Dem
47
GOP
53
As you can tell, we've been saving up links for this day. Anyhow, another thing the Democrats have to work on, messaging-wise, is how to make Donald Trump and his Party pay, politically, for the unpopular things they've done. To some extent, the problem will solve itself, as people are going to notice if milk now costs $9/gallon, or there aren't any Christmas gifts on the shelves, or there's an epidemic of measles in Texas.
That said, it is part of the blue team's job to stick it to the GOP as aggressively as possible, and thus far, that's at least been something of a struggle for many Democrats. We've written about this, but we think the problem here might be that Democrats are prone to being a little (or a lot) too high-minded, and unwilling to get their hands dirty. Several years back, Michelle Obama famously said, "When they go low, we go high." That may have been good for many Democrats' egos, but it may also have been bad advice when it comes to politics in the era of Trump.
Consider, for example, the headline for this item. Everyone knows about the school shooting in Minnesota. And, as it turns out, the DHS cut funding for mass shooting prevention programs in Minnesota a few months ago. On the whole, even if Democrats do try to hang something like this on Trump and his party, they do it in a wonky and diplomatic way. Perhaps the more direct, and more raw approach is called for. Something like: "Donald Trump cut funding for mass shooting prevention in Minnesota. Now, two children are dead as a result. Donald Trump is a child murderer."
Or how about this? As of Monday, work requirements for receiving SNAP kicked in. The CBO estimates that the change will result in 2.4 million people a month being thrown out of the program. It may take a while for that change to fully manifest, but certainly by November of next year, poor people will be feeling the pinch. How about something like: "While Donald Trump gorges on Big Macs and pâté de foie gras in his new ballroom, kids are going hungry. What kind of priorities are those?"
One other quick example. Trump surely had September 1 circled on his calendar, not because of the hungry children, but because of one of his several crypto scams. After reversing a Biden-era directive that a company cannot market a crypto token as an investment, and then engaging in a little additional chicanery to get around the rules, World Liberty Financial was able to begin selling 24.6 billion tokens as of Monday morning. The Trump family gets 75% of all proceeds, and Trump himself owns nearly 16 billion tokens. As a result, since Monday morning, the Trump family has made $5 billion on paper.
Not only is Trump profiting off the presidency here, something that previous presidents did not do (at least, not until after they left office), but he's profiting off of access to the presidency. That is to say, the tokens cannot be used as currency, and cannot be sold. Their only value is that they entitle holders to a say in company governance. However, because the Trumps and their partners control the vast majority of the tokens, outsiders can't actually influence... anything. That means the only purpose for buying the tokens, which will be close to worthless as of January 20, 2029, is to gain influence with/access to Trump. It's a bribe, plain and simple. And Democrats would be well advised to find a simple and effective way to rail against this kind of corruption. Maybe a Trump-style nickname, like the Crypto Crook? The Hamburgerburglar? The President of the U.S., Incorporated?
We recognize that getting down into the mud will be a real downer, in terms of the national discourse. However, it's less of a downer than sending people to Guatemalan prisons without benefit of due process. Or trying to get rid of birthright citizenship, gay marriage, Medicaid, SNAP, etc. Or invading U.S. cities with armed soldiers. You know what they say about desperate times...
Anyhow, these are the kinds of things Democrats could be talking and thinking about if they have a convention in 2026. Or, even if they don't. (Z)