11.07.2018 05:39 PM

Doesn’t feel like we lost

The Democrats, after last night:



36 Comments

  1. James Smith says:

    I kept myself in a news black-out until 11pm so I wouldn’t stress about any early Confederate-er-that-is-to-say-Republican leads. Pity about TX & FL.
    IMHO Dems needs to:
    -Be seen to be able to “work” with the other side
    -Not look like Benhazi on steroids in getting to the truth about Mango
    – Push an aspirational agenda

    Oh, and find a cure to cancer, raise wages & a way for Black & White people to live in peace & harmony. Easy

  2. Gord Tulk says:

    Three more senate seats and a couple squeakers away from 56-44. Senate is now far more conservative as Mitch can ignore the cinos – Murkowski and Collins. Huge win for conservatism.

    Literally over 100 more new judges with respect for the constitution in the next two years and possibly one or more new SCOTUS noms. And perhaps replacement of old conservative SC judges with younger ones (that was RBG’s big mistake).

    A Dem house will have to cooperate with Trump or look like fools and move even further to the left. He’s going to put forward deals on immigration and infrastructure that will divide them and enrage the resistance.

    Over fifty house dems promise not to vote for Pelosi. Look for 40 of them to make that the first promise they break.

    But the biggest losers by far: the MSM and the celebrity left.

    • doconnor says:

      By respect for the constitution, I assume you mean more rights for corporations and fewer for minorities.

      The Republicans refused to cooperate on the Democrats reasonable ideas on health care reform that resulted in Obamacare and where richly rewarded.

      • Gord Tulk says:

        Their was no way any Dems we’re going to vote for any healthcare reform bill brought forward.

        Judges who rule based on the constitution as written. Don’t like it? Change the constitution. letting judges write laws is the road to totalitarianism.

        • doconnor says:

          I was taking about the Obamacare debates in 2008 that lead to large Republican wave in 2010.

          Conservative judges rule based on the constitution and liberal judges rule based on the constitution, yet somehow their ruling usually align with conservative and liberal ideology.

          • The Doctor says:

            Well exactly. And this mantra from right-wingers that only left wing judges are “activists” is a steaming pile of BS. A lot of the pro-gun case law on the second amendment right to bear arms has been extremely activist in recent years, going way beyond what the second amendment actually says or ever contemplated. At least with respect to the second amendment cases, right-wing judges have been at least as “activist” as any left-leaning judges, and arguably far more so.

    • Gord Tulk says:

      You mean like gerrymandering in Illinois and Pennsylvania?

      Florida, Ohio, PA and Mi now look like red states according to vote totals.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Art,

      Most seats up by far were incumbent Democrats. Had the equation been reversed, sure the Dems would have easily won a Senate majority.

      It just wasn’t possible under the basic 2018 political arithmetic.

    • James Smith says:

      I get that if you actually interact with REAL people in the REAL world with your odd PoV that “FOLKS” probably look to heaven when you opine. But dude, holy cow!
      I frankly love reading that when you step in a metaphorical turd you don’t wipe, you revel in it like a stray dog might.

  3. Jack says:

    If there was any loser that night, it was the GOP.

    You don’t lose absolute power over Congress and still call it a win – now matter how strong your hold over the Senate is. They had two years and their crowning achievement is one broadly unpopular tax cut.

    Since it’s election, the Trump admin has yet to face a real test from the Congress. They are now going to spend the next two years spinning themselves out of control under the investigative powers of the House and I genuinely do not think they are going to be able to withstand the slightest of pressure.

    Any notion of normal governance is gone for the next two years as Trump will surely be consumed by his own backlog of controversies, and the ones to come.

  4. Peter says:

    Nobody won and nobody lost. The Dems scored some important gains, but not too many by mid-term standards. While Trump was rebuked, he was far from repudiated. Both parties can now block legislation, but Trump still controls the executive, judicial appointments and foreign policy

    It seems clear to me that full-bore resistance to everything Trump says or does (together with shrill screams of every insulting epithet one can think of) has passed its sell-by date and would be a very risky strategy for 2020. No one expects a collegial Congress, but there is going to be pressure on both parties to show how they think they can make government work, and that means being open to working with the enemy. Given the razor thin margins of victory of so many races Tuesday, they’d be idiots to just play to their partisan bases.

    • Fred from BC says:

      “Nobody won and nobody lost. The Dems scored some important gains, but not too many by mid-term standards.”

      Agreed. Traditionally, the government loses the midterms anyway, as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both did (Obama lost both the House *and* the Senate). The Democrats won roughly half as many seats as would normally have been taken.

      “While Trump was rebuked, he was far from repudiated.”

      Absolutely. The so-called “Blue Wave” crashed up against the breakwater of the Senate. Despite Hollywood celebrity endorsements and more millions of dollars than had ever been spent before, they failed to elect several key candidates who were thought to be unbeatable. Many (if not most) of the Republicans who were knocked off were Trump opponents anyway.

      “It seems clear to me that full-bore resistance to everything Trump says or does (together with shrill screams of every insulting epithet one can think of) has passed its sell-by date and would be a very risky strategy for 2020. ”

      You’d think that, wouldn’t you?

      Problem is, far too many middle-aged men and women are reduced to the level of tantrum-throwing children where Donald Trump is concerned (the key component of TDS is *derangement*, after all). Many of them are normal, rational and mature adults in every other aspect of their daily lives, but something about Trump just pushes them over the edge. I’d like to think that they can buckle down, control themselves and make some smart decisions but already there is talk of tax returns, investigations, subpoenas, impeachment and a whole lot of other vengeful crap (only some of which they can actually pull off, despite all the bluster and bravado) that will play right into the hands of Trump and ensure his re-election.

      I’m not hopeful. They haven’t been able to act like adults so far (I’ll bet they wish the Kavanaugh fiasco that won the Republicans the Senate had never happened, for one); we’ll know soon enough if they can pull it off this time.

      • doconnor says:

        The problem is that we don’t understand why everyone else can’t see he is obviously a blithering idiot.

        • Fred from BC says:

          …and that lack of understanding then forces you to act like recalcitrant children yourselves?

          (I’ll never understand liberals…)

        • Peter says:

          I know you don’t understand that, just as you don’t understand why so many people voted for Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Brexit , Harper, Ford, anti-EU and anti-mass immigration parties, etc. etc,. And because you don’t understand, you openly dismiss those who did as every bit as idiotic (or worse) as you say he is. I don’t know how many electoral losses and disappointments progressives are going to suffer before the penny drops that maybe it has something to do with them, but I’m not holding my breath. Self-criticism is not your strong suit.

          • doconnor says:

            I understand people have poor understanding of problems in areas outside thier expertise and think the first thing that pops into thier head is the best solution. Politicians campaign promising those simplistic solutions, knowing they are wrong.

            Sometimes there are politicians, like Ford, who can’t learn beyond the simple solutions. People like them because they can tell they aren’t lying when they spout thier simple solutions.

            Then there is Trump who spouts simple solutions, but on top of that there is the extream narcissism and the ridiculous lies, like that there terrorists hiding in the migrent caravan or millions people voted illegally in the 2016 election.

          • Peter says:

            I think over the past two years progressives have discovered the beauty of simplistic solutions. Whatever Trump is for, they’re against.

          • doconnor says:

            Peter, can you provide any examples where progressives changed thier position because Trump supported something?

      • Ronald O'Dowd says:

        Fred,

        Our buddy Mitch has predetermined exactly how the Dems will conduct themselves in the House. In two words: Merrick Garland.

        Good on the Democrats!

        • Fred from BC says:

          Like I said…they do that, and Trump gets re-elected. They deliberately obstruct him as much as possible, throw meaningless subpoenas at him and threaten ‘investigations’, and he LOVES it. He becomes a martyr, and every failure gets blamed on the obstructionist tactics of the Democrats. They can’t hurt him badly enough to be worth the really bad optics, and in the end, they just don’t have the power to do anything but drag their own reputations even further into the mud…

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Peter,

      You discount the Democrats newly obtained nuclear option — it’s called a subpoena and will be absolutely devastating across any number of Trump fronts.

  5. Pedro says:

    I love the comments on this blog (only a little bit tongue in cheek). Some good comments – reasonable people see that the Trump presidency is doing so much under the (dumb, eyeball-&-dollar chasing media) radar to reshape Americans’ day to day life and those delivering the government – i.e. judges. Peter seems to be astute. We all view the world from within a bubble – I LOVE trying to imagine the view from inside a liberal bubble. This place let’s me do it better. And gives me a good laugh!

  6. Peter says:

    You sound like you’ve already put the beer on ice and are popping some corn in eager anticipation of the show. I don’t know where you think that would go in the end or why you think that would lead the Dems to victory, but I can’t see it. Look, for two years we’ve watched the progressive side scream and holler nonstop about the-horror-that-is-Trump, how he’s not a legitimate president and how the sky will fall in if he isn’t sent packing pronto. In this, they’ve had the open support of the mainstream MSM, Hollywood big names and countless bien pensants. And those midterms results are the best they could do?

    Polls show the Dems are on the right side of public opinion on several issues: healthcare, student debt, some tax issues, infrastructure, racial and ethnic inclusiveness, etc. (they’re on the wrong side of some too, like immigration enforcement and identity politics advocacy). If they ran hard on those they could take it, especially as the GOP is playing with fire in not denouncing extremist fringes, but if they jump into a quagmire of legal anti-Trumpism that everybody knows won’t result in his removal and the Dem primaries end up being a competition as to who can throw the shrillest invective at Trump, they may delight the troops they already have, but persuade independents and the non-aligned? I wouldn’t bet much on it.

    Do you remember robocalls? Canadian progressives went apoplectic , called for the nullification of the election, launched legal challenges, etc., but the one thing they couldn’t do is produce anyone who would swear those calls affected his of her vote. As far as I can tell, the Dems have yet to produce a voter who will swear they changed their vote from Hillary to Trump because of any Russian involvement. Not the point, you say? Yes, Virginia, it’s very much the point.

    • Peter says:

      Sorry, that was a reply to Ronald.

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Peter,

      I got one of those robocalls telling me to vote at the advanced polls address even if it was on election day. Can’t remember now if they said they were EC or the Liberals. In any event, no harm done as I had already voted during the AP. (They sure didn’t say they were the CPC. LOL.)

    • Ronald O'Dowd says:

      Peter,

      Over at my place, I put out a list as long as my arm of how Trump could conceivably be seriously damaged by the House’s subpoena power. I won’t bore you with all that.

      Suffice it to say the following: taxes, bank accounts, condo sales, shell companies, etc.

      Put another way, there’s a REAL doozy of a reason why Chairman Nunes acted precisely the way he did…

  7. Nicole says:

    It’s actually quite disturbing to read how some here are fine with Trump wearing down the rule of law, and conventional norms day by day. He’s not remotely the same as Bush, Reagan, Harper or even Ford. He’s not even conservative. He’s ripping off his own country and these jobs you claim he has created have failed to appear. There is a reason why the Midwest turned democratic this year. The jobs aren’t there. He has increased the debt exponentially with nothing to show for it. At least when Democrats spend money there are some entitlement programs created. I suppose most of you think you know more than people like Bill Kristol, David Frum all of whom certainly aren’t progressive but condemn this man because he is a danger to their country. It’s easy to make theoretical arguments from the northern border, but if the US truly becomes an authoritarian state, just what can Canada do about it? Can we set up the mass militarization we need to protect ourselves? Or are we doomed to be a vassal state. It won’t matter which party is in office if this happens. The democrats winning the house is a necessary check and they will have to investigate certain things because in two years trump has continually pushed the limits and won’t stop unless he is forced to.
    Many here post the same thing over and over, which contains some form of glee that trump is owning the libs as if the destruction of liberal democracy is cute. This is something we all need to worry about. There is no choice but to oppose him because the moderate GOP who tried to play the middle ground are gone. Being cynically detached from this is irresponsible.

    • Peter says:

      Nicole, we’re all Canadians here. The hard reality is that whether we oppose him, defend him or just accept him as a reality to be dealt with, it’s not going to make any difference. As to our neighbours to the south, you are probably going to get your wish.. Good luck, but I still say you are betting the pot on black.

      I pretty much agree with what you say about modern conservatism and how Trump isn’t one. My only caveat is , who is these days?

    • The Doctor says:

      Very true. The whole Trump supporter value system seems to be: if it winds up liberals, it must be good.

  8. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Nicole,

    Very well said.

    Thanks.

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