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by
Dan Pfeiffer
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June 14 - June 14, 2020
If it was true—as the Washington Post and others were reporting—that during a call with the newly elected Ukrainian president, Trump used the specter of military aid to extort the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden, then Trump would be guilty of a crime more serious than anything Nixon was accused of during Watergate.
Trump’s efforts to collude with Russia and obstruct the Mueller probe had been so ham-handed that the lines between his criminality and his incompetence were blurred.
In the transcript, Trump sounded like a crooked capo trying to pressure a local businessman.
My preemptive sense of disappointment deepened the next morning when Trump announced that he would be releasing the transcript of the call. To say Trump is not the sharpest knife in the drawer is an insult to butter knives, but even he is not dumb enough to release a transcript of a call that would implicate him in global criminal conspiracy to interfere in an American election.
Right?
Wrong.
In the transcript, Trump sounded like a crooked capo trying to pressure a local businessman. Trump called his conversation with the Ukraine President—the “perfect call,” but it was an imperfect crime.3
In the following days, we would learn that the efforts to cover up this obviously impeachable offense involved the White House, the National Security Council, the intelligence community, and the Department of Justice. As an example, Attorney General Bill Barr who helped cover up the Mueller report played a similar role in this affair. Barr didn’t recuse himself from the investigation even though Trump names him in the call with Ukraine as a participant in the criminal conspiracy.
Our national attention span is so short and the pace of events so frenetic that it’s nearly impossible to step back and take stock of the moment.
Our national attention span is so short and the pace of events so frenetic that it’s nearly impossible to step back and take stock of the moment.
Trump handled the beginning of an impeachment inquiry with his usual aplomb. In a period of about 96 hours, Trump
- called for the execution of the whistleblower and the administration officials that corroborated their account;
- referred to six members of Congress as “savages”—the six members Trump chose were two Jews and four women of color which wasn’t a coincidence.
- suggested a second civil war would be an appropriate response to impeachment;4
- posted eighteen tweets5 in five minutes attacking the weekend anchor of Fox & Friends for having the audacity to ask a barely tough question of one of Trump’s defenders6
- said that the Democratic chair of the Intelligence Committee should be arrested for treason, which happens to be a crime punishable by death; and
- reportedly committed another crime by agreeing to back off legislation to mandate background checks for gun sales in exchange for the National Rifle Association contributing to his legal and political defense.7
The biggest divide in the Democratic Party is not between left and center. It’s between those who believe once Trump is gone things will go back to normal, and those who believe that our democracy is under a threat that goes beyond Trump.
America is a “democracy” governed by antidemocratic institutions, a country where a growing progressive diverse majority is being governed by a shrinking conservative white minority.
I believe that un-Trumping America involves three elements: First, understanding who the Republicans are and what their strategy is. Second, winning in 2020. And finally, using our newfound political power to fix American politics to ensure we never have to deal with someone like Donald Trump ever again.
The best summary of Trumpism is “billionaire-funded racial grievance politics.” It’s plutocracy in populist clothing.
It taught the politicians that shame was weakness, truth was unnecessary, and democracy was the enemy. Trump also got the Republican base hooked on a particularly high dosage of racial resentment.
The reckoning between the billionaire-loving elites and the racist base never happened, because America elected a racist billionaire.
In this union lies the core of Trumpism—billionaire-funded racial grievance politics. Trump united the billionaires and the bigots. That union will continue after he is gone because they need each other to maintain their political power.
Democrats and Republicans are not opposite sides of the same coin. The great asymmetry in American politics is that Democrats view political power as a means to an end, and Republicans view political power as an end in and of itself. In other words, Democrats want to do the right thing and Republicans want to win. Modern politics is a contest between two different philosophies. It’s “Yes We Can” versus “Because We Can.”
Trump’s election didn’t turn the Republican Party into a nihilistic, win-at-all-costs, political-racketeering scheme. The fact that the Republican Party is a nihilistic, win-at-all-costs, political-racketeering scheme is what led to the election of Trump.
The Republican base responds to fear, and Democrats respond to hope. To win elections, we need to inspire nonvoters to become voters. To win elections, Republicans need to fire up their base while keeping everyone else from voting via cynicism and/or suppression.
If you believe Trump is an accident of history, you can have an approach that is simply about waiting out the storm. If you believe that Trump is the logical extension of modern Republicanism, then you need a different, more aggressive approach to right the ship. It means that you have to embrace bolder, more radical responses to Trumpism.
Republican political success depends on making white people scared that nonwhite people will take their jobs, waste their taxpayer dollars, and commit crimes and terrorism in their community.
The Republican leadership refused to take on Trump. They never stood up to Trump. They never stood up to the parts of the base that continued to push the racist conspiracy theories about Obama. They clearly made a decision that being seen as racist was better politics than condemning racism.
In many ways, Trump is an accidental president. He was aided by Russian hacking, poor Democratic cybersecurity, James Comey’s infatuation with his own reputation, Republican voter suppression, cable television’s thirst for ratings, Facebook’s general terribleness, and Hillary Clinton’s aversion to visiting Wisconsin in the fall.77
A lot of people in the GOP—the Never Trumpers who advocated a more inclusive path—hoped that Trump’s loss would knock some sense into the rest of the party. A third consecutive loss would be the evidence they needed to push the party toward a more inclusive, future-oriented path. Trump’s victory settled the debate. They would become a white nationalist party.
While the rest of us have been fretting about Trump’s tweets, reading the latest tell-all from disgruntled C-list White House staffers, and arguing about whether Trump is a dictator or just a dick, the Republicans have been systematically rigging American democracy.
Ever since Trump won, Democrats have engaged in a never-ending, emphatically stupid, ill-informed debate about whether the party should appeal to a growing base or try to court more moderate “swing” voters. This is a false choice—up until the moment the Electoral College is abolished.114 The only way a Democrat can piece together the 270 votes necessary to win the White House is to do both. Your campaign needs to turn out first-time and periodic voters AND win over independent voters, particularly in the exurban and rural counties that turned Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
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Democrats refused to fall into Trump’s trap. Instead of responding to his absurdities and changing the subject from health care (which excites our voters) to immigration (which excites his voters), Democrats stayed on message and won.
In the run-up to the 2018 election, Democrats across the country had been running on a very specific and effective message—Republicans want to take away your health care and cut your Medicare to pay for a tax cut for corporations and billionaires.134 Trump, whose approach to politics is more instinctual than intellectual, sensed that this was a problem. He decided to change the subject. Out of nowhere he started tweeting about an “invasion” of MS-13 members and terrorists marching toward the southern border. Like all Trump lies, there was just enough of a kernel of truth buried deep in there to give Fox News and the rest of the propaganda operation permission to run with it. It was true that there were a large number of Central Americans fleeing violence who were coming to the United States seeking political asylum. The group was largely children and thousands of miles from the border when Trump began tweeting. To protect against this invasion (invented in his own demented racist cortex), Trump even sent US troops to the border.
Democrats refused to fall into Trump’s trap. Instead of responding to his absurdities and changing the subject from health care (which excites our voters) to immigration (which excites his voters), Democrats stayed on message and won.
This approach was a lesson learned from 2016.
In 2016, the Democrats chased Trump down nearly every rabbit hole and responded to his every tweet, outrage, and scandal. This machine-gun-spray message strategy meant that voters were exposed to a lot of information about Trump—but it was never woven into a coherent narrative. There was no message repetition to drive home the information. It was just ephemeral—one day Trump was racist, another day he was a misogynist, and on a third day he was a crooked businessman.
If there is a progressive in the White House and conservatives control the statehouses, most of America will never feel the full impact of progressive policies.
If there is a progressive in the White House and conservatives control the statehouses, most of America will never feel the full impact of progressive policies. The Affordable Care Act included what was essentially free money for states to expand Medicaid to insure their citizens. States with Democratic governors leapt at the opportunity to take care of their citizens without affecting their already tight budgets. Many Republican governors became the first politicians in recorded history to turn down free money and forced their citizens to go without lifesaving health care. There was no argument about fiscal responsibility or small government. The whole point was to fuck with Obama’s policy. The less successful the policy, the better the chances of defeating Obama in 2012 or another Democrat in 2016. I don’t want to be overdramatic about this, but a lot of people died because Republican politicians cared more about hurting Obama than helping their fellow human beings.
Much of the Democratic Party is in the thrall of a class of political consultants who have failed up and gotten rich doing so.
Much of the Democratic Party is in the thrall of a class of political consultants who have failed up and gotten rich doing so. In my twenty-plus years in and around the Democratic Party, there has been shocking little turnover in which consulting firms do the bulk of the work for the party and its top politicians. This is, in part, why we keep making the same mistakes over and over again. It is the financial interest of the consultants to adhere to the way things have been done, as opposed to the way things should be done. A modern, more effective and progressive Democratic Party depends on ending the consultant culture that dominates the party.
America has only two parties, and one of them is a morally bankrupt, intellectually dishonest collection of elected racists and grifters, so if we have any hope at all of getting out of this moment, we need a reenergized, reformed, and smarter Democratic Party. Democrats are the last hope for democracy.
Fox doesn’t do “journalism.” It is a pure partisan propaganda outlet that employs a handful of journalists that don’t do journalism as it is commonly understood. They stand in front of cameras and attend press conferences, but they aren’t seeking out the truth. The Fox reporters are doing journalistic cosplay. They are propaganda beards. It is a party organ. There is no equivalent on the Democratic side. Not. Even. Close.
Facebook was pushing partisan propaganda and willful misinformation.
The task of the modern communications department is not about getting “coverage”; it’s about influencing the conversation.
Democrats love reporters. We romanticize the media. Trump’s authoritarian tantrums against the media have actually reinforced our crush on journalism. To be anti-Trump in this era is to be pro-media. Subscribing to the New York Times and watching CNN is an act of resistance.
It’s time to adopt a more holistic communications strategy that includes but is not limited to the traditional media.
That filter reinforces all the worst impressions about politics. It’s particularly damaging for Democrats whose only path to victory depends on convincing nonvoters to become voters.
Instead of covering plane crashes nonstop, CNN and MSNBC cover and debate politics 24-7.199 This means that every issue the press covers is put through a sometimes cynical political filter: How does this help their campaign? How does Candidate A’s criminal justice policy affect African American turnout? How will Trump voters respond to a wealth tax?
That filter reinforces all the worst impressions about politics. It’s particularly damaging for Democrats whose only path to victory depends on convincing nonvoters to become voters. The solution is to go above, around, and through the filter. Every day the campaign needs to wake up thinking not about their press strategy, but about what content they are going to create to tell their own story.
We need so many more progressive media outlets generating compelling content and pushing it into the social media ecosystem to shift the national conversation leftward.
I don’t believe evangelical voters are naive about who Trump is, but I would want to make it as hard as possible to forget who they are putting in the Oval Office. Audience of one: I am generally anti–television ads. They are often an outdated, inefficient means of reaching voters. I get particularly annoyed by the bipartisan consultant grift of convincing wealthy interests and well-funded advocacy organizations to spend a bunch of money on television ads that run in the DC market to “influence policy makers.” But there is one major exception to my anti–TV ad rule: commercials with an audience
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The right response to Republican voter suppression is an aggressive, deliberate strategy of voter expansion that combines new laws to make voting easier, with a political strategy to make Republicans pay a steep political price for stealing elections.
“Stacey Abrams isn’t just the future of the Democratic Party. She’s the future of the country, and fuck, she better win.” She didn’t win. She got more votes than any Democrat—including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton—in Georgia history.
Yet, despite all of her talent, charisma, and broad appeal, Stacey Abrams is not governor of Georgia. This was a huge loss for the state of Georgia, the Democratic Party, and the country. She would have been the first African American woman governor in American history, and it would have happened in the heart of the new South. What a powerful symbol.
But in truth, she didn’t lose the election. It was stolen from her. Electoral larceny. Her opponent, Brian Kemp, just happened to be the Georgia secretary of state who just happened to be the person in charge of the election. And boy did he take advantage of that fact.
Several months before the election, he purged tens of thousands of voters off the rolls—a group that was overwhelmingly African American and most likely supporters of Abrams. This purge came on top of nearly seven hundred thousand voters who were purged in 2017. This effort was about making it harder for a Democrat to win.
What happened in Georgia is not an aberration; it’s both a story about what has happened to Democrats and a warning about how much worse it’s going to get. As Republicans become more of an electoral minority, their efforts to suppress the majority from voting are only going to get worse.
Fighting voter suppression efforts in the courts is important but ultimately not sufficient. The right response to Republican voter suppression is an aggressive, deliberate strategy of voter expansion that combines new laws to make voting easier, with a political strategy to make Republicans pay a steep political price for stealing elections.
The first priority for every Democrat elected at every level must be an aggressive expansion of voting rights.
The Republican approach to elections is un-American, immoral, often unconstitutional, and devastatingly effective.
A theme of this book is that Democrats don’t have to emulate the Republicans to win, but on this issue, we need to take a page out of their book and flip the script. The first priority for every Democrat elected at every level must be an aggressive expansion of voting rights. It starts with repealing the voter ID laws that Republicans passed to explicitly reduce voting by people of color and college students, but we don’t stop there. Their strategy is voter suppression; ours needs to be voter expansion.
Every Democrat up and down the ballot should sign onto a voting expansion agenda that includes a series of long-discussed, widely accepted, but rarely implemented ideas to make voting easier,
Every Democrat up and down the ballot should sign onto a voting expansion agenda that includes a series of long-discussed, widely accepted, but rarely implemented ideas to make voting easier, including
automatic voter registration;
same-day registration;
vote by mail;
expanding early voting;
restoring voting rights to ex-felons who have paid their debt to society;
making it easier for college students to vote.
Voter fraud is a myth. A 2014 study also published in the Washington Post found that between 2000 and 2014, there were thirty-one incidents of voter fraud out of more than one billion ballots cast.
The reason that Democrats haven’t won the argument on voting is that Democrats haven’t made the argument.
You should ask yourself, Why doesn’t the Republican Party want everyone to vote?
Sixteen-year-olds can drive, work, pay taxes, and have a real stake in issues like college affordability, military interventions, and climate change.
there are some good senators—even some very good senators,233 but there are no giants. In most cases, the senators are former House members who ran for Senate. Winning a Senate seat doesn’t make someone smarter, more deliberative, or more serious. For every John McCain and Ted Kennedy,234 there are twenty Lindsey Grahams—an
the Senate is fundamentally antidemocratic in a way that is a giant problem for Democrats. The long-term population trends are very bad for Democrats even as traditional Democratic voters become a bigger part of the overall population.
Obama famously told Republicans angry about his agenda that elections have consequences,236 but the Senate rules limit those consequences.
If we win the White House and the Senate in 2020, the Senate Democrats should walk directly from the inauguration to the floor of the Senate, eliminate the filibuster, and start passing some fucking laws.
Eliminating the filibuster for legislation could be done in five minutes. All it takes is a simple majority of senators to vote to change the rules.237 We know it’s easy because a version of it has been done twice in the last few years.
A vote to keep the filibuster is a vote against the next Democratic president’s agenda.
The best argument for eliminating the filibuster is the absence of a credible theory for passing progressive legislation with the filibuster still in place. The risk is worth it when the alternative is allowing a conservative minority to dictate the policy agenda in America until the planet melts because that minority refuses to acknowledge the science of climate change.
The best solution for democracy and Democrats is to eliminate the Electoral College.
The best solution for democracy and Democrats is to eliminate the Electoral College.
Eliminating the Electoral College would be great for democracy—and Democrats. We have a huge—and growing—popular-vote advantage. Texas is on a seemingly inexorable path to being blue. In 2016, Hillary Clinton improved on Obama’s margin by seven points, and in 2018, Beto O’Rourke came within a hair of being the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Texas in decades. If and when Texas becomes blue, it will be electoral checkmate. California, New York, and Texas would give Democrats 122 of the 270 electoral votes right off the bat.
The Equal Rights Amendment, which takes the controversial position that civil rights may not be denied based on sex, passed Congress in 1972 but has not yet been ratified by the states.
Democrats want to make America as democratic as possible. We want everyone who is eligible to get a chance to vote, and we want that vote to count. Democrats believe that the people should decide; the Republicans believe the powerful should decide.
