Useless Conservative Democrats Like New Dem Elissa Slotkin Keep Attacking Progressives And Then Start Screaming And Wailing When Progressives Punch Back

 

Freshman Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI) is aggressively anti-progressive. In the 2018 anti-red wave, she ousted Republican Mike Bishop 172,880 (50.6%) to 159,782 (46.8%), despite Trump having won the district 2 years earlier by 7 points. The Oakland-Ingraham-Livingston counties district has a PVI of R+4 and she just won her reelection bid 217,929 (50.9%) to 202,519 (47.3%). She out-raised her opponent $8,329,945 to $1,950,832. Trump's base turned out and he won Slotkin's district again.

Generally speaking, she's been a lousy member-- unless you like conservative Democrats. ProgressivePunch gave her a strong "F" and it's worth noting that she's the furthest right of any Michigan Democrat in Congress and that there are 217 members of Congress with more progressive voting records than hers, including several odious Blue Dogs like Stephanie Murphy, Tom O'Halleran, Max Rose, Jim Cooper, Brad Schneider, Dan Lipinski, Charlie Crist, Kurt Schrader... yeah, she really stinks.

Yesterday, Politico ran a puff piece by Tim Alberta on her, Elissa Slotkin Braces for a Democratic Civil War. She whined to Alberta that she watched some of her fellow right-of-center pals in Congress lose their jobs and how she listened to fake fellow faux-Dems "blame the party’s left wing for polluting the Democratic brand and watched progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez critique the centrists [corporate shills like Slotkin] as stale and outdated in their approach." Here's Slotkin's own stale and outdated approach:

“It’s not just that [Trump] eats cheeseburgers at a big celebratory dinner. It’s not just that he does things that the common man can kind of appreciate. And it’s not even because he uses kind of simplistic language-- he doesn’t use complicated, wonky language, the way a lot of Democrats do. We sometimes make people feel like they aren’t conscientious enough. They aren’t thoughtful enough. They aren’t ‘woke’ enough. They aren’t smart enough or educated enough to just understand what’s good for them… It’s talking down to people. It’s alienating them. And there’s just certain voters who feel so distant from the political process-- it’s not their life, it’s not their world. They hate it. They don’t like all that politics stuff. Trump speaks to them, because he includes them.”

Alberta wrote that she worries that the Democratic Party is now "fundamentally unwelcoming to anyone with supposedly retrograde views of the world around them. This is not merely about race and racism. The schisms go far deeper, to matters of faith and conscience, economic freedom and individual liberty. Indeed, for the heavy losses Trump sustained among affluent college-educated whites, he nearly won a second term because of his gains with Black and brown voters. That these Americans were willing to support Trump, often in spite of his rhetoric, reveals an uncomfortable truth for the left. There are millions of voters-- working-class whites and working-class minorities-- whose stances on social controversies put them out of touch with the Democratic Party. It’s a truth they might be willing to overlook, if only the party could do the same." She seems to be afraid that people "feel looked down upon." And she feels like she's too unhip to be part of the in-crowd. Between her two twitter accounts the former CIA agent only has 111.5 followers-- a far cry from fellow Michigander Rashid Tlaib (1.2 million), let alone AOC's 10.3 million followers. Her jealousy of AOC is mind-boggling.

"What bothers me a little bit is that we have this false dichotomy-- either you’re young and bold and have big ideas and you’re passionate, or you’re old and moderate and boring and pragmatic. I hope this bench of leaders that are coming up in the freshmen class, my closest peers, are going to just explode that stereotype. Because I’m as passionate as the next person. I believe deeply in change on the issues I care about. I don’t think I’m that boring and I don’t consider myself that old. So, we have to break through that. But in the meantime, you represent your district. Don’t tell me how to represent mine when you come from New York or California."

...“If we are classifying Tuesday as a success from a congressional standpoint, we will get fucking torn apart in 2022,” Spanberger shouted.

With a few hundred ears now perked up, the Virginia Democrat proceeded to slam her progressive colleagues for flirting with two fads-- “defund the police” and democratic socialism—that she said cost the party multiple seats and threatened to doom those who did survive in their future campaigns.

“When we want to talk about funding social services, and ensuring good engagement in community policing, let’s talk about what we are for,” Spanberger beseeched her colleagues. “We need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. Because while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter. And we lost good members because of it.”

Unfortunately, Spanberger, a far right Blue Dog with an even worse voting record than Slotkin's-- and Slotkin's best friend in the House-- survived, albeit barely. With 98% of the vote counted, Spanberger has 232,995 votes (50.9%) to neo-fascist crackpot Nick Freitas' 224,679 (49.1%). What if the Republican Party wises up and runs someone next time who isn't an actual Nazi?

Meanwhile Alberta reported that Slotkin "fired a warning shot at anyone who might pressure the Biden administration to chase big progressive policies out of the gate."

“I will not be voting for Nancy Pelosi,” Slotkin told me. “I have no idea if people are gonna run against her, or who might run against her. And I will of course have this conversation directly with her. But I believe we need new leadership. I would love to see more Midwesterners, because if you look across the leadership. … I respect these people, but it’s New York and California.”

To translate: “New York and California” isn’t simply code for liberalism. In this case, rather, Slotkin is hammering a perceived aloofness in the leadership-- a perception that spans the party’s ideological divides. Both Slotkin and her like-minded moderates, as well as AOC and her insurgent progressives, believe Pelosi and her lieutenants treat them with paternalistic condescension, insisting they know what’s best for them and for the party. Sometimes this approach has helped the center at the expense of the left, such as when Pelosi slow-walked impeachment proceedings. Other times, however, particularly over the past year, Pelosi’s refusal to engage in real negotiations with the White House has left moderates fuming.

When the speaker slapped down a bipartisan Covid-19 relief package this summer-- then gave a bizarre interview on CNN in which she insulted a member of her party who was pushing for it (and Wolf Blitzer for even bringing it up)—inboxes and cellphone screens lit up across the House Democratic Caucus. Even some of the members who backed Pelosi’s strategy of not moving from her initial offer were vexed by her imperious tone. In hindsight, given the closeness of the presidential election, Pelosi’s allies may have been politically astute to refuse any concessions that would have given Trump a timely victory at a time when his campaign was flagging. On the other hand, this gets to Slotkin’s basic point about the Democratic Party: It has spent the past four years defining itseleves by what it is against, and it very likely cost it on Election Day.

Slotkin isn’t sure how many other Democrats will join her in rebelling against Pelosi’s quest for a fourth term as speaker.

Also writing for Politico yesterday, Sarah Ferris, Heather Caygle and Ally Mutnick reported that many in the party are warning that the biggest priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee must be overhauling its message. They say it needs to craft a proactive campaign that counters GOP attacks on everything from Medicare for All to fracking-- if they have any hopes of keeping their majority in 2022." The "defund the police" ads the GOP used to attack Democrats did several conservatives in. Unable to intelligently defend themselves, Blue Dogs like Max Rose, Anthony Brindisi, Collin Peterson, Xochitl Torres Small and Kendra Horn are as against "defunding the police" as any Republican. But none are talented political leaders with the ability to persuade voters of anything. It's not tragic that they're gone; it's tragic that the DCCC will start working forthwith to recruit conservaDems just like them to run in 2022.

Are Big 2022 Losses For House Dems Already Baked Into The Cake?

 

We've been predicting for all this year that the Republicans would win seats in 2022. But... that was based on several assumptions, which turned out to me overly optimistic about the course of the 2020 cycle and the ability of Democrats to prosper even with a completely inept and incapable DCCC with the worst chairperson in living memory. The assumptions were:

• that an anti-Trump tsunami would give the Democrats many new seats in traditionally Republican districts;
• that this year the Democrats would hold the reddest seats they had won in 2018;
• that going forward, the Democrats would have control of both Houses of Congress and the White House;
• that going forward the Democrats would accomplish nothing-- or at least nothing big-- that would help working families.

The first 3 assumptions were all wrong. If there was an anti-red wave, it was weak and didn't impact down-ballot races... at least not in favor of Democrats. In the House, the Democrats picked up 3 seats and lost around a dozen (votes are still being counted in several). The Democrats failed to win the Senate and it isn't likely the two January 5th runoffs in Georgia are going to go their way. If they did, that would get them to a 50-50 tie, which could be broken by Vice President Kamala. BUT... getting to that 50-50 vote is dependent on a shitload of garbage senators cooperating... like Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Joe Manchin (WV), Tom Carper (DE), Jacky Rosen (NV), Mark Warner (VA), all of whom vote against progressive proposals, and soon to be joined by Mark Kelly (AZ) and Frackenlooper (CO) who will certainly be as bad, if not worse.

Back to the House, minority leader McCarthy came out yesterday and said that he guarantees that Republicans will win the majority in the 2022 midterms: "We have never been stronger in the sense of what the future holds for us-- we have never been in a stronger position. We won this by adding more people to the party. And we won this in an atmosphere where we were the one group that everyone guaranteed we would lose. And we’re the ones who won." Yeah... and the seats they won:

• Collin Peterson (MN-07)- R+12
• Joe Cunningham (SC-01)- R+10
• Kendra Horn (OK-05)- R+10
• Xochitl Torres Small (NM-02)- R+6
• Harley Rouda (CA-48)- R+4
• Max Rose (NY-11)- R+3
• Anthony Brindisi (NY-22)- R+6
• Ben McAdams (UT-04)- R+13

That's what you call some low-hanging fruit. And then there were the two overwhelmingly Hispanic districts in Miami-Dade, where only the Democratic Party would be stupid enough to not run Hispanic candidates. They were begging for losses and they got them, from prominent Republican Latinos.

Washington Post reporter Paulina Firozi, wrote that the 2020 suburban thing didn't work out for the DCCC the way they predicted it would. "Democrats," she reported, "have spent years wooing suburban voters, seeking to build a durable House majority on a foundation of affluent, well-educated voters repelled by President Trump and a hard-right GOP. But last week, that foundation developed serious cracks. Republicans not only reversed Democratic midterm gains in rural districts that had voted strongly for Trump in 2016, but clawed back at least one seat in Southern California while leading in other suburban districts that are yet to be called. Even more alarming for Democrats, predictions of broad gains in the suburbs of Texas, Indiana, Missouri and other states simply failed to materialize-- casting doubt on the party’s long-term House strategy of offsetting the party’s dwindling appeal among less-educated White voters with greater support among the more educated."

That's what I always mean when I talk about these losers-- the Kendra Horns, Harley Roudas, Anthony Brindisis, etc, ruining the Democratic brand. In most places a Democratic coalition of unionists, women, people of color, young people... turned out for Biden-- most to get rid of Trump, rather than to elect Biden per se. Democratic messaging isn't offering them anything much-- Pelosi's PayGo?-- beyond Trump must go. Whether or not McCarthy will be able to deliver on his "guarantee" for 2022 will depend on how seriously the Democrats take the identity crisis they're living through now. If they are determined to remain a Republican-lite party... well, we all know how that always turns out.

The Democrats should try to pass a progressive agenda that would clearly help working families. If that gets blocked by the Senate again, they-- including Biden-- can and should blame the gridlock on obstructionist Republicans who don't want people-- voters-- to get a fair shake. If the Democrats do that, rather than take the Republican-lite road-- they can defy historical projections and win seats in 2022. When FDR won a landslide in 1932, House Democrats won a net of 97 Republican seats. They did stuff for people for the next two years and were rewarded in the midterms, watching 14 more Republican seats flip blue. In 1944, FDR was reelected to her 4th term and he brought 20 new Democratic House members in on his coattails. The 1946 midterms was another reward for Democrats who did stuff for people: 55 more seats! The midterms after Bill Clinton's reelection saw the Democrats win 5 seats, which led to Newt Gingrich's resignation.