An investigation-crazed GOP gives Democrats a huge 2024 advantage - but only if they take it
The GOP predicted they would win the House in a red tsunami walkover. They were wrong. After a week of "too close to calls," the Republicans staggered to a razor-thin House majority. A savvy group would take stock, ask why they had fallen short, and what they should change to enhance their appeal to the voters.
But Republicans do not do introspection and are too unimaginative to change. They have no policies, no plans, and no ideas. They are good at enumerating America's challenges while offering no solutions beyond slogans. They cling to aggressive nihilism and their strategy of punitive investigation over governance. And in doing so, they have sewn the seeds of their own destruction and handed Democrats victory in 2024. But only if the Democrats take it.
The art of the election is to turn out your base and win the independents. One-third of Americans are down the MAGA rabbit hole, cultists who cling to inflexibility through fear and timidity. Thomas Paine identified them in his pithy observation: “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead.”
It is this group of dead-enders to whom the contemporary GOP caters. It is the base that must be obeyed if a Republican politician wants to win the primary. And in contemporary America, where the toss-up seat has largely disappeared under the cynicism of gerrymandering, the primaries are where the ‘real’ election is fought. And primary voters tend to be the most doctrinaire members of the party. They are dead to the Democrats.
However, beyond MAGA, there are GOP centrists, the so-called Rockefeller Republicans. These are GOPers who accept a social safety net, regulations, unions, and civil rights. And they are liberal on social issues. Once famously described as the “Eastern Establishment”, they have been part of the general migration from the Northeast to the rest of the country.
No one thinks they exist anymore. But where did the vote against anti-abortion laws come from in red states? Northeastern states often vote for Republican governors and Democratic Senators. And do not tell me there are not some of those voters in other regions.
And in those other areas of the country, there must be centrist Democratic candidates who more closely align with their philosophy than with the barking-mad conservative evangelical red hats the GOP typically offers as candidates. But they do not know it because Democrats never tell them.
The Democrats have been the party that never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. As far back as the 1920s, humorist Will Rogers wryly announced he “was not a member of an organized political party, he was a Democrat." But that must change.
And now that the House Democrats will be under new management, they can retool and take the fight to the GOP instead of sitting there, losing in the court of public opinion.
Whenever Jordon, Greene, or some other slobbering sectarian says something about laptops, China, crime families, Ukraine, or school boards, a Democrat should ask why the GOP wants to waste time on Benghazis instead of getting something done.
If a Republican says they are doing the people’s business, a Democrat must reply the people want solutions, not Fox news auditions. If a Republican says Hunter Biden threatens national security, a Democrat must ask who has nuclear secrets in his basement. If a Republican says we need to investigate Ukrainian aid, a Democrat must demand why the GOP supports America’s enemies.
At every opportunity, Democrats need to talk about the jobs they are creating — because while inflation is high, joblessness is low. If a Republican talks about inflation, a Democrat must point out they have done concrete things like reducing drug prices — while the GOP has done nothing but whine. And that in the last two years, the GOP has voted against infrastructure and alternate energy's vast profit and job potential.
In political parlance, they have to improve their “massaging.” The Democrats have trouble selling what they have already accomplished and suck at framing their goals such that the average American understands the leg-up Democrats are giving them. Put it on a bumper sticker, not in a position paper. KIS&SS, Keep it short and simple, stupid.
I think Pelosi was a political genius when it came to keeping her fractious caucus together. And without her, Obamacare would have been a tweak to child healthcare. Now the Democrats need to add a PR/marketing sensibility to their toolbox.
And Schumer needs to disappear as a spokesman for the party. I am sure he is top-notch at what he does. Let him keep doing it. But he is not a vote magnet. I will grant you finding telegenic Democratic Senators might be a challenge — I look forward to suggestions in the comments.
In 2022, especially post-Dobbs, America told the Democrats they were on to something. Now it is time for Democrats to accept that vote of confidence. Get some swagger, pick up some metaphorical 2x4s, and start swinging. Because America likes a winner, and there are no moral victories.