Eugene Robinson: Democrats, stop worrying about losing. Focus on how you're likely to win.

[SoonerPride]

If you’re a president running for reelection, and 8 out of 10 voters believe “things in the country are out of control,” you are losing.

Bigly.


The question now is how much uglier and more divisive President Trump’s campaign will become as his desperation mounts — and how many of Trump’s Republican enablers choose to go down with what is beginning to look like the Titanic. The band that gets hired for the GOP convention, wherever it eventually takes place, might want to start practicing “Nearer My God to Thee.”


Here I must insert the standard warning against taking anything for granted — not that anyone possibly could, after 2016. There will be constant worrying, fretting, handwringing and second-guessing until Election Day, because that’s what Democrats do.

But the objective reality, near as anyone can tell, is that Trump looks very likely to lose to Joe Biden and that Republicans may well lose the Senate as well.


Polling out this weekend was uniformly alarming for the president. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal national poll showed Biden beating Trump by seven points, 49 percent to 42 percent. A CNN poll showed nothing less than a blowout, with Biden ahead nationally by 14 points, 55 percent to 41 percent. The RealClearPolitics average of all recent polls has Biden up by 8 points — a massive lead given the closeness of our recent elections.

More here
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-stop-worrying-about-losing-focus-on-how-youre-likely-to-win/2020/06/08/244771d6-a9b6-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html

[CentralMass]

1. Yes Eugene but they cheat.

[TreadSoftly]

2. Absolutely. Vote 2020 and every other year thereafter.

The right to vote was hard won, no matter your background in this country.

Use it so we don't lose it!!!

[UTUSN]

3. Spot-on, Gene, as usual. He said cut the usual *hand wringing!

[Wounded Bear]

4. Dems do spend too much time worrying about how Repubs will react to what they do...

Repubs gave up on that years ago. They don't give a shit what anybody thinks any more. Hell, most of them don't care what their base thinks about anything beyond a few simple, divisive issues.

[Hortensis]

9. Not me, but we do see some prone to permanent angst here

and of course in the media, much of which is actually hostile pretending to be "concerned."

I do know if I was working 18 hours a day to win I certainly wouldn't be wasting my time worrying about how Repubs react -- other than to the disaffection we were trying to sow among them (is it working?!).

I'd be focused solely on drawing potential swing voters and also on getting more of the many millions who didn't vote in 2016 (!!! !!!) to finally start worrying about the Republicans.

[honest.abe]

5. Eugene is right once again.

Barring some crazy unprecedented unforeseen event, Biden wins this.

We need to use this optimism to our advantage to encourage more and more people to vote and make this election a referendum on Trump and the GOP. A massive blowout will send a shockwave to the GOP and Trump's America that their attitudes about politics and government are unacceptable and dead.

[zak247]

6. Biden has to...

All Biden has to do is have a moderate progressive to liberal agenda: Perfect Obamacare, Reintroduce Global warming programs, SCOTUS maintenance, and the cessation of its right-wing content. Civil rights, Human Rights, back to a respectable foreign policy, Raising taxes on the rich ONLY, raising SS, MEDICAID, AND MEDICARE AND STOP ALL CUTS TRUMP ENACTED on social programs and providing unity rather than division to the country. Also, get back to economic programs such as infrastructure building and massive good job creation through infrastructure and investment in black and brown communities and the rust belt. And do the Dreamers that Obama was doing before the evildoer Trump got elected.

And Stop doing your gaffs, Biden. DONT SPEAK UNLESS YOUR THINKING or have proscribed words already written

[tavernier]

7. Don't speak unless YOUR thinking? PROSCRIBED words?

Sorry, but that’s insulting, not to mention a bit of a grammatical gaff on your part.

Anything Joe says is perfectly fine with me because he speaks with his brain and his heart, two things Trump does not possess.

[SWBTATTReg]

8. Good advice. I am tired of hearing the doomsday prophecies that rump has dirty tricks up his ...

sleeves, etc. We have a good, sustained lead. Keep it up. Ignore the riffraff from republicans and other distractions, who cares what they think? After all, they don't care a whit about what we think. Just keep focusing on the job at hand, focus on what things need to be done after the idiot in chief rump is gone from office, and start fixing things right and left. Be long term in our thinking, don't think of our term after rump as being only four years, but think of it as being a long term situation, with tons of stuff to get done (and undone too).

[lame54]

10. No victory laps yet