It’s probably an understatement to note that Democratic leaders in Congress are badly out of step with the national Democratic electorate.
Voters want to see forceful resistance, but their congressional leaders rarely deliver it. For every meaningful gesture, they bypass multiple opportunities to wield power. When Donald Trump blusters, they often respond as if face-to-face with a T-Rex, where their best hope is to stand perfectly still.
Political energy has thus flowed away from national party organs, toward anti-establishment figures and Democrats outside of Washington who promise to fight: Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker have earned respect from Democratic voters across the country; Democratic candidates in special elections are crushing it; Democrats running in midterm elections are at pains to condemn the current leadership; the Democratic National Committee is close to broke.
Democrats in Washington struggle to train public attention on over-workshopped messages. At the same time, random online Democrats go incredibly viral posting unflattering pictures of Trump online and musing with anticipation about his imminent death.
Which brings us to the real purpose of today’s newsletter:
I suspect tensions between grassroots and grasstops will boil over if and when Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats bail out Trump again at the end of this month.
But they will be most palpable if, as the great oracle Alex Jones recently predicted, Trump has “some sort of collapse within the next 12 months.”
DING DONG!
At this point it would be irresponsible not to ruminate, right?