The shine is officially off Trump's turd

[DemocracyMouse]

I ran into a young, visibly Republican voter yesterday (they always look scared and uptight) and asked if he was registered to vote, do consider voting for Dems in November, etc.

The response? He said he just didn't feel like voting at all this time.

What happened to the exciting new fuhrer? The Trump thing was always a lot of gaslighting propped up by opportunistic oligarchs, teen basement dwellers and hyper-capitalist media pundits leveraging Trump for entertainment dollars. Even "Trump's economy" is fools gold: it was Obama's economy and he had to extract it from an earlier Republican recession. It was Trump's job to spread the recovery out to the rest of us, but he gave all the gains away to an overpaid minority.

The shine is gone. The gas is leaving the bag. Trump's voters just don't feel like voting. The Trump product is last year's trend and all the packaging is getting twisted up in a hall of media mirrors. In fact I no longer fear the Republican swamp. It was always more of a consumer culture than a citizen's movement in the first place. (Look at the ratio of White Nationalists to counter protestors). The glitter on the turd is gone. The gas is out of the bag. The facts are rising out if the swamp like lotus blossoms. Choose your metaphor.

And the Democrats, who actualy have a movement and a substantial, progressive platform, are getting hotter.

Stay the course. Campaign hard and with resolve. The wind is at our backs, but we must still stear the ship.

In fact, there has never been a better time to go door-to-door for a Democratic candidate or to put out signs. Why? The context is a multiplier. For every citizen we convince that voting is sexy, ten more will "get it" when the first citizen you inspire spreads it to their friends.

Replace Trump's phony shine with a spine and we will have a renaissance.

[saidsimplesimon]

1. Nice message, count me in for the win

[monmouth4]

2. Wonderful and uplifting post. Many thanks..n/t

[Scurrilous]

3. K&R

[Shoonra]

4. Remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise.

There is a lot of expectation of a "Blue Wave" in the coming election.

To Democrats, the expectation is of a Blue Tsunami.
But Republicans tend to expect a mere Blue Ripple.

If Democratic voters fail to go to the polls on Election Day, but merely expect everyone else to go in their place, then guess who wins ......

[DemocracyMouse]

5. We must keep in mind...

...that Trump's slim, pseudo-majority voted for him impulsively. It's "impulse buying" as marketers like to call it. (Remember how easily the "Hillary's email" nothingburger swayed the votes in the last weeks before the election?) Something similar could happen again and we must prepare for it. We must have all Democratic pundits ready to respond in a unified voice. We must build the Blue Wave pressures BEYOND what seems necessary.

It's clear to me that Trump's bloom is off his rose (another metaphor!), but the low-information and shallow analysis legions can be moved to buy with any dumb "new and improved" sticker.

[Jarqui]

6. I've been hoping so but I have real doubts

With McCain's passing, they have a good shot at effectively ending Obamacare with McCain's replacement.

With Kavanaugh's confirmation, Roe v Wade / abortion is perceived as toast as will gay rights/marriage

Trump is determined to nuke NAFTA.

Trump has already slashed taxes and kicked the crap out of immigrants and has pretty good economy numbers.

About all he needs is something about gun legislation and Republicans will be so aroused, they'll be tripping over each other in three legged races to the polls.

Russian trolls hacking voting machines, GOP dirty tricks, etc and the midterms are far from signed sealed and delivered - just like Hillary's 75$ chance of winning was in November, 2016 the day before the vote.

Trump's enablers are still backing him because they know the above.

[Honeycombe8]

7. People should take care not to confuse voting for Democrats w/voting for a "movement."

If there is a blue wave, we all know why. It's a reaction to Trump, rather than a vote FOR the movement in the other party.

To confuse the two would be a mistake, IMO. We won't know until polls are taken for reasons for votes, and until the next elections, after the 2018 mid-terms, to see what people are willing to vote FOR. That is...would they vote FOR a different Republican candidate in 2020? Or will they go with a Democratic Party candidate, whoever s/he is? Or will they vote for a specific Dem Party candidate, depending on his/her ideology and policy stances?

For the mid-terms, if there is a blue wave, it's because they are voting against what we have now...the chaos, the corruption, the spineless Republicans in Congress, the environmental damage, the lies, the authoritarianism, the corruption.

To get into power and run with an agenda that the party isn't sure the people voted for is a mistake, IMO, and would result in a red wave backlash in the future. Make sure we know why they voted the way they voted.

[Volaris]

8. Yep Yep the people will put dems back in power to deal with trump and his cabal

If we can manage to do that like the adults in the room (which means Let JUSTICE be done, tho the heavens fall)
THEN they will trust us enough to keep us in power for the purposes of having a conversation about, and then enacting into Law, a distinctly more progressive agenda.

It's tricky. It will involve both the prosecution of a criminal president while at the same time fending off the usual bullshit attacks from the usual bullshit sources (only doing a more efficient job of it), AND the multi-tasking of writing the outlines of a specific policy agenda that wed like to present to the people AFTER we've done the nasty work of jailing deserving criminal assholes.

It'll be a tough needle to thread, politicking-wise, but if we're fast in all the right places, slow in all the others, and smart about the timing I think we can get it done.

Just my 2 cents.

[DemocracyMouse]

9. There actually is a progressive movement which has been building since Reagan

It's not just about antipathy towards Trump.

The wonkish set needs to get out in front of the impulse for change and help guide it. Participate in building it.

Waiting for disaster? That's a self-fulfilling prophesy.