Commenters to Raw Story often lament that too many opinion columns predict Trump’s imminent downfall over his latest scandal, yet it has yet to come. But columnist Jason Miciak isn’t predicting Trump’s collapse this time. He’s saying the readers themselves are the ones who might finally do it.
By the very act of reading political news, Miciak argues, you’ve proven both a need and the ability to absorb what’s happening. That makes you an asset. The prescription: volunteer to help with whatever effort it takes to get the current regime out of office, at all levels of government, any age, profession, and from any political bent but dead red.
Miciak just took his own advice. Instead of merely writing to a national audience, he offered to help his local Democrat running for Congress, hoping to unseat a Republican in what he calls a “pink-purple” district. There has never been a better time, he writes, and never one with fewer excuses.
The purity problem
This is where it gets uncomfortable for some progressives, including Miciak himself. He argues it’s time to set aside all qualms about purity. The only pure position of any use this cycle, he writes, is unfiltered opposition to MAGA. When and if Democrats regain a measure of power, there will be time to fight over the proper progressive priorities. Right now, holding fast to progressive purity hurts when up against MAGA impunity.
His suggestion: if you’re still in primary season, pick the leader with the most money, name recognition, power. The one most likely to defeat a MAGA opponent. Hold your nose if they don’t match your priorities in anything other than beating the MAGA on the ballot. What good is prioritizing climate change or racial justice if your candidate never gets into office because your purple district doesn’t align with your wonderful values?
At some point the argument for ideological consistency collides with the argument that you can’t enact any of those ideals if you lose every race that matters.
The two-pronged formula
Winning, according to Miciak, requires balancing two means of attack. First, maximize the Democratic vote. Democrats need to vote in percentages unseen in generations. Second, reach the last 20 percent of this country that is moderate enough to vote either way, and relentlessly reach out with the only message they want to hear: they have been left behind economically.
For true blue voters, he argues that without them showing up to possibly vote for a moderate uninterested in their enlightened progressive priorities, beating a MAGA with anyone at least ensures those priorities remain viable and not eliminated. For the second group, the independents who elected Trump on the promise that he’d decrease prices on day one, the message is simpler: Trump left you behind long ago.
According to Miciak, polls make clear that no issue infuriates Americans more with Trump than inflation. It’s their number one issue. The pitch: it’s getting worse, he has no plan, and even if he had a plan, he lacks all competence to get it done. He promised to stay out of foreign wars, then started one. He promised to drain the swamp, then released more alligators and snakes than anyone thought could fit. He promised to lower taxes, but instead we’re all paying higher prices as a tax. Only these tax dollars go to Elon, Larry Ellison, and Trump himself.
For all of us making less than $100,000 a year, which is most of us by far, the Trump tax has made living much more difficult. This is the Democrats’ winning message, Miciak argues, because Trump has MAGAs that will commit to him no matter what, but the campaign isn’t talking to them. It’s talking to those who thought Trump meant a better economy. The stock market is up, which does no good for the lives of your average young teacher, a nurse, a construction worker. They pay, he plays.
The civic sin that isn’t
Miciak admits he knows nothing about his local candidate’s priorities except that she aims to defeat the MAGA opponent and has the greatest support. Normally, he writes, that would be a civic sin. But this isn’t normal.
There is a version of pragmatism that is indistinguishable from cynicism. There is also a version of idealism that is indistinguishable from surrender. Miciak has decided which one he thinks wins races, and he’s all in on it.
He closes with a plea: commit to one degree more than what you’ve done before. History is made by those who show up.
The real test isn’t whether Trump is reeling. It’s whether the people who’ve spent years reading about his scandals are willing to do something other than read about the next one.
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