Confused babble on the left says Trump / Russia is a distraction and instead we must focus on a progressive agenda. This is resolutely and idiotically backwards. No progressive agenda is possible until Trump is toppled. Period. Democrats have a real chance to take back both houses in November. If they do, it’s game over for Trump and his corrupt minions.
After eviscerating his own party in Everything Trump Touches Dies, Rick Wilson has advice for Democrats on how to win in the upcoming midterms and 2020. Wilson is a Republican strategist, one of the original Never Trumpers, and wants Democrats to win bigly now.
First off, Wilson says, admit Hillary was an uninspired candidate. I agree. Democrats need to run inspired candidates, younger ones too. Hillary, Biden, Bernie – thank you for your service. Now retire. Adam Schiff, Ted Lieu, and Democratic politicians who have actively opposed Trump should take leadership roles.
“Let’s have some real talk about Hillary Clinton: she was a catastrophically terrible, horrible, crap-tier candidate, and she always has been. Democrats will sputter about her accomplishments, her stature, her work as a senator and secretary of state and still look away from the hard truth of politics: sometimes politicians have the Gift; sometimes they don’t. Hillary never did. Not once.
Never a gifted, graceful, or natural speaker, Hillary’s constant mental self-auditing was always visible: “I will now run Human Interaction Subroutine 54.1, warm smile followed by sincere chuckle.” Without using the phrase “first woman president,” try to name the actual predicates of Hillary’s campaign. Unless you’re an HRC campaign insider, you can’t.”
Wilson created pit bull attack ads against Democrats using Pelosi as the focus because, while liberals love her, most everyone else doesn’t.
“While we’re on the subject of the GOP’s secret weapons, I’ll name another: Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi may raise a metric crap-ton of money for the Democrats, but she sets the rest of America’s teeth on edge. Ever wonder why we stuck her in candidate and SuperPAC ads against you until Trump came along? Because it worked for a long, long time; only Trump has made her more palatable”
Democratic candidates who can win in more conservative areas aren’t going to be democratic socialists like Ocasio-Cortez. They just aren’t. Forget about running ideologically similar candidates.
“Another reason we took over 1,100 legislative seats from you over the past 15 years is your top-down ideology. Florida is not Vermont. Michigan is not Wyoming. New York is not North Carolina. As long as you insist on a single set of national standards for your party candidates, you limit the regions, states, and districts in which you can effectively compete
Guns are a flash point. Yes they are. Made worse by lecturing and barely concealed scorn from coastal elites. Instead, focus on issues Democrats can win on like health care, the economy, Social Security, Medicare, and immigration.
“Most of you Democrats still don’t realize the way you speak about guns is a signifier of political hostility to Americans who long ago made up their minds on the matter. You conflate them with the people who commit these crimes, and you do it constantly, tendentiously, and with the worst goddamned nanny-state condescension.
In an ironic twist, about 35% of the 1.4 million people in Florida who have a concealed-carry permit are Democrats. You guys don’t even understand your own base.”