I practice self-deception by patting myself on the back about no longer following the unentertaining circus that is American politics. Occasionally, when I am honest with myself, I realize I pay a lot more attention than the average American. This especially comes home after reading, for the first time in a very long time, an out of the belly of the beast Maureen Dowd column.
Years and years ago, when she came onto the scene, I liked old Mo. She was a great scourge of President Mr. Bill. She, as her entire generation, brought self-deception to a decadent art form. The reason she was both good and half-funny roasting Mr. Bill's unlimited character induced foibles is they were the exact same people. Once Mr. Bill was gone, there really was no more need for old Mo, but nonetheless, two plus decades later, here she is.
In her column today, she practices the fine tuned craft of Dem fear mongering. Mo's on about the Dems getting clocked in the mid-term elections, which would be no surprise. Outside of getting rid of Trump, the last election was not good for the Dems. With the greatest voter turnout in well over a half-century, they barely kept control of the House and Senate.
In the 1930s with Franklin Roosevelt's ascendancy, the Democrats became the majority party in the US, remaining so for over half a century. That slowly changed, starting in the South after Civil Rights. Over several decades, the white South went from almost completely Democratic to overwhelmingly Republican. In the 1980s, when I did elections, you could look at the great pool of nonvoters, vastly comprised of Democrats, as a way to get your candidate elected, though getting them to vote was always much easier said than done.
The most important, completely missed insight coming out of the 2020 election is the great pool of non-voters is no longer overwhelmingly Democrats. If you had told me before the election, there would be a 66% turnout giving only the barest majority to both the Dem president, and more importantly both Houses of Congress, I'd of bet a lot money against that. So yeah, the Dems are in trouble, not that the Reps are in any better shape. But if you only gots two choices, one's going to win.
So, Mo asks the advice of three “old Dem hacks”, her words, all culpable for bringing American politics to its present sad state and having made all sorts of money doing so. First, she talks to Obama hack David Axelrod, who advises, Old Joe to be empathetic, you know, feel your pain, don't be triumphant he warns. Lord, whatever is it they can feel triumphant about? Phew, good luck with that message.
Next comes Carville, who helped give us Mr. Bill. I remember in '92 talking to Caddell about Mr. Bill hiring Carville. Pat said, “Great, now he's going to be a populist.” And to get elected Mr. Bill was. Though it was an off-key populism. The recession of that era was the first to hard hit the college educated, corporate white collar employees. In 1992, it was Ross Perot who first gave voice to this populism, which has only grown in ferocity and desperation. Mr. Bill taught Carville more than he gave, especially in the art of liberal bashing, and that's what the “Rajun Cajun” advises.
Then comes the least known of the lot, pollster Stan Greenberg. He also helped Mr. Bill get elected. His advise is the most amusing. Stan's one of his generation's few surviving economic liberals, who ironically enough were crushed by the guy he helped elect. After the 1994 midterms, with the Dems losing control of the House for the first time in 50 years, Stanley was quickly out the door. Mr. Bill was fighting for his political life, everything had to go, while anything could be gained at a cheap price.
Funniest, Stan advises against Obama, who he says, “Stopped advocating for workers against corporate excess and stopped challenging the exceptional corruption that allowed billionaires and Wall Street to dominate politics.” Good to see Mo hasn’t lost her sense of humor.
Finally, Carville laments about the recent failure of Dem fear mongering over the Russians, “If there’s one thing we were kind of united about, it was that you couldn’t trust the Russians.” It still works on the old Boomers, who had the Red Scare burned into their brains from conception. But, it's been three decades since the fall of the Soviets, for the vast majority it’s history, which means it exists not at all.
In the end, the wise old Democratic men haven't a clue. I'll offer one: keep stoking the bellows of war and see how many seats you hold onto with gasoline at five or six dollars a gallon. Scaring Democrats, it's all too easy.
They're more than happy to be the minority party since it requires no work and offers fundraising opportunities galore.