Is It Possible That Trump’s Latest Insanity Is A Blessing In Disguise For 2022 Election?

It’s always a welcome sight when a shaft of sunlight can pierce through the dark storm clouds. As you well know from following the news this weekend, Trumpty Dumpty was out making his “comeback” and he called for MAGA Nation to riot in the event he is criminally charged. Since that’s something that’s about to happen any day now, we should be duly concerned.

However, Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect has glad tidings for us. He sees the upside in this insanity. I do so profoundly hope that he is right.

Kuttner is not the lone voice in the wilderness with this particular theme. Our own Murfster has said this basic thing. Let us hope that they are right.

Because we need all the help we can get going into 2022.

This is an excerpt from a piece written by the Liberal Patriot last week. It concerned me very much. But maybe, granting for the sake of argument that the factors in this piece are true, Trump losing his damn mind right now will act as the counterweight and give Democrats a victory in November.

Turnout, turnout, turnout! You don’t have to talk to anyone on the left of the Democrats for any length of time before they evince their touching faith in the wonder-working powers of high voter turnout. Interrogate them a little further and it turns out what they really mean is that the stark choices presented to the electorate by progressive policies will produce massive turnout by Democratic-leaning constituencies (nonwhites, young voters, etc)…..but (somehow) not on the other side. That’s not the way it works. The other side gets to vote too and the very stark choices favored by those on the left may mobilize the other side just as much—maybe more!—than the left’s side.

The 2020 election presented a pretty darn stark choice to voters. And it was indeed a high turnout election. The problem: everyone’s turnout went up, including among groups the left would have preferred stayed home. The net result of higher turnout did not significantly boost Democratic fortunes; if anything Republicans may have a benefitted a bit more from the higher levels of turnout.

This makes it easier to understand why Biden’s 2020 victory was so much narrower than anticipated and why the election saw Democrats lose ground in the House and in state legislatures. And why the hotly-contested Virginia gubernatorial race in 2021 did not turn out in Democrats’ favor despite very high turnout. High turnout is just not the magic key to Democratic victories the left wishes to believe.

2. “People of Color’! Perhaps no factor is so central to the left’s theory of electoral case than the growth of the nonwhite population in the country and the presumed way being “people of color” welds them together into a voter group with unshakeable loyalty to the Democratic party and loathing for the Republican party. This assumption looks less tenable by the day.

In the 2020 election, running against Donald Trump (Donald Trump!) and in the wake of a social upheaval after George Floyd’s murder that associated the Democratic party closely with a left stance on the centrality of “systemic racism” to pretty much every policy issue…the Democrats actually lost ground among nonwhite voters. They lost 7 margin points from their 2016 margin among black voters and a stunning 16 points from their 2016 margin among Hispanics (Catalist two party vote) The black share of voters in 2020 was actually slightly smaller than the black share in 2016 because, while black turnout did go up, it did not go up as much as other groups. Overall, nonwhite voters contributed less to Biden’s margin over Trump in 2020 than they did to Clinton’s margin over Trump in 2016.

So much for the assumption that the key to mobilizing nonwhites is highlighting their status as “people of color” suffering from systemic racism as the left stresses. That was tried in the 2020 election and it did not work. Nor has anything happened since 2020 that makes that approach look any better. The 2021 elections saw significant attrition of Democratic support among Hispanics and Asians and 2021 polling data indicated weakening support among nonwhites—particularly Hispanics, where the drift away from the Democrats is unmistakable.

This is all worth digesting. Maybe Trump, paradoxically, will bring home the bacon for the Democrats later this year. It is devoutly to be wished. And make no mistake about how important this midterm election is. Democracy is hanging by a thread right now. This isn’t about Democrat v. Republican. This is about democracy v. fascism or maybe anarchy.

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