2020-- Another Anti-Trump/Anti-Red Wave? Or An Actual Blue Wave Too This Time?

The Democratic tent-too-big Party didn't have anything much to offer voters in 2016 and millions of voters flocked to Trump. Two years later, many of those voters-- as well as some non-voters-- understand the scope of the catastrophe that Trump is. And they flocked to vote for Democrats running for Congress. Over 40 red seats flipped. I spent much of 2018 expelling why the coming wave was not a blue wave at all, but an anti-Trump wave, at best an anti-red wave. But "blue wave" is far too positive to a description. As a party, the Democrats still weren't offering anything to voters-- except "we're better than Trump." It was enough to flip those 40-some-odd seats. Could they have flipped more seats with the kind of positive message that actually would have inspired a blue wave? Absolutely. They could have picked up 60 seats instead of 40, or 70 seats... maybe 80.

Not random seats, seats with enough independent voters to swing elections-- like GA-07, where Republican incumbent Rob Woodall was reelected with just 50.1% of the vote, or MI-06, where GOP incumbent Fred Upton won with just 50.2% or TX-23, where Republican incumbent Will Hurd was elected with a paltry 49.2%. Republicans like Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA-03), Ann Wagner (MO-02), John Carter (TX-31), Michael McCaul (TX-10), Chris Collins (NY-27), Devin Nunes (CA-22), Rodney Davis (IL-13), Don Bacon (NE-02), John Katko (NY-24), Doug LaMalfa (CA-01), Vern Buchanan (FL-16), Brain Fitzpatrick (PA-01), George Holding (NC-02), Kenny Marchant (TX-24), Lee Zeldin (NY-01) wouldn't have stood a chance in a blue wave. All of them had stomach-churning close calls.

The Democrats may offer the same next year: nothing. Or, as Matt Yglesias, put it last week: Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020. He's another Iraq War hawk, another Wall Street shill (the senator from MBNA), and another flip-flopper with terrible instincts who has wrong on every big issue. (Yesterday, in an e-mail from her campaign with the subject line "Joe Biden," Team Warren wrote "Elizabeth doesn’t host private fundraisers or take money from federally registered lobbyists or PACs. Instead, we’re building a broad grassroots movement where a lot of people chip in a little at a time to build something big... How did Joe Biden raise so much money in one day? Well, it helps that he hosted a swanky private fundraiser for wealthy donors at the home of the guy who runs Comcast's lobbying shop. Elizabeth is building a grassroots movement without holding any big-money private fundraisers where you can only talk to her if you write a big check first. Without taking a dime from federally registered lobbyists or PACs of any kind. It’s the right thing to do."

Elizabeth Warren, like Bernie, actually offers, reasons for a blue-wave. In fact, yesterday, reporting for BuzzFeed News, Ruby Cramer wrote that in hosting something like 4,700 simultaneous organizing events on Saturday, Faiz Shakir, Bernie's campaign manager "boldly predicted that their candidate would help bring 'a wave up and down the Democratic ballot' on Nov. 3, 2020... You're not only going to have Sen. Sanders winning the White House, you are going to see a wave-- a wave up and down the Democratic ballot. That is what we are fighting for."

Claire Sandberg, the campaign’s national organizing director, called the Saturday organizing event “historic”-- the “largest distributed day of action ever in a presidential campaign,” she said, referring to a model of “distributed organizing” that aims to build volunteer networks in areas without official campaign staff.

Sandberg, who also spoke at the pre-taped Boston event, said that house parties were scheduled to be held in all 50 states, including at hundreds of college campuses, as well as 30 other countries from Japan to Senegal.

"Many voices will attempt to diminish what we're building here together and argue that our movement has run its course,” Sandberg said. “The reality is that we grow larger every day.”

To ensure that the campaign is able to harness the energy they are confident Sanders still inspires-- and in a show of organization they lacked during his first presidential campaign-- officials have built a new online app called "Bern."

Through the app, aides said, volunteer leaders ("ambassadors for this campaign") will be encouraged to recruit other volunteers and identify new supporters. The app will also help volunteers help register people to vote, request a Democratic primary ballot, and remind people of voter registration deadlines in key states.

"A movement that grows is a movement that wins," Shakir said.

Sanders is scheduled to spend Saturday afternoon calling into various house parties, an aide said.

"We talk about us, not me. Because this is a very profound statement. What does it mean? It's not just a bumper sticker. What it means-- and I believe this as someone who's been involved in politics 13 years in the Senate, 16 years in the House-- is that no president, not the best intentioned, not the most honest person in the world, no one person can do it alone."

"And remember," Sanders said moments later, pumping his hand in the air. "It's not Bernie! It's us! Don't forget that: Us! Us! Us!"