The left’s contempt is going to reelect Trump
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democrats have a new theory for how they can win back Congress and the White House. Just like “ soccer moms ” helped put Bill Clinton in the Oval Office in 1996, and “ NASCAR dads ” helped George W. Bush win in 2004, Donald Trump, the theory goes, was elected because of “ #NeverHillary ” voters who didn’t particularly like him but despised her. Axios reports that Democrats are targeting the “20% of Trump’s voters [who] told exit pollsters they didn’t like him,” hoping these reluctant Trump voters will help power a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms and defeat President Trump in 2020.
One problem with that theory: The left’s nonstop, over-the-top attacks on President Trump are not peeling those voters away from him; they are pushing them further into the president’s camp.
In recent weeks, Trump derangement syndrome on the left has reached critical mass. First, there was Robert De Niro’s “F--- Trump” tirade at the Tony awards, followed by Samantha Bee’s calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c---” on her TV show. Then the owners of the Red Hen restaurant threw out White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders because she works for the president, while chanting protesters heckled Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) added fuel to the fire by openly calling on mobs of left-wing activists to “absolutely harass” Trump officials. Then there were the countless Trump opponents in the media, Congress and on Twitter who compared family separations at the southern border to Nazi Germany, and the Time magazine cover depicting Trump staring down heartlessly at a crying migrant girl and implying she was separated from her mother (until it emerged that she had not in fact been separated from her mother). And now come the threats to block Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before he has even nominated one.
How do liberals think that 20 percent of reluctant Trump voters respond to these displays of unbridled contempt? They are outraged not at Trump but at his critics. The unhinged hatred for the president makes these voters almost reflexively defend him.
Don’t take my word for it. The New York Times recently interviewed dozens of tepid Trump voters who explained how the incessant attacks are causing them to rally around the president. “Gina Anders knows the feeling well by now,” the Times reports. “President Trump says or does something that triggers a spasm of outrage. She doesn’t necessarily agree with how he handled the situation. She gets why people are upset.” But Anders, who the Times says has “not a stitch of ‘Make America Great Again’ gear in her wardrobe, is moved to defend him anyway.” When she hears the “overblown” attacks on Trump, she says, “it makes me angry at them, which causes me to want to defend him to them more.” Another reluctant Trump voter, Tony Schrantz, agrees. “He’s not a perfect guy; he does some stupid stuff,” he tells the Times. “But when they’re hounding him all the time it just gets old.”
These are exactly the voters Democrats are hoping to win back. Instead, they are doing the opposite. Polls bear this out. Two weeks ago, Trump’s Gallup approval rating hit 45 percent — the highest it has been since his inauguration. (It slipped slightly to 41 percent last week). Trump’s approval among Republicans is at a near-record 87 percent, comparable to the levels of support for George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Think about that: The left’s attacks on Trump have had the same rallying effect for GOP voters as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Editorial page editor Fred Hiatt and opinion writer Molly Roberts debate whether Trump officials should be publicly shamed.
So, if appeals to civility, decency and conscience won’t work, then perhaps an appeal to base political pragmatism will. Democrats are deluding themselves if they think they lost because of #NeverHillary voters who will come home when she is not on the ballot. They lost because they have become a party of coastal liberal elites who have lost touch with millions of ordinary citizens in Middle America — working-class voters who are struggling with factories closing, jobs leaving and an opioid epidemic that is destroying their families. These voters concluded in 2016 that Democrats no longer care about their problems and that Trump does.
Spasms of anti-Trump outrage are not going to win them back. If anything, they are confirming these voters’ conclusions that Democrats still don’t get it — and don’t get them. The left’s miasma of contempt may feel cathartic, but it is the best thing that ever happened to Trump. Indeed, it may very well get him reelected.
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Key Trump administration officials have been confronted at restaurants. Rep. Maxine Waters urged protesters to hound Trump officials at restaurants, gas stations or department stores.
Progressive pundits and the liberal media almost daily think up new ways of characterizing President Trump as a Nazi, fascist, tyrant or buffoon. Celebrities openly fantasize about doing harm to Trump.
What is behind the unprecedented furor?
Just as Barack Obama was not a centrist, neither is Trump. Obama promised to fundamentally transform the United States. Trump pledged to do the same and more — but in the exact opposite direction.
The Trump agenda enrages the left in much the same manner that ObamaCare, the Obama tax hikes, Obama's liberal Supreme Court picks and the Iran nuclear deal goaded the right.
Yet the current progressive meltdown is about more than just political differences. The outrage is mostly about power — or rather, the utter and unexpected loss of it.
In 2009, Obama seemed to usher in a progressive revolution for a generation.
Democrats controlled the House. They had a supermajority in the Senate. Obama had a chance to ensure a liberal majority on the Supreme Court for years.
Democrats had gained on Republicans at the state and local levels. The media, universities, professional sports, Hollywood and popular culture were all solidly left-wing.
A Republican had not won 51% of the popular vote in a presidential election since George H.W. Bush's 1988 defeat of Democrat Michael Dukakis. Before 2016, Republicans had lost the popular vote in five of the previous six presidential elections.
And then visions of a generation of progressive grandeur abruptly vanished.
Obama left behind a polarized nation. Democrats lost both the House and the Senate. During Obama's tenure, Democrats lost more than 1,000 seats at the state level.
Presumptive winner Hillary Clinton blew the 2016 presidential election.
Foolishly, Clinton tried to ensure a landslide victory by wasting precious campaign time in unwinnable red states such as Arizona and Georgia. Meanwhile, she too often neglected winnable purple states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all of which Obama had won in 2008 and 2012. Clinton apparently forgot that the Electoral College, not the popular vote, elects a president.
After his election, President Trump did not implode as predicted. By following the Obama precedent of relying on executive orders, Trump began recalibrating everything from immigration enforcement to energy development.
Abroad, Trump did what no other Republican president would have dared, bombing ISIS into submission, canceling the Iran deal, seeking to denuclearize North Korea, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The U.S. economy took off with new tax cuts and deregulation. Radical improvement in unemployment, economic growth, and oil and natural gas production created new consumer and business confidence.
Despite his frequent crudeness, Trump is inching toward a 50% approval rating in a few polls. That has only made an impotent opposition grow even more furious — both at the other half of the country for supporting Trump, and at a buoyant Trump himself for baiting and ridiculing progressives in the fashion of no prior president.
Worse still, much of the loss of progressive power was at least partly self-inflicted. Read More: https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/trump-hatred-progressives-liberals-power/
Shhh! They still haven't figured out they are their own worst enemy.
Just keep throwing it in their faces and they will stay so perpetually angry 😤 😡 that they won’t even notice.
No doubt they’re stupid enough to do the same thing over again and expect a different result. Talk about hardheaded. If they get Trump re-elected, then maybe I can get two more conservative Supreme Court justices out of him and continued immigration enforcement. Donald Trump could be appointing almost half the Supreme Court.
That would be perfect! The 2nd quarter GDP and and June jobs numbers lean toward a re elect.
They seem to be more intent on stopping Kavanaugh than improving their situation in the Senate, by urging vulnerable red state Senators to vote NO on the confirmation. Liberal logic is weird. Going to get very entertaining in the next few months.
True. The problem for them is if obstruction leads to a stronger GOP majority next year he will get in then
The people who elected trump are the people that VOTED for him... OWN IT, and quit blaming, "the left" for your poor decisions.
Trump received more black votes and Hispanics votes than Romney.
Now explain that. The MSM made it sound like Trump was calling all HIspanics murderers and rapists when we all knew he wasn't, but the Left fell for the propaganda and with 90% negative news from these fake MSM sources they probably influenced many blacks and Hispanics who would have voted for him otherwise.
And the support for Trump among those groups has grown substantially since the election.
The Democrats have no foresight, are not responsible when it comes to our intelligence and as far as I can see they don't learn from experience. If they want votes they need to try and figure why they keep losing. The first thing I would check out is try to understand why they lost over a thousand political positions over the eight years of Obama and look like they are going to lose some more in 2018.
They have no hindsight either. They cannot or rather will not see their own mistakes. They don't fix their flaws but instead blame their losses on anything and everything else they can think of .
The left’s contempt is going to reelect Trump
Well as he and many of his merry band antics and behaviour are contemptible the treatment is deserved in my opinion.
But having said that the Dems need a bit more to run on than contempt. The 2018 elections are right around the corner and to date I really have no idea (nor do they seem to) what their platform might be. Tick tock.
Sure hope someone of substance comes along prior to 2020, elsewise you may be correct.
Congratulations on winning today's top rightwing wishful thinking award (so far). It's called the "Whistling Past the Graveyard Award."
Didn't you complain that Dulay's article was a sweeping generalization?
Seems a bit hypocritical.
Really? Where did my article say anything about progressives, liberals, or democrats being human garbage?
You don't need to namecall to make a sweeping generalization.
Today, Monday, July 16, 2018 Trump's mouth got him into trouble once again. Although he had worked to get NATO to pay their fair share, much more determined to do so than any other President, brought it to our attention Germany has a sweetheart deal with Russian natural gas, even though we were the main people they would look to protect them from Russia and keep in mind, this subject was not being a puppet for Russia in any way, the media waiting like a cat for a mouse to move, so it can jump on it had their opportunity today when he gave the impression he believed Putin over our own intelligence agencies.
They jumped on him like that cat, scratching and biting as hard as they could. Still he hasn't removed the sanctions, is trying to persuade Germany to let us make that money, we have plenty of natural gas. I'm sure Russia doesn't like that, but it makes no difference to the vicious media. They found their opportunity to criticize him like he had defected to Russia today.
The man has been accused of something I don't believe he did, collude with Russia. There was collusion though and it was with Hillary who hired the attorney, who hired Fusion GPS, who hired Michael Steele, who colluded with the Russians to get false information on Trump. In the year and a half this investigation has been going on there is no indication that Mueller has anything on Trump concerning collusion. None of the other guilty pleas appear to be related to the Trump campaign either, with some charges for things done 10 years ago.
A couple of days ago, right on time, detailed information was released to the public about all the hacking that was suppose to have happened. Isn't it strange to some of you the timing. Do you honestly think they got the information recently? Are we that big of fools? Context and the way things are presented mean everything in a conversation or anything for that matter. If there is collusion, it is collusion to get rid of Donald Trump any way they can.
They are desperate. Donald Trump's is within inches of exposing quite a lot of these people for all the corruption that has been going on for at least 8 years and they have to eliminate him before he gains enough power to do it. Brennan, the former Communist, says he has committed high crimes and treason for his speech today and needs to go. He and Clapper both have lied to Congress. Some of nuts, oh, I have to refrain. Some people on this site are so filled with hate and you have to wonder why.
Obama chose to catch and release at the border, allowing some children to be carried away by child traffickers and now we're discovering one in five people with small children coming across the border are not the parents of that child or have other criminal reasons to not allow them to stay, but Trump has obeyed the law as it is written, but tried to prevent these atrocious incidents from occurring, he is the worst person on this earth in the eyes of the media who project these feelings upon the public.
This country is becoming more and more lawless. A black man in Chicago with a gun and magazine is shot and killed by police in what looks like him grabbing for his gun and everyone jumps into protesting destroying police cruisers or anything they can get their hands on. They have been programmed to think it is racial to kill a black, when 8 other blacks were killed by other blacks in the same part of the city over the weekend, no one cares. I understand police are getting somewhat out of hand as well. Let me tell you, when all you deal with all day long are thugs or dead people and you know if you just make one slip up you're the one going to jail, it has an effect on you. I wouldn't be a police officer today for any kind of money.
But all this is blamed on the racist Trump. Everything that happens is Trump's fault. The man must have nerves of steel to deal with what must seem like a world who hates him, when all he is doing is trying to protect us from those who would harm us and show us we've been fooled by those who have convinced many of you that you didn't build that, while they hang out with the rich and famous and never even visited the people who were truly depending on them to help them.
I don't think Trump is going to lose one single deplorable from today's speech. We know his heart is in the right place and he does love this country. He's not a pretty face and a natural orator, but with so many people who speak the loudest as always, it must seem there are few who are behind him. I didn't care for him at first, but I cringe to think of the other choice, who would probably have us in a big war by this time, probably with Russia.
He may not be who we would have liked, but he was the only one who could have saved us from where we were headed and I'm thankful for him now that I fully realize just who we were dealing with. All those who have lied to Congress, to us and all the crooks that have been revealed thus far would have never been exposed if it hadn't been for Trump. Trump is getting to be an old man, filthy rich and didn't need all this stress and aggravation. That says something I assume those with so much hate in their hearts could never understand.