In the Age of Trump, Will Democrats Sell Out More, Or Less?
Over the weekend, polls showed that that the Trump-fueled collapse of the Republican Party is reaching historic depths. According to CNN, the GOP’s approval rating is now down to 32 percent, the lowest level in over two decades. It probably won’t be trending up anytime soon, either, now that the Trump campaign is turning “you can’t rape your spouse” into this week’s political catchphrase.
News of the Republican approval-rating slide came not long after the release of a Gallup survey showing that 32 percent of Americans now believe animals should have the same rights as people. That number is likely to keep climbing – though one can’t say the same for the GOP’s numbers, given the nation’s demographic situation. Animals are now a better political futures bet than Republicans.
This is leading to a lot of “the witch is dead”–style celebrating among Democrats. Many believe Trump has triggered a long-overdue Credibility Event Horizon that will sink the loony right forever as a mainstream force.
“Donald Trump is Democrats’ greatest gift,” applauded The Globalist, via Salon. “As Donald Trump surges in polls, Democrats cheer,” countered The Washington Post. Even before Trump surged in the polls, Democrats were smacking their lips, a la DNC spokeswoman Holly Schulman, who cheekily applauded Trump for bringing “seriousness” to the Republican debate.
For sheer entertainment value, the Trump-as-political-anvil phenomenon is pretty hilarious. But history shows that if the Republican Party pushes further in the direction of brainless nativism and economic reaction, the Democrats will probably follow right behind them.
Theoretically, the collapse of the GOP should mean we can ease up on the whole “we must accept the lesser evil” argument. After all, the Greater Evil is now shooting itself in the face on TV every day.
But it turns out that mainstream Democrats believe just the opposite – that with the GOP spiraling, the party should now brook even less dissent within their ranks. They’d like a primary season with no debate at all, apparently.
We saw a preview of how this rotten dynamic will work last week, when former Democratic congressman and current Signature Bank board member Barney Frank wrote a piece for Politico entitled “Why Progressives Shouldn’t Support Bernie.”
Frank’s core point is that progressive voters should terminate all discussion even before the beginning of the primary season, and jump on board with the frontrunner Hillary Clinton, so she can save her money to fight the evil Trumps of the world:
“Of course it is not only possible to accept the legitimacy of Clinton’s liberal-progressive credentials and still prefer that [Vermont Senator Bernie] Sanders be president….But wishful thinking is no way to win the presidency. There is not only no chance — perhaps regrettably — for Sanders to win a national election. A long primary campaign will only erode the benefit Democrats are now poised to reap from the Republicans’ free-for-all.”
This isn’t about Hillary. The lesser evil argument has been a consistent feature of Democratic Party thought dating all the way back to the late Reagan years, long before Hillary Clinton was herself a candidate. The argument always hits the same notes:
–The essentially antiwar, anti-inequality platform progressives want will never win a national election in this country, because McGovern, etc.
–Therefore we must instead support corporate-sponsored Candidate A, who will help us bridge the fundraising gap with the evil Republicans.
–And we should vote for Candidate A anyway, because even though he doesn‘t always (or even often) show it with his votes, deep down, he‘s a true believer on the issues.
Frank hit all of these notes in his piece, with special emphasis on point #3. He insisted that people like Hillary, John Kerry and Joe Biden didn’t mean it when they voted for the Iraq War, that they only did it out of political expediency. “I regard liberal senators’ support for the Iraq War as a response to a given fraught political situation,” Frank wrote, “rather than an indication of their basic policy stance.”