thenation--2020-11-18--How to Understand Democrats’ Disappointing Losses in State Legislatures

Joe Biden won the White House , overwhelmingly , but otherwise , since Election Day , the news for Democrats has been bleak .
They failed to flip the Senate—though the Georgia runoffs could still give them a 50-50 tie , broken by Vice President Kamala Harris—and lost seats in the House of Representatives , where they had been projected to pad their majority .
But nowhere was the news worse than at the state legislative level , where despite unprecedented investment by Democratic organizations and outside groups , and expectations that they ’ d flip from four to eight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blue wave ” election—the party lost ground .
With surprising candor , Nicole Hobbs , cofounder of Every District , a state legislative organizing , fundraising , and data analysis group , wrote in an election post-mortem : “ It was a bloodbath.
” I heard that word a lot .
Also “ shit show.
” Most mild : “ No way to sugarcoat it.
” These came from people who are still going to try to raise money to continue their fight .
Which makes them brave , even in ( mostly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fight for the States The losses were everywhere .
Not all races in all states are called , but there ’ s no way , even with the outstanding contests , that Democrats will flip chambers .
Against all expectations , they lost the New Hampshire House and Senate .
Activists hoped Democrats might pick up the Iowa and Minnesota houses ; they lost five and seven seats , respectively .
They seemed close to flipping both the Arizona House and Senate ; despite Biden ’ s win , they gained only one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had a decent shot of flipping the North Carolina House and/or Senate ; they lost an estimated four seats in the House while gaining one in the Senate .
After winning 12 seats in the Texas House in 2018 , there was optimism Democrats could flip it by winning nine this year ; they won one .
They were given good odds of winning the Michigan House , which seems reasonable in hindsight , since Biden won the state by almost 150,000 votes ; instead , zero gains .
Biden also won Wisconsin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hugely gerrymandered districts , Democrats lost two seats in the state Senate , while winning two in the House .
And he won Pennsylvania , but Democrats lost three seats in the House and apparently one in the Senate .
There were a few bright spots—mainly that Democrats , mostly , held on to seats and chambers they only recently won .
It really could have been worse .
But in the year running up to crucial redistricting decisions , the losses could be major setbacks to Democrats ’ long-term project of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ keeps Republicans winning state legislative and congressional delegations despite getting fewer votes statewide .
That was particularly critical in North Carolina , Texas , Pennsylvania , and Wisconsin , states Republicans dominated after the dismal 2010 election and where they drew cartoonishly unfair lines ; the only good news in Wisconsin is that Democrats retained enough legislative power to sustain a redistricting veto by Democratic Governor Tony Evers .
Why were Democratic expectations so high ?
( I held them too . )
Not just because of an outsize cash investment by Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which was real , even though the GOP dumped a lot of money into the states in the last month .
Democrats , by and large , recruited strong candidates , including a lot of women and people of color .
This summer , many thought the Trump ’ s bungling of the pandemic would dampen GOP turnout and turn independents into Democrats .
Many candidates were running innovative campaigns and focusing on “ low-propensity ” voters of color , instead of following orders from caucus leaders and consultants to prioritize Democrats @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considered persuadable , which many progressives see as a drag on Democratic fortunes .
All these lessons came from 2018 , when Democrats won 309 seats in state legislative chambers , but lost some they might have won .
This year , they had a chance to get it right .
Over the summer and fall , I followed the races of three women of color who ran and lost in 2018 , unexpectedly narrowly in each case , and ran again this year : Aimy Steele for a Charlotte , N.C. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Dallas-area Texas Senate seat , and Kathy Lewis in a Tampa-area Florida Senate seat .
All three were essentially tied with their opponents in the last polls before the election ; all lost by at least as much as they did two years ago .
Talking to them , and to the various outside groups and consultants who worked with them , I heard the same things I heard elsewhere in the country .
The number-one explanation : Donald Trump had long coattails , even in defeat—and Biden had short ones , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s what people just didn ’ t see coming , ” says Carolyn Fiddler of Daily Kos , long an evangelist for Democrats to pay more attention to statehouse races .
“ Trump wasn ’ t on the ballot in 2018 .
We don ’ t know what would have happened if he was.
” Everyone I interviewed agreed .
And the suburban “ blue wave ” that helped lift Biden to victory ?
It did not carry Democratic state candidates ( or , to be honest , a lot of US House @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heavily voted down-ballot , where Democrats did not again , ” says Joanna Cattanach , who ran and narrowly lost a second time for a Texas state senate seat in Dallas County .
“ And we saw a slew of ticket splitters.
” I heard that all across the country .
It will take a lot more district-level analysis to be sure .
The seats in play this year were also a heavier lift than in 2018 , most analysts told me .
According to Every District , more than 60 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to flip chambers leaned Republican , thanks at least partly to GOP gerrymanders .
We got a preview of that in 2019 : Democrats flipped both the House of Delegates and the state Senate in Virginia ; they picked up more Democratic-leaning seats , but won only one conservative-leaning district .
“ We picked all the low-hanging fruit , ” says Rita Bosworth , executive director of Sister District , a respected national group that links activists and donors in safe blue districts with those trying to flip purple or red ones around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump supporters combined with really tough seats ” is the way Andrew Whalan , Emily ’ s List senior director for state and local campaigns , described it .
As with the disappointing House and Senate outcomes , some Democrats complain that the Biden campaign focused too much on Trump and not enough on the devolution of the entire Republican Party into a racist , antidemocratic swamp .
As Ron Brownstein put it in a must-read Atlantic piece , “ Rather than presenting Trump as the culmination of Republican policies and values , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; many strategists on both sides believe that made it easier for voters to oppose Trump but still back Republicans in House and Senate races.
” On the other hand , that might have been Biden ’ s only path to the presidency .
Polling was also terrible in these races , though that was true up and down the ballot : Cattanach was up by five points in the last preelection poll ; she lost by roughly 1 point .
Maybe most troubling , Trump ’ s strength among Latinos helped doom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , Florida ( less realistic ) , and some other less-expected districts around the country .
Although so did the party ’ s tendency to treat “ Latinos ” —a diverse community including Mexicans , Cubans , Puerto Ricans , Venezuelans , Central Americans , and more , that consists of both recent immigrants and people whose families have lived here for generations—as a monolith that was inevitably trending Democratic , and its failure to invest in long-term organizing .
Hugely disturbing : In the end , the pandemic probably hurt a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helped .
“ If someone told Republicans you can take one tool away from the ‘ blue wave ’ in 2020 , what would it be ?
” Our States Matter founder Christine Bachman asked .
“ They wouldn ’ t skip a beat—they ’ d say canvassing , the ability to knock doors .
That ’ s been my greatest fear of the cycle.
” In Florida , a Trump adviser said the campaign “ took advantage of Democrats ’ abandonment of door-to-door canvassing during the coronavirus crisis ” to win the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clinton by four years ago , in a memo obtained by Florida Politics .
Beto O ’ Rourke likewise called the GOP ’ s “ willingness to knock on doors and hold in-person events through the duration of the pandemic ” a major factor in the disappointing Texas results .
Joe Biden : The Decency Is the Point Whatever Happens , It Should Not Be This Close How 3 Democratic Women in Swing States Aim to Win This Week When I first started hearing this complaint , I thought it was a fixation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wasn ’ t .
Biden didn ’ t suffer from not being able to knock doors or canvass .
Neither did US Senate candidates , probably ( although they might have suffered from down-ballot losses ) .
Nor US House candidates ( likewise ) .
But everyone I talked to said the inability to be present , in person , whether at doors or small in-person events , really hurt this push for state legislative seats , where districts are smaller , and more conducive to neighbor-to-neighbor campaigning .
Multiple groups , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fund , have used numbers of doors knocked as a metric of campaign strength when evaluating state legislative candidates .
Just before Election Day , Future Now Fund ’ s Daniel Squadron admitted that the group wasn ’ t sure its candidates had found ways of engaging in “ relational organizing in a way that will match the impact of knocking doors.
” It now seems many did not .
That dovetailed with another problem : The scurrilous GOP assault on Democratic candidates for supporting “ defund the police ” and “ socialism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t .
At the state legislative level , I saw none of the bitter finger-pointing that ’ s divided the US House Democratic Caucus , with moderate Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger shouting on a conference call that those two issues almost cost her the district “ that I barely won , ” and democratic socialist Bronx Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez blaming the party ’ s struggles on mediocre messaging and mobilization techniques and dismal digital media .
Republicans attacked that way nationwide , and up and down the ballot , from Biden ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ N.Y. , Representative Max Rose ( who lost ) .
Neither candidate supports either demand , far from it .
But the charge hurt state legislative candidates much more .
Aimy Steele , who ran for a North Carolina statehouse seat in Charlotte-area Caberras County a second time , after coming close in 2018 , is one of the more troubling examples .
She got hit hard with the “ She supports ‘ Defund the Police ’ ” charge in mailers , social media , and television ads .
Except she doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retired police officer ; he ’ s now the local police chaplain .
Steele says the inability to knock on doors and hold small events , even outside , hampered her response—though , toward the end of the campaign , she was able to pay for a TV ad , and resumed some door-knocking , belatedly .
“ It made it so much tougher , not to be able to go out to knock on doors or have small meetings , where you could hear what your neighbors were saying , ” Steele @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the election .
“ It prohibited any kind of clarification of your message.
” Two white male GOP candidates for local office whom she knew personally , she said , shared the dishonest ads on Facebook , and she confronted them—on social media , and in person , at an early-voting site .
“ You shared those posts about me , and you know my family , ’ ” she told them .
Four simple words set them back : “ You hurt my feelings.
” She heard another four words— “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ couldn ’ t undo the damage .
North Carolina Democrats faced highly coordinated attacks claiming that they supported “ Defund [ ing ] the police ” —the North Carolina GOP sent essentially the same mailer to attack each Democrat , just changing the name and photo .
Where did Republicans get this claim ?
Evidently , it was based in part on the fact that many of the candidates , along with more than 1,000 others across the country , signed the Future Now Fund ’ s “ America ’ s Goals ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all patriotic goals— “ Good Jobs , ” “ Equal Opportunity for All , ” and “ Affordable Quality Health Care ” — that even Republicans might support .
Somehow , Republicans claimed , the pledge included “ Defund the police.
” It absolutely did not .
But apparently—and I learned this from North Carolina websites that were searching for perfidy—the group has a “ policy library , ” where they flesh out some of those goals .
There they advance model legislation—which on the question of policing endorses bipartisan commissions , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and how police funding keeps people safe , and whether other services need to be funded to enhance public safety .
To be honest , it ’ s so milquetoast , I ’ m sure there are Movement for Black Lives advocates who are like , Are you kidding ?
If it wasn ’ t Future Now Fund , it would have been another group ’ s policy library .
Many other candidates , not at all affiliated , faced the same attacks .
But what is the answer ?
So many people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t reply to the slurs .
“ I always punch back , if necessary , ” said Orlando , Fla. , Representative Anna Eskamani .
Elected to her third term , impeccably progressive , she said Democrats mostly didn ’ t punch back .
“ On socialism ?
Republicans are the ones giving money to their corporate donors , ” she notes .
And on “ defund the police , ” she says , there was little effort , locally , statewide or nationally , to articulate any alternative vision of criminal justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ The [ independent expenditure ] and outside PACs sent mailers that left us frustrated and were generically the wrong message , ” she wrote in an e-mail .
“ ’ Can ’ t trust him on health care ’ wasn ’ t the same level as ‘ baby killer ’ and ‘ defund the police , ’ which stuck with voters.
” Eskamani also points out that Florida raised the minimum wage to $ 15 .
How does that square with the Democratic nightmare we saw unfold there ?
“ Florida @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t really integrate it into any kind of messaging , ” she says .
Some red counties in Florida went for the minimum wage increase , which backs up Eskamani ’ s point .
By many accounts—not all—the Florida Democratic Party is in just about the worst shape among swing states ( I ’ m not scapegoating any individuals , I ’ m just reporting ) .
State Senate candidate Kathy Lewis , who got almost no support from state party leaders , says , “ The party continues to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and invest in too few people.
” Eskamani agrees .
But Lewis and Eskamani also agree that , as bad as Florida Democrats did—they lost five state House seats and at least one state Senate seat—the fact that insurgents like Lewis and many others ran made the GOP spend more money there .
The same was true in Texas .
“ We caused such a ruckus that the Republicans panicked and were forced to spend and defend a state they were winning anyway , ” Cattanach notes .
“ It ’ s kind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to take their eyes off Pennsylvania and Georgia and…Arizona and Nevada.
” She adds : “ Ultimately , I still think Texas can be blue , but it may be fuchsia for a while.
” Ultimately , a lot of the so-called “ outside group ” leaders told me some version of the same thing : “ Stop pumping money into candidates , ” as Sister District ’ s Bosworth put it .
“ Start putting money into infrastructure.
” She pointed to Georgia groups founded by 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Project , as examples of where that kind of ongoing organizing is happening—and changing the state .
( By the way , in Georgia , where no one expected to flip a chamber , Democrats won two seats each in the House and Senate . )
Wisconsin Democratic Party leader Ben Wikler also came in for praise for running a rare state party that invested in long-term organizing—which seemed to pay off in Biden ’ s win , as well as at the two seats gained in the state house .
Again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ covered these state races , people had a lot of complaints about too-conservative , status quo–protecting state Democratic parties and house and senate caucus organizations—and the mostly white staff and consultants they employ .
But at least one outside group leader told me , “ It ’ s easy to point to them , but they really never have the money to make a real difference.
” That person also said the answer is investing in local day-to-day community relationships .
It ’ s a chicken and egg problem ; many outside groups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t trust the caucuses or party structures to recruit and support a full roster of challlengers —but then those institutions complain about money going to outside groups , and not to them .
Every District ’ s Nicole Hobbs agreed .
“ We have to continue to invest in Democratic institutions and year-round organizing , ” she said , after the eight or so years , under Barack Obama , when Democrats lost 942 seats .
“ I hope this year ’ s disappointing results don ’ t scare people off .
”

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Joe Biden won the White House, overwhelmingly, but otherwise, since Election Day, the news for Democrats has been bleak. They failed to flip the Senate—though the Georgia runoffs could still give them a 50-50 tie, broken by Vice President Kamala Harris—and lost seats in the House of Representatives, where they had been projected to pad their majority. But nowhere was the news worse than at the state legislative level, where despite unprecedented investment by Democratic organizations and outside groups, and expectations that they’d flip from four to eight legislative bodies—or more, in a “blue wave” election—the party lost ground.
With surprising candor, Nicole Hobbs, cofounder of Every District, a state legislative organizing, fundraising, and data analysis group, wrote in an election post-mortem: “It was a bloodbath.”
I heard that word a lot. Also “shit show.” Most mild: “No way to sugarcoat it.”
These came from people who are still going to try to raise money to continue their fight. Which makes them brave, even in (mostly) loss. Related Article Democrats Are Winning Their Fight for the States Joan Walsh
The losses were everywhere. Not all races in all states are called, but there’s no way, even with the outstanding contests, that Democrats will flip chambers. Against all expectations, they lost the New Hampshire House and Senate. Activists hoped Democrats might pick up the Iowa house; they lost five seats. They had a shot at flipping the Minnesota Senate; they came up one seat short. They seemed close to flipping both the Arizona House and Senate; despite Biden’s win, they gained only one Senate seat there. They thought they had a decent shot of flipping the North Carolina House and/or Senate; they lost an estimated four seats in the House while gaining one in the Senate. After winning 12 seats in the Texas House in 2018, there was optimism Democrats could flip it by winning nine this year; they won one.
They were given good odds of winning the Michigan House, which seems reasonable in hindsight, since Biden won the state by almost 150,000 votes; instead, zero gains. Biden also won Wisconsin, though more narrowly, but thanks to hugely gerrymandered districts, Democrats lost two seats in the state Senate, while winning two in the House. And he won Pennsylvania, but Democrats lost three seats in the House and apparently one in the Senate.
There were a few bright spots—mainly that Democrats, mostly, held on to seats and chambers they only recently won. It really could have been worse. But in the year running up to crucial redistricting decisions, the losses could be major setbacks to Democrats’ long-term project of doing away with the GOP gerrymandering that keeps Republicans winning state legislative and congressional delegations despite getting fewer votes statewide. That was particularly critical in North Carolina, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states Republicans dominated after the dismal 2010 election and where they drew cartoonishly unfair lines; the only good news in Wisconsin is that Democrats retained enough legislative power to sustain a redistricting veto by Democratic Governor Tony Evers. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Current Issue View our current issue
Why were Democratic expectations so high? (I held them too.) Not just because of an outsize cash investment by Democratic Party institutions and the liberal donor base, which was real, even though the GOP dumped a lot of money into the states in the last month. Democrats, by and large, recruited strong candidates, including a lot of women and people of color. This summer, many thought the Trump’s bungling of the pandemic would dampen GOP turnout and turn independents into Democrats. Many candidates were running innovative campaigns and focusing on “low-propensity” voters of color, instead of following orders from caucus leaders and consultants to prioritize Democrats who always vote, plus the independents considered persuadable, which many progressives see as a drag on Democratic fortunes.
All these lessons came from 2018, when Democrats won 309 seats in state legislative chambers, but lost some they might have won. This year, they had a chance to get it right.
So what happened?
Over the summer and fall, I followed the races of three women of color who ran and lost in 2018, unexpectedly narrowly in each case, and ran again this year: Aimy Steele for a Charlotte, N.C., area House seat, Joanna Cattanach for a Dallas-area Texas Senate seat, and Kathy Lewis in a Tampa-area Florida Senate seat. All three were essentially tied with their opponents in the last polls before the election; all lost by at least as much as they did two years ago.
Talking to them, and to the various outside groups and consultants who worked with them, I heard the same things I heard elsewhere in the country.
The number-one explanation: Donald Trump had long coattails, even in defeat—and Biden had short ones, even in victory. “That’s what people just didn’t see coming,” says Carolyn Fiddler of Daily Kos, long an evangelist for Democrats to pay more attention to statehouse races. “Trump wasn’t on the ballot in 2018. We don’t know what would have happened if he was.” Everyone I interviewed agreed. And the suburban “blue wave” that helped lift Biden to victory? It did not carry Democratic state candidates (or, to be honest, a lot of US House or Senate seats). “Republicans heavily voted down-ballot, where Democrats did not again,” says Joanna Cattanach, who ran and narrowly lost a second time for a Texas state senate seat in Dallas County. “And we saw a slew of ticket splitters.” I heard that all across the country. It will take a lot more district-level analysis to be sure.
The seats in play this year were also a heavier lift than in 2018, most analysts told me. According to Every District, more than 60 percent of the districts that Democrats had to win to flip chambers leaned Republican, thanks at least partly to GOP gerrymanders. We got a preview of that in 2019: Democrats flipped both the House of Delegates and the state Senate in Virginia; they picked up more Democratic-leaning seats, but won only one conservative-leaning district. “We picked all the low-hanging fruit,” says Rita Bosworth, executive director of Sister District, a respected national group that links activists and donors in safe blue districts with those trying to flip purple or red ones around the country.
“Super-charged turnout by Trump supporters combined with really tough seats” is the way Andrew Whalan, Emily’s List senior director for state and local campaigns, described it.
As with the disappointing House and Senate outcomes, some Democrats complain that the Biden campaign focused too much on Trump and not enough on the devolution of the entire Republican Party into a racist, antidemocratic swamp. As Ron Brownstein put it in a must-read Atlantic piece, “Rather than presenting Trump as the culmination of Republican policies and values, Biden consistently portrayed him as an aberration; many strategists on both sides believe that made it easier for voters to oppose Trump but still back Republicans in House and Senate races.”
On the other hand, that might have been Biden’s only path to the presidency.
Polling was also terrible in these races, though that was true up and down the ballot: Cattanach was up by five points in the last preelection poll; she lost by roughly 1 point.
Maybe most troubling, Trump’s strength among Latinos helped doom Democratic hopes in Texas (somewhat realistic), Florida (less realistic), and some other less-expected districts around the country. Although so did the party’s tendency to treat “Latinos”—a diverse community including Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Central Americans, and more, that consists of both recent immigrants and people whose families have lived here for generations—as a monolith that was inevitably trending Democratic, and its failure to invest in long-term organizing.
Hugely disturbing: In the end, the pandemic probably hurt a lot of Democratic campaigns more than it helped. “If someone told Republicans you can take one tool away from the ‘blue wave’ in 2020, what would it be?” Our States Matter founder Christine Bachman asked. “They wouldn’t skip a beat—they’d say canvassing, the ability to knock doors. That’s been my greatest fear of the cycle.” In Florida, a Trump adviser said the campaign “took advantage of Democrats’ abandonment of door-to-door canvassing during the coronavirus crisis” to win the state by more than he beat Hillary Clinton by four years ago, in a memo obtained by Florida Politics. Beto O’Rourke likewise called the GOP’s “willingness to knock on doors and hold in-person events through the duration of the pandemic” a major factor in the disappointing Texas results. More From Joan Walsh The Promise of Justice in Fani Willis’s Indictment August 15, 2023 Please, Please Stop Blaming “Progressives” for Donald Trump’s Fascism August 11, 2023 The Ron-mentum Continues… Circling the Drain August 9, 2023
When I first started hearing this complaint, I thought it was a fixation with small-bore political mechanics. But it wasn’t.
Biden didn’t suffer from not being able to knock doors or canvass. Neither did US Senate candidates, probably (although they might have suffered from down-ballot losses). Nor US House candidates (likewise). But everyone I talked to said the inability to be present, in person, whether at doors or small in-person events, really hurt this push for state legislative seats, where districts are smaller, and more conducive to neighbor-to-neighbor campaigning.
Multiple groups, from Emily’s List to Future Now Fund, have used numbers of doors knocked as a metric of campaign strength when evaluating state legislative candidates. Just before Election Day, Future Now Fund’s Daniel Squadron admitted that the group wasn’t sure its candidates had found ways of engaging in “relational organizing in a way that will match the impact of knocking doors.” It now seems many did not.
That dovetailed with another problem: The scurrilous GOP assault on Democratic candidates for supporting “defund the police” and “socialism”—even when they clearly didn’t. At the state legislative level, I saw none of the bitter finger-pointing that’s divided the US House Democratic Caucus, with moderate Virginia Representative Abigail Spanberger shouting on a conference call that those two issues almost cost her the district “that I barely won,” and democratic socialist Bronx Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez blaming the party’s struggles on mediocre messaging and mobilization techniques and dismal digital media.
Republicans attacked that way nationwide, and up and down the ballot, from Biden (who won) to Staten Island, N.Y., Representative Max Rose (who lost). Neither candidate supports either demand, far from it. But the charge hurt state legislative candidates much more.
Aimy Steele, who ran for a North Carolina statehouse seat in Charlotte-area Cabarrus County a second time, after coming close in 2018, is one of the more troubling examples. She got hit hard with the “She supports ‘Defund the Police’” charge in mailers, social media, and television ads. Except she doesn’t. And her husband is a retired police officer; he’s now the local police chaplain. Steele says the inability to knock on doors and hold small events, even outside, hampered her response—though, toward the end of the campaign, she was able to pay for a TV ad, and resumed some door-knocking, belatedly.
“It made it so much tougher, not to be able to go out to knock on doors or have small meetings, where you could hear what your neighbors were saying,” Steele told me, more than a week after the election. “It prohibited any kind of clarification of your message.” Two white male GOP candidates for local office whom she knew personally, she said, shared the dishonest ads on Facebook, and she confronted them—on social media, and in person, at an early-voting site.
“You shared those posts about me, and you know my family,’” she told them. Four simple words set them back: “You hurt my feelings.” She heard another four words—“I am so sorry”—but it couldn’t undo the damage.
North Carolina Democrats faced highly coordinated attacks claiming that they supported “Defund[ing] the police”—the North Carolina GOP sent essentially the same mailer to attack each Democrat, just changing the name and photo. Where did Republicans get this claim? Evidently, it was based in part on the fact that many of the candidates, along with more than 1,000 others across the country, signed the Future Now Fund’s “America’s Goals” pledge. The pledge is anodyne, all patriotic goals—“Good Jobs,” “Equal Opportunity for All,” and “Affordable Quality Health Care”— that even Republicans might support. Somehow, Republicans claimed, the pledge included “Defund the police.” It absolutely did not. But apparently—and I learned this from North Carolina websites that were searching for perfidy—the group has a “policy library,” where they flesh out some of those goals. There they advance model legislation—which on the question of policing endorses bipartisan commissions, in all the states, to examine whether and how police funding keeps people safe, and whether other services need to be funded to enhance public safety.
To be honest, it’s so milquetoast, I’m sure there are Movement for Black Lives advocates who are like, Are you kidding?
If it wasn’t Future Now Fund, it would have been another group’s policy library. Many other candidates, not at all affiliated, faced the same attacks. But what is the answer?
So many people told me: Democrats mostly didn’t reply to the slurs. “I always punch back, if necessary,” said Orlando, Fla., Representative Anna Eskamani. Elected to her third term, impeccably progressive, she said Democrats mostly didn’t punch back. “On socialism? Republicans are the ones giving money to their corporate donors,” she notes. And on “defund the police,” she says, there was little effort, locally, statewide or nationally, to articulate any alternative vision of criminal justice reform.
In Texas, Cattanach agrees. “The [independent expenditure] and outside PACs sent mailers that left us frustrated and were generically the wrong message,” she wrote in an e-mail. “’Can’t trust him on health care’ wasn’t the same level as ‘baby killer’ and ‘defund the police,’ which stuck with voters.”
Eskamani also points out that Florida raised the minimum wage to $15. How does that square with the Democratic nightmare we saw unfold there? “Florida Democrats mostly supported it, but they didn’t really integrate it into any kind of messaging,” she says. Some red counties in Florida went for the minimum wage increase, which backs up Eskamani’s point.
By many accounts—not all—the Florida Democratic Party is in just about the worst shape among swing states (I’m not scapegoating any individuals, I’m just reporting). State Senate candidate Kathy Lewis, who got almost no support from state party leaders, says, “The party continues to do the same old things they do, and invest in too few people.” Eskamani agrees. But Lewis and Eskamani also agree that, as bad as Florida Democrats did—they lost five state House seats and at least one state Senate seat—the fact that insurgents like Lewis and many others ran made the GOP spend more money there.
The same was true in Texas. “We caused such a ruckus that the Republicans panicked and were forced to spend and defend a state they were winning anyway,” Cattanach notes. “It’s kind of nice to think we caused them to take their eyes off Pennsylvania and Georgia and…Arizona and Nevada.” She adds: “Ultimately, I still think Texas can be blue, but it may be fuchsia for a while.”
Ultimately, a lot of the so-called “outside group” leaders told me some version of the same thing: “Stop pumping money into candidates,” as Sister District’s Bosworth put it. “Start putting money into infrastructure.” She pointed to Georgia groups founded by 2018 gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, like Fair Fight Action and New Georgia Project, as examples of where that kind of ongoing organizing is happening—and changing the state. (By the way, in Georgia, where no one expected to flip a chamber, Democrats won two seats each in the House and Senate.) Wisconsin Democratic Party leader Ben Wikler also came in for praise for running a rare state party that invested in long-term organizing—which seemed to pay off in Biden’s win, as well as at the two seats gained in the state house.
Again, as in every year I’ve covered these state races, people had a lot of complaints about too-conservative, status quo–protecting state Democratic parties and house and senate caucus organizations—and the mostly white staff and consultants they employ. But at least one outside group leader told me, “It’s easy to point to them, but they really never have the money to make a real difference.” That person also said the answer is investing in local day-to-day community relationships. It’s a chicken and egg problem; many outside groups fund independent operations because they don’t trust the caucuses or party structures to recruit and support a full roster of challlengers —but then those institutions complain about money going to outside groups, and not to them.
Every District’s Nicole Hobbs agreed. “We have to continue to invest in Democratic institutions and year-round organizing,” she said, after the eight or so years, under Barack Obama, when Democrats lost 942 seats. “I hope this year’s disappointing results don’t scare people off.”
Editor’s Note: This article initially misspelled the county Aimy Steele sought to represent in North Carolina. The text has been corrected.


thenation--2020-11-18--‘Returning to Normal’ Is Still a Path Toward Apocalypse

Imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election in 2016 .
Imagine , in other words , that the “ blue wall ” of Michigan , Wisconsin , and Pennsylvania had held firm four years ago .
Claiming election fraud , Donald Trump would have insisted on a recount and Election Day would then , too , have stretched into election week and election month .
Eventually , Trump would have given up , though not without insisting that the “ deep state ” had stolen his victory .
Once in office , Clinton would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legacy .
The United States would have remained in the Paris climate accord , the Iran nuclear agreement would still be in force , and perhaps a more robust health care plan might even be in place .
Competent civil servants would have taken charge of federal agencies , a tax cut for the wealthy wouldn ’ t have gone into effect , and the Democrats would have been well positioned in 2020 to reelect the first woman president and build a stronger congressional majority .
America wouldn ’ t have gone down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discourse wouldn ’ t have been coarsened .
The country wouldn ’ t now be in such complete and utter… If Hillary had somehow managed to eke out a victory in 2016 , she would soon enough have faced a Republican Party as hostile to compromise as the one that hamstrung Barack Obama .
Opposition from Congress and Republican-controlled states , combined with her own centrist instincts , would have kept the country mired in a failing status quo : an increasingly unequal economy , crumbling infrastructure , a growing carbon footprint , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ signs of a declining superpower that we ’ ve come to know so well .
Now , imagine what would have happened when the pandemic struck in 2020 .
Clinton would have responded more competently than The Donald because virtually anyone over the age of 12 would have been better suited to handle the emergency than he was .
Indeed , if the United States had managed Covid-19 with anything faintly approaching the competency of , say , Germany under Angela Merkel , the country would have had , by my calculations , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the eve of the 2020 elections .
That obviously would be better than the 10 million infections and more than 245,000 deaths the United States is currently experiencing .
Keep in mind , however , that Americans wouldn ’ t have known just how bad the situation could have been .
Quite the opposite : Having set up a bully pulpit in an alt-right Fox News–style media conglomerate after his loss in 2016 , Donald Trump would have led the charge on Clinton ’ s “ mismanagement ” of the pandemic and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He would have assured us that the resulting economic downturn , with striking numbers of Americans left unemployed , could have been avoided , and that he as president would have prevented both those deaths and business cutbacks by immediately closing all borders and deporting any suspicious foreigners .
He would have labeled the president “ Killer Clinton ” and , given the misogyny of significant parts of the American electorate , the name would have stuck .
In 2020 , Donald Trump would have run on a platform of making America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Don ’ t , however , think of this as just some passing exercise in alternative history .
Substitute “ Joe Biden ” for “ Hillary Clinton ” in the passages you ’ ve just read and you ’ ll have a grim but plausible prediction of what could happen over the next four years .
On the Road to 2024 Hillary Clinton would have faced challenges of every sort if she ’ d won the presidency in 2016 .
They nonetheless pale in comparison to what now awaits Joe Biden and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gunning for the new president .
They ’ re blocking the transition process to handicap the incoming administration .
President Trump has forbidden federal agencies from even cooperating with the Biden-Harris team .
The 2020 presidential election forms part of the Republican Party ’ s denialism trifecta : The pandemic , climate change , and now Biden ’ s victory are all simply liberal “ myths.
” The Republican Party will either control the Senate—pending the outcome of two runoff races in Georgia—or , at least , be able to disrupt any major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be hard-pressed to roll back the tax cuts the Republicans handed out to the wealthy in 2017 , pass a major green infrastructure bill , or expand affordable health care .
When Biden tries to implement a nationally cohesive program to combat Covid-19 through more testing , tracing , and investment in medical equipment , he ’ s guaranteed to face resistance from a number of Republican governors who have refused even to mandate the wearing of masks .
And then there are all those Republican-appointed judges just itching to rule on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ executive orders , not to speak of a Supreme Court now located in the bleachers beyond right field that will serve as an even greater constraint on an activist agenda .
And those are just the political obstacles .
The pandemic is clearly spiraling out of control .
The economy has yet to crawl out of its hole .
And Donald Trump has a couple of more months to scorch the earth before his army of incompetents are driven out of Washington , D.C. Then there are the 71 million Americans who just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , gross mismanagement , and near-psychotic view of the world .
Short of a nationwide deprogramming campaign , the adherents of the Trump cult will continue to cling to their religion ( and their guns ) .
In the Biden years , they ’ re sure to form an industrial-strength Tea Party opposed to any move the federal government makes .
And let ’ s be clear : Their resistance will not be exactly Gandhian in nature .
At the same time , it ’ s essential to separate their illegitimate complaints laced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grievances concerning the American economy .
Much of Trump ’ s base sees that economy , quite correctly , as unfair and the elite as not sharing the wealth .
Unless the Democrats succeed in proving themselves to be the party of the 99 percent and successfully show how the Republicans are the 1 percent club—by , for instance , publicizing the true impact of Trump ’ s tax cuts for the rich—the Biden administration will fall victim to charges of elitism , which is a political death sentence these days .
Everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first term in office will apply to Joe Biden in his very real first term .
Trump will never give up on the fantasy that the 2020 election was stolen from him .
He ’ ll continue to rally his followers through social media as well as Breitbart and the One America News Network .
Even if he doesn ’ t have the fire in his 78-year-old belly to run in 2024 , other true believers will eagerly pick up his torch , whether from his own family or a pool of loyalists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Missouri Senator Josh Hawley , and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton .
No matter how well President Biden does in dealing with Covid-19 and how quickly a vaccine comes on line , he ’ ll be saddled with the responsibility for everyone who dies in the pandemic from January 20 on .
Ditto with future economic problems , no matter that they were quite literally dropped in his lap as he entered the Oval Office .
All the faults that Trump ’ s followers refused to see in their own candidate will suddenly be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump , in their eyes , was a man who could do no wrong .
Biden will be the man who can do no right .
A significant percentage of those 71 million Americans will want to make sure that Biden , too , is a one-term president .
Unfortunately , several international examples can serve as models .
Donald Trump promised to turn the world upside down : to throw out the Washington elite , radically shrink government , close off borders , bolster white privilege , and restore American unilateralism .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ t much more than the photo negative of Barack Obama ’ s agenda , but it was a clarion call to shake things up that thrilled his followers .
Thanks to a mixture of bureaucratic inertia , liberal resistance , and his own managerial ineptitude , Trump failed to carry out his revolution—and now the elite has struck back .
The newspapers are full of columnists , Democrats and former Republicans alike , delirious with anti-Trump triumphalism : “ Loser !
, ” “ You ’ re Fired !
, ” “ Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dow Jones is celebrating and Hollywood has popped the bubbly , while the foreign-policy mandarins are looking forward to the return of predictability and their version of stability .
Even the Pentagon , particularly after the shocking post-election dismissal of Defense Secretary Mark Esper , will be relieved to see the end of the disrupter in chief .
But the celebrations may prove premature .
Just consider recent examples of right-wing populist revolutions elsewhere that were stopped in their tracks by elections .
The Trumpian Viktor Orban was the prime minister of Hungary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in office was marked by corruption scandals , tax cuts , and efforts to concentrate power in the hands of the executive .
In the 2002 elections , a coalition of the Socialist and Liberal parties ousted him and , governing for eight years , seemed to have put Orban ’ s brand of authoritarian politics in an early grave .
In the 2010 elections , however , he returned from the political dead and he has since transformed his country from a bastion of liberalism into an autocratic , intolerant , über-Christian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ process , the Socialists became synonymous with a corrupt , economically unjust status quo and the Liberals simply disappeared as a party .
Nor is the Hungarian experience unique .
In Poland , the Law and Justice Party has moved the country ’ s politics steadily rightward since achieving a parliamentary majority in 2015 .
But it , too , had an earlier experience ( from 2005 to 2007 ) as part of a governing coalition .
In between , the more liberal Civic Platform Party took charge , but did little to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ working Poles , ultimately driving ever more voters into the arms of the right-wing Law and Justice Party .
In its second crack at power , those right-wing nationalists did indeed push through a number of economic reforms that began to redistribute wealth in a way that fulfilled their populist promise .
In Japan , right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a brief opportunity to govern in 2006–07 , only to return in 2012 after a failed effort by the opposition Democratic Party to reform Japanese politics .
As the country ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasons in August—he succeeded in making Japan “ great ” again as an inward-looking , jingoistic power .
Right-wing nationalists certainly learned something about wielding power from their first experiences of leadership , while their liberal successors , by failing to offer fully transformational politics , prepared the ground for the return of the right .
After a period of tumultuous rule , most people don ’ t want to jump from a bucking bronco onto another wild horse .
So the prospect of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appointing a competent cabinet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by , among other things , rejoining the World Health Organization , signing on to the Paris climate accords , and welcoming back the Dreamers seems reassuring to many Americans .
It won ’ t , however , be faintly enough to drive a stake through the heart of Trumpism .
In “ The View from 2016 , ” an essay I wrote for TomDispatch in 2007 , I predicted that Barack Obama would win the 2008 election and serve two terms , but also that his administration would make only half-hearted gestures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ climate change , but not committing to deeper cuts in carbon emissions ; canceling a few weapons systems , but not transforming the military-industrial complex ; tweaking the global war on terror , but not ending it ; and so on .
In 2016 , a hungry bear named Donald Trump emerged from the woods and took out Goldilocks .
( Don ’ t say I didn ’ t warn you . )
After four years of bracing for a more conventional apocalypse precipitated perhaps by Trump ’ s itchy nuclear trigger finger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ territory .
More than half the country craves a return to normalcy by dumping Trump and then defeating Covid-19 .
Under the circumstances , it ’ s easy enough to forget that the pre-Trump normal wasn ’ t actually very good .
The world was already in the midst of a climate crisis .
The global economy was providing anything but a fair shake to everyone and so generating a politics of resentment that propelled Trump and his cohort to power .
Countries continued to spend almost $ 2 trillion a year collectively @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaving societies ill-equipped to handle an onrushing pandemic ’ s war on the health of humanity .
Biden should learn this key takeaway from the Obama years : Muddling through not only speeds us toward a Goldilocks apocalypse but makes it so much more likely that another bear will come out of the woods to “ reclaim ” its house .
Let ’ s face it : Biden and Harris are card-carrying members of an elite that ’ s enamored of the Goldilocks middle ground .
The only way they could pivot from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full-blown green economic renewal that benefited America ’ s blue-collar workers while satisfying environmentalists as well .
The blue bloods of the Republican Party will inevitably call such a jobs approach “ socialism.
” The next administration has to push forward nevertheless , appealing over the heads of the Republican leadership to a base that desperately wants prosperity for all .
Remember : Other bears are lurking out there and they seem to have acquired a certain taste for cautious politicians .
Sure , a few disgruntled ursine types will go into hibernation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the hoopla dies down , others will venture out , angry , resentful , and looking for their next big meal .

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
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Imagine for a moment that Hillary Clinton had won the presidential election in 2016.
Imagine, in other words, that the “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania had held firm four years ago. Claiming election fraud, Donald Trump would have insisted on a recount and Election Day would then, too, have stretched into election week and election month. Eventually, Trump would have given up, though not without insisting that the “deep state” had stolen his victory.
Once in office, Clinton would have set to work building on the Obama legacy. The United States would have remained in the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear agreement would still be in force, and perhaps a more robust health care plan might even be in place. Competent civil servants would have taken charge of federal agencies, a tax cut for the wealthy wouldn’t have gone into effect, and the Democrats would have been well positioned in 2020 to reelect the first woman president and build a stronger congressional majority.
America wouldn’t have gone down the rabbit hole of Trumpism. Civic discourse wouldn’t have been coarsened. The country wouldn’t now be in such complete and utter…
Hey, wake up!
If Hillary had somehow managed to eke out a victory in 2016, she would soon enough have faced a Republican Party as hostile to compromise as the one that hamstrung Barack Obama. Opposition from Congress and Republican-controlled states, combined with her own centrist instincts, would have kept the country mired in a failing status quo: an increasingly unequal economy, crumbling infrastructure, a growing carbon footprint, a morbidly obese Pentagon, and other signs of a declining superpower that we’ve come to know so well.
Now, imagine what would have happened when the pandemic struck in 2020. Clinton would have responded more competently than The Donald because virtually anyone over the age of 12 would have been better suited to handle the emergency than he was. Indeed, if the United States had managed Covid-19 with anything faintly approaching the competency of, say, Germany under Angela Merkel, the country would have had, by my calculations, 2.6 million infections and about 45,000 deaths on the eve of the 2020 elections. Current Issue View our current issue
That obviously would be better than the 10 million infections and more than 245,000 deaths the United States is currently experiencing. Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann Popular "swipe left below to view more authors"Swipe → The Evisceration of a Public University The Evisceration of a Public University Lisa M. Corrigan The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks The Patronizing Moralism of David Brooks Chris Lehmann “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash “The Blind Side” Was Always Trash Dave Zirin How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection How the “Brooks Brothers Riot” Set the Stage for Insurrection Chris Lehmann
Keep in mind, however, that Americans wouldn’t have known just how bad the situation could have been. Quite the opposite: Having set up a bully pulpit in an alt-right Fox News–style media conglomerate after his loss in 2016, Donald Trump would have led the charge on Clinton’s “mismanagement” of the pandemic and her direct responsibility for all those deaths. He would have assured us that the resulting economic downturn, with striking numbers of Americans left unemployed, could have been avoided, and that he as president would have prevented both those deaths and business cutbacks by immediately closing all borders and deporting any suspicious foreigners. He would have labeled the president “Killer Clinton” and, given the misogyny of significant parts of the American electorate, the name would have stuck.
In 2020, Donald Trump would have run on a platform of making America great again and won in a landslide.
Don’t, however, think of this as just some passing exercise in alternative history. Substitute “Joe Biden” for “Hillary Clinton” in the passages you’ve just read and you’ll have a grim but plausible prediction of what could happen over the next four years.
On the Road to 2024
Hillary Clinton would have faced challenges of every sort if she’d won the presidency in 2016. They nonetheless pale in comparison to what now awaits Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The Republicans are already gunning for the new president. They’re blocking the transition process to handicap the incoming administration. President Trump has forbidden federal agencies from even cooperating with the Biden-Harris team. The 2020 presidential election forms part of the Republican Party’s denialism trifecta: The pandemic, climate change, and now Biden’s victory are all simply liberal “myths.”
The Republican Party will either control the Senate—pending the outcome of two runoff races in Georgia—or, at least, be able to disrupt any major pieces of legislation. The Biden administration will be hard-pressed to roll back the tax cuts the Republicans handed out to the wealthy in 2017, pass a major green infrastructure bill, or expand affordable health care.
When Biden tries to implement a nationally cohesive program to combat Covid-19 through more testing, tracing, and investment in medical equipment, he’s guaranteed to face resistance from a number of Republican governors who have refused even to mandate the wearing of masks. And then there are all those Republican-appointed judges just itching to rule on any legal challenges to Biden’s executive orders, not to speak of a Supreme Court now located in the bleachers beyond right field that will serve as an even greater constraint on an activist agenda.
And those are just the political obstacles. The pandemic is clearly spiraling out of control. The economy has yet to crawl out of its hole. And Donald Trump has a couple of more months to scorch the earth before his army of incompetents are driven out of Washington, D.C.
Then there are the 71 million Americans who just voted for him despite his criminal conduct, gross mismanagement, and near-psychotic view of the world. Short of a nationwide deprogramming campaign, the adherents of the Trump cult will continue to cling to their religion (and their guns). In the Biden years, they’re sure to form an industrial-strength Tea Party opposed to any move the federal government makes. And let’s be clear: Their resistance will not be exactly Gandhian in nature.
At the same time, it’s essential to separate their illegitimate complaints laced with racism and misogyny from their all-too-legitimate grievances concerning the American economy. Much of Trump’s base sees that economy, quite correctly, as unfair and the elite as not sharing the wealth. Unless the Democrats succeed in proving themselves to be the party of the 99 percent and successfully show how the Republicans are the 1 percent club—by, for instance, publicizing the true impact of Trump’s tax cuts for the rich—the Biden administration will fall victim to charges of elitism, which is a political death sentence these days.
Everything that Hillary Clinton faced during her hypothetical first term in office will apply to Joe Biden in his very real first term. Trump will never give up on the fantasy that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He’ll continue to rally his followers through social media as well as Breitbart and the One America News Network. Even if he doesn’t have the fire in his 78-year-old belly to run in 2024, other true believers will eagerly pick up his torch, whether from his own family or a pool of loyalists that includes Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
No matter how well President Biden does in dealing with Covid-19 and how quickly a vaccine comes on line, he’ll be saddled with the responsibility for everyone who dies in the pandemic from January 20 on. Ditto with future economic problems, no matter that they were quite literally dropped in his lap as he entered the Oval Office. All the faults that Trump’s followers refused to see in their own candidate will suddenly be magnified in their vision of Biden.
Trump, in their eyes, was a man who could do no wrong. Biden will be the man who can do no right. A significant percentage of those 71 million Americans will want to make sure that Biden, too, is a one-term president.
Unfortunately, several international examples can serve as models.
The Liberal Interregnum
Beware the right-wing revolutionary movement thwarted.
Donald Trump promised to turn the world upside down: to throw out the Washington elite, radically shrink government, close off borders, bolster white privilege, and restore American unilateralism. As a platform, it wasn’t much more than the photo negative of Barack Obama’s agenda, but it was a clarion call to shake things up that thrilled his followers.
Thanks to a mixture of bureaucratic inertia, liberal resistance, and his own managerial ineptitude, Trump failed to carry out his revolution—and now the elite has struck back. The newspapers are full of columnists, Democrats and former Republicans alike, delirious with anti-Trump triumphalism: “Loser!,” “You’re Fired!,” “Our Long National Nightmare Is Over.” The Dow Jones is celebrating and Hollywood has popped the bubbly, while the foreign-policy mandarins are looking forward to the return of predictability and their version of stability. Even the Pentagon, particularly after the shocking post-election dismissal of Defense Secretary Mark Esper, will be relieved to see the end of the disrupter in chief.
But the celebrations may prove premature. Just consider recent examples of right-wing populist revolutions elsewhere that were stopped in their tracks by elections.
The Trumpian Viktor Orban was the prime minister of Hungary from 1998 to 2002. His time in office was marked by corruption scandals, tax cuts, and efforts to concentrate power in the hands of the executive. In the 2002 elections, a coalition of the Socialist and Liberal parties ousted him and, governing for eight years, seemed to have put Orban’s brand of authoritarian politics in an early grave.
In the 2010 elections, however, he returned from the political dead and he has since transformed his country from a bastion of liberalism into an autocratic, intolerant, über-Christian friend of Vladimir Putin. In the process, the Socialists became synonymous with a corrupt, economically unjust status quo and the Liberals simply disappeared as a party.
Nor is the Hungarian experience unique. In Poland, the Law and Justice Party has moved the country’s politics steadily rightward since achieving a parliamentary majority in 2015. But it, too, had an earlier experience (from 2005 to 2007) as part of a governing coalition. In between, the more liberal Civic Platform Party took charge, but did little to improve the livelihoods of the bulk of working Poles, ultimately driving ever more voters into the arms of the right-wing Law and Justice Party. In its second crack at power, those right-wing nationalists did indeed push through a number of economic reforms that began to redistribute wealth in a way that fulfilled their populist promise.
In Japan, right-wing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had a brief opportunity to govern in 2006–07, only to return in 2012 after a failed effort by the opposition Democratic Party to reform Japanese politics. As the country’s longest-serving prime minister—Abe stepped down for health reasons in August—he succeeded in making Japan “great” again as an inward-looking, jingoistic power.
Right-wing nationalists certainly learned something about wielding power from their first experiences of leadership, while their liberal successors, by failing to offer fully transformational politics, prepared the ground for the return of the right. After a period of tumultuous rule, most people don’t want to jump from a bucking bronco onto another wild horse. So the prospect of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris appointing a competent cabinet and returning to the status quo ante by, among other things, rejoining the World Health Organization, signing on to the Paris climate accords, and welcoming back the Dreamers seems reassuring to many Americans. It won’t, however, be faintly enough to drive a stake through the heart of Trumpism.
Apocalypse Later?
In “The View from 2016,” an essay I wrote for TomDispatch in 2007, I predicted that Barack Obama would win the 2008 election and serve two terms, but also that his administration would make only half-hearted gestures at reform—abiding by the Kyoto protocol on climate change, but not committing to deeper cuts in carbon emissions; canceling a few weapons systems, but not transforming the military-industrial complex; tweaking the global war on terror, but not ending it; and so on.
Apocalypse, I concluded,
comes in many different forms. There are the dramatic effects of sword and fire and famine. And then there’s the apocalypse of muddling through. That’s what happens when you just carry on with the same old, same old and before you know it, poof, end of the world. It’s an apocalypse that’s neither too cold nor too hot, neither too hard nor too soft. It’s the apocalypse of the middle, the Goldilocks apocalypse.
In 2016, a hungry bear named Donald Trump emerged from the woods and took out Goldilocks. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
After four years of bracing for a more conventional apocalypse precipitated perhaps by Trump’s itchy nuclear trigger finger, we’re back in Goldilocks territory. More than half the country craves a return to normalcy by dumping Trump and then defeating Covid-19. Under the circumstances, it’s easy enough to forget that the pre-Trump normal wasn’t actually very good. The world was already in the midst of a climate crisis. The global economy was providing anything but a fair shake to everyone and so generating a politics of resentment that propelled Trump and his cohort to power. Countries continued to spend almost $2 trillion a year collectively on war and preparations for it, leaving societies ill-equipped to handle an onrushing pandemic’s war on the health of humanity.
Biden should learn this key takeaway from the Obama years: Muddling through not only speeds us toward a Goldilocks apocalypse but makes it so much more likely that another bear will come out of the woods to “reclaim” its house.
Let’s face it: Biden and Harris are card-carrying members of an elite that’s enamored of the Goldilocks middle ground. The only way they could pivot from that position would be by implementing a full-blown green economic renewal that benefited America’s blue-collar workers while satisfying environmentalists as well. The blue bloods of the Republican Party will inevitably call such a jobs approach “socialism.” The next administration has to push forward nevertheless, appealing over the heads of the Republican leadership to a base that desperately wants prosperity for all.
Remember: Other bears are lurking out there and they seem to have acquired a certain taste for cautious politicians. Sure, a few disgruntled ursine types will go into hibernation after the 2020 election. But when the hoopla dies down, others will venture out, angry, resentful, and looking for their next big meal.