With the midterm election only days away, it’s worth taking a look at what is going on around the web.
Democrats have gone from prematurely wallowing in their early-projected blue wave victories to setting up talking points that explain away a less than “wave” showing in Tuesday’s midterm.
Politico wonders: “Democrats Say Republicans Are Stealing the Midterms. Are They Right?” Because Jim Crow. Or something.
Meanwhile, Bret Stephens over at the former “newspaper of record” rambles incomprehensibly in answer to his titular question, “Why Aren’t Democrats Walking Away With the Midterms?” Spoiler: Stephens seems to conclude that it’s because Trump is both a masterful rhetorician and an incompetent con artist, both a wily communicator and a bumbling boob who can’t string together a coherent sentence, and both an economic menace and presiding over the lowest unemployment rate “since Vince Lombardi coached his last game in December 1969.”
Stephens and his #NeverTrump ilk aren’t alone. Their buddies in the leftstream media #Resistance are eager to make the midterms a referendum on President Trump.
The New Yorker assures us this is so: “The Midterm Elections Are a Referendum on Donald Trump”
As does CBS News, though they qualify it to the “Trump economy”: “The midterm elections are a referendum on the Trump economy – but the GOP can’t count on a strong verdict”
Centrist Democrats are already done, pre-midterms, with the far-left lunge of their party and are looking to 2020.
Ed Rendell (D-PA) at the Hill cautions his party: “Democrats, beware: We are leaning left too far”
Frank Bruni of the NYT asks, “What Kind of Democrat Can Beat Trump in 2020?”
Meanwhile, the leftstream media is cranking out articles that I imagine must be intended to help Democrats.
For example, check out this gem from the AP, “Trump stumps in cities that don’t look that much like US.”
The non-“US” cities in questions include much of America’s heartland:
Trump has largely eschewed the big metropolises for smaller cities. He has been to Tampa, Nashville, Cleveland and Houston — where the arenas could accommodate his crowds. But he’s primarily been jet-setting to smaller places such as Elko, Nevada (population 20,078). Or, Mosinee, Wisconsin (population 4,023). Or, Belgrade, Montana (population 7,874).When Trump stops at Belgrade on Saturday, historical records suggest he will be the second president to visit the Montana town named after Serbia’s capital city. In 2009, Barack Obama held a town hall in Belgrade to promote the Affordable Care Act.Since March, Trump has crisscrossed the country like a salesman with a set territory. The majority of his trips have been to just nine states. They are Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Indiana, West Virginia and Nevada.
The idea is, I guess, that Trump is appealing to the American voter who rejects the modern day Democrat-socialist party. Or something.
Trump should be stumping, according to this logic, where progressive Democrats have a stonghold and from which their vision of “US” can best be beamed out beyond their urban and elite strongholds.
Democrats are all over the map and have no idea at all how best to combat Trump. They are flailing, lashing out, and belittling the very voters they need in their corner.
We’ll find out on Tuesday whether that “strategy” has worked. One thing that I do think is correct is that the midterms are a referendum on Trump. He’s made it so by pointing out the very simple fact that a Democrat House (and/or Senate) will cripple his ability to do anything further on his campaign agenda. With a Democrat House investigating this, subpenaing that, and impeaching the president, we’re going to go right back to pre-Trump with a lame duck president whose only recourse is the pen and phone, neither of which matter once the next president takes office.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY