Why The Democrats Are Already More Strongly Positioned Than The GOP For 2024

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it   Old adage

But you know what? There should be an addendum to that time worn phrase, Those who do learn from history are some smart Mofo’s who are destined for success. And here we beginneth the lesson.

Cast your mind back to the 2018 midterms. Hell, even polio was more popular than Trump. But rather than a cadre of seasoned Democratic politicians stepping forward to run, an army of teachers, doctors, nurses, truck drivers, teachers, and welders stepped forward into the breach for change.

I remember one story about a Democratic candidate for the House who had already filed her paperwork, and was on the ballot, who went door-to-door collecting signatures for a potential competitor who lived blocks away. She made the ballot. And when the other woman won, she immediately pledged her support and campaigned for her in the general election. That was repeated across the country, and the Democrats trimmed the GOP for 40 seats in the House.

Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. MY ASS! Former Texas US House Representative Colin Allred has already declared his candidacy against Ted Cruz in 2024. Tonight, Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez, who has been a stalwart defender of the Uvalde families threw his hat in the ring. And I love it. Let the Democratic voters decide for themselves which one has the best chance. And from everything I’ve seen of both of these guys, the eventual loser will be the winners best surrogate. For Democrats, it isn’t about ego, it’s about winning.  In this case that means beating Ted Cruz.

In 2018, 2020, and 2022, non professional Democratic House candidates out fundraised deeply entrenched GOP incumbents by 4-5 to 1. Mostly by talking in living rooms and kitchens, grocery stores and Starbucks, and holding town halls where they actually listened to constituent concerns, and answered not in political bullsh*t, but in real life solutions. Little wonder they rocked like Bob Seger with Hollywood Nights.

And the Democrats, not only the upstart contenders, but even the DNC seem to have gotten the memo. In an interview with Jen Psaki on Inside on Sunday, Psaki asked DNC Chair Jamie Harrison what steps the DNC was taking for 2024? And Harrison replied, The same thing we’ve been doing for the last three years. In midterms the DNC isn’t usually the largest player. But in 2022 we invested more than $30 million, starting the year before into local and state infrastructure for boots on the ground. And many successful candidates like Josh Shapiro, Jon Fetterman, and Catherine Cortez Masto said that the early investment paved their way to victory on the ground. And we’re spending even more this year for 2024. So the Democrats have their ground game sh*t in order.

And what about the Republicans? Hmmm. Well, to start with, Machine Gun Marjie got herself booted from the Freedom caucus for calling fellow caucus member Lauren Boebert a Little bitch in a personal floor argument over who should get to file impeachment charges against Joe Biden.

Alabama Senate reprobate Tommy Tuberville is giving Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel new ulcers by holding up senior level military promotions over a personal pissy fit about the military providing paid leave and travel expenses for active duty military members to travel to states where abortion is legal if it’s illegal in the state where their base is.

As Rachel Maddow reported on her show tonight, a recent previously scheduled Michigan state GOP meeting at a hotel conference room went to hell in a handbasket, with a female member kicking a male member in the nuts outside the room when the meeting broke up. Better yet, this was the second consecutive meeting of the group that ended in violence, with the last one ending in a fistfight outside of the hall.

Welcome to the Trumpmenistan GOP. Most sane GOP incumbents and operatives have finally realized that they’re caught in a paradox. They can’t win nationally with Trump, but at the same time, they can’t survive without him, especially since his first official act in 2017 after inauguration was to thoroughly infiltrate state and local GOP organs with faithful slaves.

The DNC is aggressively fundraising in order to expand their ground and grassroots operations in critical states. The RNC is busy sucking hind teat. The backbone of any national political organization is small money donors. Starting with Obama in 2008 the Democrats went digital, harnessing a nation of small money donors, and they’ve built their network from there. The GOP is historically the party of big money donors, and they struggled to play catch up. It was Trump in 2015-2016 that harnessed the power of social media to build a small money donor juggernaut, and now, seven  years later, he is still the monolithical king of small money donors, leaving the RNC high and dry to fund their operations.

There’s a long way to go, but at this early stage, I like the Democrats positioning better, for one reason I haven’t touched on. The Democrats have a literal cornucopia of issues to fire up their voters with. Voting rights, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights, transgender rights, gun control. And what does the GOP have? Culture wars. And mark my words, the 2024 GOP presidential primaries are going to be so far off the hook that they’ll provide local legislative Democrats with the cannon of the Gods to attack GOP opponents with. Don’t touch that dial.