Three ideas to check Trump and revive the Democratic Party.

AuthorGlastris, Paul
PositionEditor's Note

Not gonna lie: I enjoy watching Donald Trump fail. I await each new revelation about his Russian ties with gleeful anticipation. I smile every time another judge blocks his Muslim ban. I delight in his ongoing struggle to get the gum of Obamacare out of his hair. I am gratified by his budget negotiator's inability to get a dime for his border wall. To me, these are not guilty pleasures, but righteous ones. Trump's failures are a kind of justice, a confirmation that the political universe still operates according to rules I can understand and appreciate, like a beautiful sunset. Presumably I am not the only one who feels this way.

But as with any form of gratification, if taken too far, this one can lead us astray. The danger is that we on the left will bet our political future on Trump imploding rather than confront the weaknesses in our own political vision--weaknesses that allowed not only Trump to win but Republicans to control the House, the Senate, and thirty-two state legislatures.

Right now, Democrats see a real possibility of taking back the House in 2018. The most likely pickups are districts in metro areas that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 or that Trump won by a hair. The most straightforward way to win these seats is to pump up the Democratic base of professionals, single women, Millennials, minorities, and immigrants. But that is precisely the strategy that Clinton's campaign followed, with disastrous results.

The alternative is for the party to start contesting the geographic areas where increasingly, over several election cycles, they've been getting crushed: exurbs, smaller towns, and rural areas. Unless they can do this, and soon, Democrats are fated--because of well-known biases in our electoral system that favor sparsely populated states and regions--to be a permanent minority party that also happens to represent the majority.

Many Democrats, however, shrink from this challenge. Part of the reason is snobbery. Part of it is a sense of hopelessness--that rural and working-class whites simply won't support Democrats (even though many of them voted for a black guy eight years ago). And part of it is the fear that to win over these voters, liberals will have to downplay or compromise their own deepest ideals--about environmental protection, gun safety, criminal justice reform, women's rights, and tolerance of diversity.

That last concern is actually justified, The Democratic Party has enough trouble getting its voters to the polls. Asking it to dial back the "cultural"...

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