Young writers are advised to avoid using slang, cliches and other
informal language in their writing, and this is generally good
advice. But there are occasions when such language provides the
right words to convey the writer’s meaning.
This is the case with the headline above.
It was understandable right after the surprising 2016 presidential
election that most Democrats and some Republicans, too, would
be shocked and dismayed by the results --- particularly the election
of Donald Trump. He had been perhaps the most unlikely
candidate for president in modern history, seemed to break all of
the conventional rules, and was poised to disrupt the political
establishments of both parties.
Between election night and inauguration day, the shock was
transformed into feckless attempts to undo the election, and
since he took office, efforts have been aimed at hopeless plans
for impeachment or resignation through investigations, fake
news, innuendo, rumors and attacks on the White House staff
and appointments by the president’s enemies and a hostile media.
To date, none of this has been successful. In fact, the president
and his party have had some notable successes and (to be fair) a
few failures.
There was a second major disappointment for many Democrats
in the 2016 campaign, the failure of avowed socialist Senator
Bernie Sanders to win the liberal party’s presidential nomination.
After the fact, it became clear that the Democratic Party
establishment, in its eagerness to nominate Hillary Clinton, had
not always played fair with the Sanders campaign in the primary
season and before its national convention.
After Mrs. Clinton’s upset loss, the Sanders/Elizabeth Warren
wing of the party moved quickly to take over, and they have
succeeded in many, but not all, liberal strongholds.
It is not just a takeover by new personalities, it is a dramatic
move of the party’s policy positions, by U.S. standards, to a
much more radical-than-usual direction --- positions which,
even measured by most Democratic pollsters, are supported
only by a minority of all U.S. voters.
In baseball lingo, the new way to describe hitting a home run is
“going deep.” For left wing, “progressive” Democrats, most of
them located in the large U.S. cities, the new policy politics of
free universal college education, Medicare for all, high minimum
wages, sanctuary cities, closing down I.C.E. and opening all
borders to unlimited immigration are each home runs that go
deep with the electorate.
Conservatives, most independents and many moderate liberals
feel these views, far from high-scoring hits with the public, are
instead “going off the deep end” --- or exactly the opposite --- by
turning off rural, small town, exurban and suburban voters who,
taken together, make up a large majority of the electorate.
One sign, and there are many others, that the dissenters above
are closer to reality are the recent and increasing warnings
coming from many senior Democratic and liberal strategists,
office holders and pundits --- all suggesting that the personal
attacks on the president and the espousal of more and more
radical public policies are backfiring --- and actually helping
the president and his party.
With the liberal media egging them on, and even some
conservatives joining in, the “progressives” seem to be ignoring
all such warnings.
We won’t know who is right until election day next November.
I may be wrong, but I think the radicals are transforming what
might indeed have been a “blue wave” in 2018 into a hitherto
unexpected wave of another color in the visible spectrum.
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Copyright (c) 2018 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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