It’s time to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public — and the press

On Thursday, I complained about Adam Schiff. I said California’s junior senator was acting more like a schoolmarm than a politician. He could have said the inbound criminal president is an inbound criminal president. Instead, he said Donald Trump should be more genteel.

I don’t want to cast the Democrats as monolithic, though. While Schiff is unique in his milquetoastiness, others are showing grit. I was glad, for instance, to read about Dick Durbin and his reaction to Trump’s pick to head the FBI. Durbin will be the Senate minority whip. He told his caucus to “reject this unprecedented effort to weaponize the FBI for the campaign of retribution that Donald Trump has promised.”

That’s more like it, but the liberal resistance to America’s totalitarian drift shouldn’t stop with Kash Patel. The Senate Democrats should vote against every one of Trump’s cabinet nominees. They should, not only because they are terrible – terribly unfit, unqualified and corrupt – but also because that’s good politics. There’s no downside to opposing what will be the worst administration of our lifetimes. There’s no upside to the Democrats being reasonable in the face of it.

Indeed, the Democrats have a chance to break a vicious cycle, and with that, put themselves in a better position when the time is right.

What cycle?

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Whenever the Democrats are in power, the Republicans manufacture a makebelieve crisis – for instance, “open borders.” They do this for the purpose of pushing the Democrats out. Once they are back, the Republicans trigger a real crisis – for instance, the covid pandemic. At that point, the Democrats say to voters, “look at this mess!” They vow to clean it up. Once the Democrats are in power again, the Republicans begin scheming for ways to manufacture another makebelieve crisis.

Equally predictable is that the Democrats do not lead. They do not say in advance of a harmful, lasting crisis that the Republicans, once they have returned to power, are going to trigger it, as they have every time they have been in power since 2000. The Democrats do not say, once the Republicans have triggered it, that this crisis is what happens when democracy empowers grifters who care about themselves more than the people. And the Democrats do not blame the Republicans for triggering the crisis as they inevitably face difficulties in fixing it.

There’s more.

Instead of leading public opinion, the Democrats outsource that risk and responsibility to an amoral Washington press corps that they can only hope will communicate, accurately and in good faith, all the harms done by the Republicans. Then and only then do the Democrats offer solutions to the public. They never say “I told you so” when they have every right to say it. And because they don’t say it, the Democrats expose themselves to the idea that the crisis wasn’t caused by bad people making bad choices for bad reasons. Instead, the crisis was God’s doing, not the GOP’s, and as such, the Democrats put themselves in the position of having to accept full responsibility for failing to fix it. The Republicans, meanwhile, never do that. They blame-blame-blame, therefore setting the Democrats up for their next makebelieve crisis.

The Democrats, starting with the ones in the Senate, have a chance to break this cycle. Instead of following public opinion, they can lead it by voting unanimously against every one of Trump’s cabinet picks after declaring, in one form or another during confirmation hearings, that:

• the Trump administration will be the worst of our lifetimes;
• it will trigger another harmful, lasting crisis, as it did last time;
• all Trump’s campaign promises are going to be exposed as lies;
• and this is what happens when democracy empowers grifters who care about themselves more than the American people.

In doing this, the Democrats can create power where they currently have little. Make the allegations now – repeatedly, aggressively and, if need be, with righteous fury. Dismiss questions about whether this is bad behavior. The press corps never asks the Republicans why they blame the Democrats for everything. Have faith in that something bad is going to happen, because something bad has always happened whenever the Republicans have power. When the bad thing does indeed happen, point to it as proof of the allegations that have been made the entire time, elevating the Democrats over the Republicans. Then, when the time is right, declare loudly and proudly that the Republicans were wrong. They’re incompetent and corrupt and selfish. They don’t care about the people. We know because look at this mess!

In other words, I told you.

Some liberals will say that “I told you so” won’t move any Trump voters. It might come off as elitist. It might backfire. Don’t bother doing it.

I don’t have the time or patience for that kind of surrender-in-advance thinking. The point isn’t to move voters. It’s to decimate the Republicans’ standing with the public and the press. The thing is, we know they are going to trigger another crisis. George W. Bush did it – the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Donald Trump did it – the covid pandemic and the resulting spikes in inflation. Trump is going to do it again. The Democrats would be fools to waste such an opportunity.

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