Why There Will Be No Blue Wave in the 2018 Midterm Elections
Trump’s Winning v. Democrats’ Whining
As the 2018 mid-term elections draw near, there has been quite a bit of talk about a Democratic “blue wave” resulting in the Democrats snapping up congressional seats as a public backlash against Donald Trump’s presidency. But as in 2016, those pumping up the blue wave scenario are going to be disappointed. Despite the Democrats’ and the mainstream media’s attempts to saddle the former television reality personality with scandal after scandal, he’s scored some important political victories in the short time he has been president.
At the same time, the scandals keep falling apart, the President has spent a lot of time talking about substantive things that can be done to improve the economy and has been making those things happen. The Democrats, on the other hand, have offered nothing other than their tired mantra from 2016, “Stop Trump”, and appear to be focusing all of their energies on being obstructionist. Below are some specifics.
Trump’s Victories
Tax Cuts and Jobs Act
First was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that passed earlier this year. President Trump promised that people should start seeing a difference in their paychecks within weeks of the bill being signed into law. This may not have occurred for everybody, but many people actually saw this promise delivered. What do you think the chances are that these people are going to turn out to vote Democrat in the mid-term elections?
Peace with North Korea
Relations between the United States and North Korea during the first several months of the Donald Trump presidency seemed like the two nations were on a collision course for war. While plenty of credit for the friction between the two countries can be attributed to the Tweeter-in-Chief, himself, the fact that the Trump Administration was able to turn such sour relations around and secure a public commitment of nuclear disarmament from North Korea was no small diplomatic feat.
The fact that many voices in the mainstream media and the political left tried to spin this event negatively, focusing on the kind of leader Kim Jong-un is (which is horrible), rather than on the victory for peace, only served to legitimize Trump’s claims that he can’t get a fair shake from either the Democrats or the mainstream media. How do you criticize a president for averting war?
Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation to the US Supreme Court
Over the last decade or so, the feminist movement in this country has moved well beyond advocating for equal rights and equal treatment for women to advocating for privileged status for women. While that’s a topic for another discussion, this ideology was running a muck during Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination process. The political left was willing to ruin a man’s life over unsubstantiated allegations that he acted pervy over thirty years ago as s drunk teenager at a party.
The Liberals’ unquestioning support for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, and their willingness to hang Brett Kavanaugh on such conflicting evidence not only further discredits the political left and the Democratic Party in the eyes of the of public at large, but it also completely distracted from Brett Kavanaugh’s atrocious positions and record regarding civil liberties, privacy and torture. There was plenty of reason to fight Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, but none of that entered the public discourse.
The Democrats and the Political Left are Now the Haters
I probably haven’t covered everything that Trump could claim as a victory, but you get the picture. More important than Trump’s wins is the Democrats’ and the greater political left’s never-ending temper tantrum since the 2016 election. Democrats have been lying to themselves about why Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Lies like angry white men turned out to reject Obama or angry white men couldn’t fathom a woman president. These may play well inside the echo chamber, but they don’t address the real problems with the Democratic Party and the political left since the Obama presidency.
The Obama Shift
In my younger days, the Democratic Party and the political left in the United States stood against discrimination of any kind against anyone. They also stood for peace and were staunch defenders of civil liberties, especially freedom of speech and freedom of the press. But under the Obama Administration, something shifted. As it became increasingly clear that Barack Obama was continuing and expanding some of the ugliest policies of the Bush-Cheney Administration, such as expanding the police state, expanding the war on terror, and infringing on civil liberties, the political left in this country stopped questioning those policies.
Advocating for Belligerence
Not only did the American political left give Barack Obama a pass as he launched unprovoked wars a war with Libya and Syria, they’ve gone on to champion a new cold war with Russia and even criticized Trump for making peace with North Korea. While traditional Republicans are quite happy to go along with anything that expands US military imperialism abroad and fattens military industry coffers, the Democrats have ceded ideological territory that used to give people a reason to vote Democrat.
Advocating Racism, Sexism and Privilege
Wait, what?? Did I just say that liberals discriminate?? Yes, and if you have a problem with that, then I would ask you to check how you define those terms. Racism is not just discrimination by whites of non-whites. Racism is discrimination against people based on their race. Furthermore, sexism is not discrimination against women by men. It is discrimination of one or more people based on their gender. The key here is people being discriminated against based on an immutable characteristic, not only people with certain demographics.
In the ultimate hypocrisy and betrayal of traditional democratic principles, the American political left no longer seeks to fight discrimination against people who have historically been discriminated against in Western civilization, but rather are advocating and engaging in discrimination against whites and males, as well as advocating for privilege of those who can chalk up more notches on the discrimination bar. This shift becomes increasingly obvious by the actions of Democratic politicians and mainstream news and entertainment media.
Some notable recent examples of this disturbing behavior are:
- Senator Chuck Schumer openly stating that he would not vote for one of Trump’s federal judicial nominees earlier this year because the nominee, Marvin Quattlebaum, was a white male.
- The implosion of the Star Wars franchise by Disney execs who tried to push an agenda to paint all men as buffoons and all women as brilliant heroes. And what was with making Lando pansexual?
- The left’s insistence that everyone just believe Chrstine Blasey Ford’s story against Brett Kavanaugh despite the issues highlighted earlier. This signals the notion that if a woman accuses a man of wrong doing, the presumption should be she is telling the truth and he is lying if he denies it. This also requires a complete rejection of the notion of innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in our criminal justice system.
It’s (still) the economy, stupid
I could go on, after all I didn’t even get into the whole Stormy Daniels thing. But the real take away is this. While the left is busy virtue-signaling, male-bashing and Trump-hating, Donald Trump is using a strategy taken straight from Bill Clinton’s old playbook. In the 1992 presidential election campaign, the Clinton camp’s internal mantra was “the economy stupid”, a phrase coined by Democratic political strategist, James Carville. In other words, people care about having a job, being able to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads and that’s what people running for office need to address.
In the run up to the 1992 US Presidential Election, incumbent George H.W. Bush was a Washington insider that came from a rich, oil family. The American economy was stagnating and Clinton was taking Bush to task on the economic suffering of the American people. But the only thing the Republicans could come up with in opposition was to question Clinton’s “values and character”. Sound familiar?
Bush and the Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a pot-smoking, womanizing, draft-dodger. They were actually correct about that, but they weren’t addressing the people’s concerns or talking about solutions. Clinton, on the other hand, was talking about “feeling your pain” and “a place called Hope” and, more importantly, he was talking about fixing the economy.
All the Republicans’ had was a “stop Clinton’s hippie liberal agenda” platform and it made them look both petty and out of touch. Clinton promised to address the things every day Americans were concerned with, the economy stupid. In light of the two strategies, a Clinton victory with a Democratically controlled House and Senate is easy to understand.
In 2016, there was a similar dichotomy that is continuing today into the 2018 midterm elections because the Democrats won’t step out of the echo chamber. Personally, I don’t care for any of them, from George H.W. Bush all the way down the line to Donald Trump. But I know politics. And I know that when all you’ve got to offer is virtue signaling and “stop the guy who looks like he’s getting things done”, you shouldn’t expect to make any waves.
The Political New Report was created in the interests of informing the public and we need your help. Please share this article and website on social media, and also like and subscribe so other like-minded people can find this content.
Resource Links:
- Chuck Schumer will vote against this judicial nominee just because he’s white, The Washington Examiner, March 1, 2018
- Hillary Clinton for President button image credit: BigStockPhoto
