Trump has spent his whole presidency making Democrats stronger

[applegrove]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-has-spent-his-whole-presidency-making-democrats-stronger/2017/09/10/a63827c0-94ca-11e7-8754-d478688d23b4_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.63417ec09a31

By E.J. Dionne Jr.  at the Washington Post

"SNIP........


It could be that Trump’s latest move is a reach for this lost chance, although it seemed to be more impulse than strategy. It was also sudden. No one on either side was prepared for Trump’s embrace of Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) suggestion to pass hurricane relief now and to set up December as the time for serious haggling. Democrats are likely to have more leverage then.

Being who he is, Trump might have wanted to take a slap at his putative allies, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), both of whom he seems to dislike intensely. And perhaps he was looking for a few days of good headlines. Pelosi reported he reveled in the great media coverage he received, as good an indicator as any that this is a guy who operates day to day.

Trump’s problem with moving from a relatively small policy gesture to an entirely new approach is that the immediate past cannot be erased.

He is a far weaker figure today than he was when he was inaugurated. His poll numbersare terrible, the Russia story has ballooned in importance, and Democrats are in no mood to throw him any lifelines. His words and actions on race and deportations have erected new moral barriers to any pragmatic turn toward working with him. “All he’s done in eight months,” said a senior Senate Democratic aide, “is make the price of cooperation a lot higher.”



.......SNIP"

[dalton99a]

1. Looking for sanity from this asshole is a fool's errand

[AtheistCrusader]

2. I'm not convinced the lines have moved much.

I think if we ran the election again, the results would be nearly identical. There's no undecided middle ground.

At best, we could hope to nibble at the margins of the unexpectedly swing states where voter disenfranchisement, and other irregularities tipped the scales ever so slightly.

Edit: Those numbers MIGHT start to shift in another 6mo-year as Trump continues to fail to deliver on things like The Great Wall of Embarrassing Bigotry(TM), and other things like that.

There has been some disgruntled rumblings already that he didn't personally deport every single DACA member last week. That's where his supporters will start to break ranks, as he fails to accomplish things.

It's not how much of a sexist, or a bigot, or an idiot, or a thief he is. None of that will win over votes, or cause voters to stay home, that support him.

It's the promises that he doesn't deliver on that will neutralize hostile voters.

[Ohiya]

5. I don't agree

I think that a lot of people who voted for Trump would not vote for him again and a lot of people who didn't vote would come out to vote against Trump. If the election were held again now, Hillary would win.

[sharedvalues]

6. No way. Dem turnout is key.

If we reran 2016 the Dem turnout to vote against DJT would make our heads spin.

Now we just need to do that for 2018.

[AtheistCrusader]

7. I disagree.

I think everyone who gave a shit pretty much showed up last time.

There's some gains to be made around voter registration, and the ballot locations, but overall, not much has shifted.

We need THEM to NOT show up in droves, because Trump is a failure on all the things they wanted. And don't worry; it's coming.

[sharedvalues]

8. No way. There was massive turnout reduction of Dems

Trump's campaign (and the Russians) were focused on turnout reduction and voter suppression.

See e.g.:

Link to tweet

[AtheistCrusader]

9. I understand the numbers went down, and that there are a number of reasons for it.

But it's coming:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-jumping-ship-amid-dissatisfaction-in-trump-era/ar-AArJeCn?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

By all means focus on turnout, but we're going to win when these people start eating their own, and it's coming in time for the mid-terms

[czarjak]

3. Silver linings...

Who knew?

[Willie Pep]

4. We have to harness unhappiness with Trump into voter turnout.

Most people aren't very interested in politics and many people actually hate politics so it is tough to get people to care outside of the partisan base that we can usually count on come election time. The key to Democratic strength is convincing more people that we are on their side and that voting matters!