Battleground

Ed Burmila, who I respect in a lot of ways, makes the case repeatedly on social media that can be boiled down to "Fuck Trump voters.  They suck and will never vote for Democrats." 

This is only somewhat true.  Trump voters represent a large and varied group of people.  Some were anti-Hillary voters or traditional Republican professionals.  That group includes people, presumably, like George Will or Max Boot who voted for Trump or Johnson.  There are people - mostly women - who are outraged by Trump, who might be "soft Republican" voters. 

Martin Longman offers the following: The midterms (especially in the Senate) will be fought on Trump's turf.  The battleground districts will be the suburbs.  In order to win back the gavels in the House and Senate, Democrats will have to win in districts that Republicans currently hold.  That's...obvious.  Yet, when Burmila suggests that we should just write off anyone who is Republican or leans Republican and try and mobilize the base, that neglects that there isn't "enough base" in those districts that Democrats have to win.

Some of this reminds me (hopefully) of the 1992-1994 electoral cycle.  For 150 years, Democrats held the South.  They did so, even as the national party moved left on economic issues and governmental power, because FDR and the Southern committee chairs brought the bacon back to the South. From 1933 through today, federal dollars flow south to promote economic growth.  But once the Democratic party really endorsed civil rights under LBJ, that deal began to fray.  However, the true "culture wars" really came about under Reagan.  Southerners were content to continue to elect Democrats to Congress, while supporting Republicans in national elections. 

Bill Clinton's election stripped that away.  Those Southern voters decided that they no longer wanted conserative or moderate Democrats, they wanted conservative Republicans. Clinton's social liberalism (gays in the military, abortion, health care) created a breaking point and they flipped their Congressional votes. 

Donald Trump has the potential to do that with suburban moderate Republican leaners, again, especially women.  He will never lose his Deplorables.  He could very well lose those women who are fuming at the constant chaos and cruelty on display in this White House.  Flipping them in November will have to occur in New Jersey, Long Island, the Pennsylvania suburbs, Virginia, California and even Texas.  This is the only work-around for the GOP natural and artificial gerrymanders.

If it doesn't happen, if Democrats can't gain control of at least one House, then we have a crisis of legitimacy in American democracy.  Despite a few brawls by Antifa, the left-of-center coalition has largely refrained from anything more than intemperate language.  Some of this is that the current left tends to eschew violence in general.  (Far right extremists tend to reach for violence more easily.  See Oklahoma City and various mass shooters.) 

Everything is riding on those suburban voters in November.