Last week, all over the news, you’d have thought that a dictator had just been overthrown. From Facebook and Twitter to CNN or the Washington Post, the verdict was that both the repeal of Obamacare and the ascendency of Trump-care had been defeated once and for all.
There was also, in case you hadn’t been sick of hearing about presidential emails already, fresh news last week of Donald Trump Jr. tweeting away his fifth-amendment right and practically confessing to collusion with the Russian government. Trump denounced it, the liberals cheered it, and the Democrats popped open the champagne and chanted again, “Ding, dong, the Trump is dead.”
I remember several months ago when Trump announced his first travel ban: it was blocked by a local judge, and liberals again chanted “Ding, dong, the Trump is dead.” Then, a month or so later, another one came around, and this time the Supreme Court partially upheld the ban as constitutional, but by then the “opposition” had moved on.
I’m sure some can remember earlier this summer when, after firing the FBI director, Trump invited the top Russian agents in the country to the Oval Office, bragged about the firing, then casually leaked classified Israeli intelligence. Democrats clutched their pearl necklaces in shock, and the vaudeville repeated again. Trump poo-pooed, Fox & Collaborators stuttered over their excuses, and the liberals chanted, “Ding, dong, the Trump is dead.”
At this point, the Trump administration is not the 1984 I was expecting. It far more resembles the movie Groundhog Day, specifically the sequence in which Bill Murray’s character goes from zany antics to attempted suicide in a variety of colorful ways but always wakes up the same morning with the world around him repeating the same single day as if nothing had happened.
Nothing Trump did has stuck. There’s now a special prosecutor investigating the Russian connection to Trump, but he won’t have anything of a Watergate nature to offer in front of congress until next year at the earliest. Even then, he would need a congress willing to look at the facts, which will only matter to the house or the senate once they feel that Trump’s coattails hurt their chances more than they help. At an 87 per cent approval rating among Republicans, and with incumbency and gerrymandering to back up the Party, the midterms are not looking to be the sure-fire loss for Republicans that liberals claim is inevitable.
The Democrats are celebrating because of a simple truth: denial. They deny how badly they lost during the last election, why they lost, or that they ever had a problem to begin with. The self-delusion on display by Democrats borders on religious zealotry: “Why change our strategy? The only problem was that people didn’t pray hard enough!” No amount of wishful praying for the midterms to swing the Democrats’ way is going to make the election fall magically into their laps any more than the last election.
The humble pie remains uneaten.
Canadians in particular need to stop pretending that the neighbors to the South will just see the error of their ways and come over to the left, nor can we pretend that our own “liberal” government is a convincing counterargument to right-wing populism. Even though the centre has made some gains lately in France, the New-Right (there is no “alt-right”) still controls the premier superpowers in the world.
It’s a long road ahead if the Democrats want to see Trump’s administration demolished. They need to realize their mistakes and change their approach in engaging the American public to accomplish their goals.
The witch at this point can’t be killed by just pouring water on his head.
