was ever a time for Democrats to put aside whatever internal differences they may have in the face of a moral imperative, this is it:
In a historic crisis such as what we face now, differences of opinion shouldn’t be read as differences of principle. And true anger needs to end up focusing on defeating Republicans whenever there’s a chance to defeat Republicans.
Once we retake the House and possibly the Senate we will have the luxury of ironing out the differences between our party’s divergent “wings” represented by the Conor Lambs, Elizabeth Warrens, Jon Testers, Nancy Pelosis, and Joe Bidens of the Democratic Party. We will have the luxury of determining what to push for and what to refrain from at that time. But we will never enjoy that luxury by bickering amongst ourselves about ideological purity.
We have much more important things to deal with. Right now.