The Democratic Party is in huge trouble; Part Two: The 2018 Midterm Elections
In 2020 they’ll watch Trump get re-elected, but in 2018 they could very well lose the House and the Senate...even more of the House and Senate...
As covered in Part One(1), the Democratic Party has absolutely zero compelling and scandal-free politicians to run for office in 2020 against Donald Trump, so anyone who can see which way the wind blows sees an incoming bloodbath (over-under on Trump getting 450 Electoral College Votes?).
But to further understand the severity of the situation, a few things about how the government of the United States works need to be demystified:
- America is not quite the democracy that many people think it is. A democracy itself can mean several different things, for example in a direct democracy (see: Athens, some of the cantons of Switzerland), the citizenry votes for their leaders and votes on each individual issue. In a representative democracy (see: Australia, India) people elect their representatives to make choices for them along party lines. America is a representative republic, a confederation of states (who themselves have some say in how they interpret the Constitution – that’s why there are dispensaries in Colorado but not Kentucky and why open carry is legal in Vermont but not in California) in which the people are represented by their elected officials and a president, instead of unelected royalty. America has certain aspects of a democracy (elections, a constitution), but is something unique and different entirely.
- The president of the United States of America is largely a figurehead with limited power to enact legislation, they can reach around congress by issuing executive orders(2), but they’re largely at the mercy of the legislative branch of the federal government.
Perhaps the most noteworthy and controversial executive order in recent memory was Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, more commonly known as DACA.
So the main takeaway from those two points is that America isn’t a democracy per se, and that the powers of the office of president are quite limited in scope. With that we can move on, to the sausage (or boerwoer...if RedBeard and Jinxi would have it) of this article; the significance of the 2018 Midterm Elections, and why if the Democrats don’t win them, their party could potentially be facing political extinction in the United States.
Midterm Elections happen in even numbered years not divisible by four halfway through a presidential term. Donald Trump was elected in November of 2016, so the 2018 Midterms are in November of this year. The next Midterms will be in 2022.
That’s just three months away. The primary elections are later this week.
In the Midterms, all of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up in the air, as are 35 seats in the Senate and this year there are 39 governorship spots available.
The Republicans currently hold a 236-193 majority in the House with six vacant seats. To pass through the House a bill needs a simple majority, 218 votes, and the House is already well in Republican hands. That’s not to say voters can afford to be apathetic, but just that the margins are less slim in the House.
But the real intrigue lies in Congress, where Donald Trump has been having trouble passing some of his policies despite a 51-47 majority with two independents.
The rules of Congress are a touch more esoteric than those of the House. A bill needs just a 51% majority to pass, but in the event of a 51% vote, members of either party (or the independents) can filibuster in an attempt to block the vote.
South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond famously filibustered the 1957 Civil Rights Act for over 24 hours(3)...its also worth nothing that at the time he was a Democrat (he switched affiliations in 1964) and he was filibustering against Civil Rights(4).
Once either party reaches a 60% majority in Congress, they can block any opposition filibuster with a cloture vote.
There has been talk of filibuster reform, switching the burden from the majority party (to finding 60+ votes and blocking) to the requiring the party with the intent to filibuster needing to find 41 or more votes(15).
If the Republicans can get a 60% majority then passing the agenda of the president becomes much easier.
Building the wall? 60-40.
Declaring the internet a public utility, as it probably should be? 60-40.
Ending Silicon Valley’s abuse of the H1B visa to import third world programmers so they can fire Americans because they don’t like paying them twice as much(5)? 60-40.
Resolving the DACA situation with the inclusion of a path to citizenship, as is fair? 60-40.
‘It’s not that bad, the Democrats only need to resurge in the House and win three more seats and the Republicans need to lose one!’, but in politics it’s never that simple, without even considering that voting across the aisle does happen.
In the past twenty years, although it’s been greatly ramped up in the last five, the Democrats have become the party of:
- Socialism (see: Sanders, Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandra). Taking from the rich and later the middle class and giving it to the poor (while also keeping some of it for ‘the party’). They never seem to mention Venezuela, but will cite the success of countries like Norway in implementing some Socialist policies, they think it could work in America. Norway is smaller than California and has 5.3 million people.
I notice quite a heavy handed ‘Europe fetishization’ among the North American left and the Democratic Party...
Continual Russia boogeymaning even if it leads to a nuclear confrontation, when the most recent Gallup poll shows that less than one percent of Americans consider this so-called ‘collusion’ an important issue(6).
Abolishing the border and letting anyone come to America and if they don’t want to work, they get the same benefits as everyone else!
While out of one side of their mouth they preach on the plight of these ‘poor, undocumented immigrants!’, they’re also the party of the super rich; Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet and George Soros all either openly endorse or have given significant contributions to the party.
Social justice insanity, you’ve heard it before, ‘there’s 67 genders!’, ‘white people are the devil!’, ‘the patriarchy oppresses women!’, ‘everything is racist!’.
Inability to stay on message on a single issue for more than a week. The Parkland shooting, the Vegas massacre, the withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the attack on the Syrian air base and the North Korean summit in Singapore. What do these things have in common? They all happened within the last calendar year, yet I don’t remember the last time they received mention in the mainstream media.
Idiotic welfare policies. Its legal in California to fail to disclose your HIV positive status to potential sex partners, take a dump on the streets of San Francisco and they have needle programs for addicts...what is illegal? Drinking straws(7).
No, really...
Hollywood. You know, the people who can’t go a week without making some remake no one asked for? Who make more in a year than most people do in five lifetimes? Who fly around the world in private jets, boat around in super yachts and live in 20,000 Square foot homes but tell the family of four making $60,000 a year that they’re the ones who need to minimize their greenhouse gas emissions?
No wait, Hollywood, the ones who tell us we need to let anyone who wants to come to America in but live in gated communities with armed guards, and who say ‘women are oppressed!’ and then you find out they raped a bunch of women, and the ones who stood up and said ‘no!’ got their livelihoods threatened(7)?
- Oh wait, no! It’s the Hollywood who’s long rumoured paedophilia problems seem to finally be coming to the fore(8)!
Burn it to the ground.
Continual Trump outrage. Oh no! He fucked some porn star fifteen years ago and paid her to sign an NDA which is 100% legal, impeach! Impeachment isn’t worth jack shit unless he’s convicted of a crime, Bill Clinton was impeached but still served his two terms.
Anarchy, chaos and intolerance. Just look at this official GOP video!
And in that time, what has Donald Trump been doing?
Moving towards a more peaceful future by meeting with Kim Jong-Un and discussing the terms for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. The Kim regime has known all of the former leaders of America weren’t going to do a thing...but with Donald Trump, can you really assume that? There’s a reason that he rose to the top of the NYC construction game, and its why he’s so effective in these negotiations; you can’t predict what he’s going to do next.
Over 125 companies including Comcast, Wells Fargo and Walmart (the largest private employer in the United States) giving employee bonuses and raises in the wake of the Republican Tax Cuts(9).
Isis now occupies 95-98% less territory than they did in 2014(10).
Record low unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics and Women(16).
- Just this past week, Trump and the European Union reached an agreement to lower trade tariffs(11).
Fun fact: It was tariffs, not taxes, that largely paid for the operation and maintenance of the American government until 1916(12)...of course the government was much smaller and less evil back then.
- And in the time between my first draft of this article and the final edit, the 2018 Q2 GDP growth was announced at 4.1%...that’s pretty high(17)!
Trump’s supporters worship him.
They will show up in droves in November.
And we’re I a Democratic Party kingmaker, given the results we’ve seen from the administration, and that my party seems to be tripling down on a platform that of ‘Socialism, you middle class Americans are too privileged and ugh, Trump...Fuck that guy, am I right?’ that didn’t work last time, I would be more than a little stressed out about it.
The 2018 Midterm Elections aren’t as cut and dry as the 2020 Presidential Election, but as each day passes and more people accept the president and see their lives improving, they’ll allow him to more easily pass some of the more vital parts of his agenda (the same things he got elected on in 2016), which could make the anticipated 2020 landslide even more lopsided.
Links:
2: what is an executive order?... https://www.americanbar.org/publications/insights_on_law_andsociety/17/fall-2016/what-is-an-executive-order.html
3: longest filibusters in history... https://www.thoughtco.com/longest-filibusters-in-us-history-3322332
4: Strom Thurmond affiliation... https://www.discussionist.com/1015487284
5: the five most egregious H1B visa abuse scandals... https://www.cio.com/article/2946119/careers-staffing/5-shocking-examples-of-h-1b-visa-program-abuse.html
6: Americans don’t care about Russian collusion...
7: Lena Headey and Harvey Weinstein... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lena-headey-harvey-weinstein-game-thrones-star-details-hotel-encounter-1049581
8: 4chan exposes James Gunn and Dan Harmon...
http://atavisionary.com/james-gunn-hollywood-pedophile-and-satan-worshiper/
9: Over 125 companies give bonuses tax cuts... https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/01/11/list-companies-paid-bonuses-boosted-pay-since-tax-bill-passed/1023848001/
10: ISIS on the run... https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/1081181001
USA and European union reach tariff agreement... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44961560
Tariffs fund government until 1916... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44961560
13: Comcast and time Warner execs big Obama supporters... http://thehill.com/policy/technology/198350-comcast-time-warner-execs-have-been-big-obama-supporters?amp
14: Les moonves Trump may not be good for America but... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/leslie-moonves-donald-trump-may-871464
15: filibuster reform... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/24/why-filibuster-reform-failed-and-where-it-might-go-next/?utm_term=.5e28db6bdcdf
16: Don’t look now... https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/dont-look-now-but-minority-unemployment-is-at-record-lows-under-trump/
17: 4.1% 5018 Q2 GDP... https://www.yahoo.com/amphtml/finance/news/u-second-quarter-gdp-growth-153000515.html
20Ban
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