Truth to Power

[A few days since my previous post ...] All that hope for a Democratic Congress? Not gone exactly, but fading. Republicans are stubborn bastards, and it seems for the most part they think they get more votes, and hold more seats, by holding their collective nose and staying with their sexual predator/nominee. What an ugly picture! And all that talk about the GOP breaking apart, the first major-party realignment since ... 1932? 1872? 1854? You choose. But it ain't gonna happen.

True, Trump has exposed the faulty connections between a disadvantaged white working class base of social conservatives and a set of fiscal policies determined by an elite crew of plutocrats. But there is nothing new in this, and absent an intolerable blowhard as candidate, it works! Why? Here's my hypothesis:

That magic 40% who would follow Trump right off the cliff? They'd do it again, and again, and not because they're stupid. No, just misinformed. They have been told so many times by their only news sources--Fox News and squawk radio--that Hillary is a she-devil, Obama a Muslim terrorist, climate change a fraud, Mexicans rapists, etc. etc., that they can't see beyond this parallel universe. It has become their reality, and what the rest of us believe is lies. And as long as our balkanized media maintain this split-screen vision--and that could be forever--these low-information voters will vote for ignorance. And despite their better educations and superior information, their elected officials know it. And love it--it makes them so easy to stampede. Unfortunately Trump headed them off the edge of the flat earth, but they'll be more careful next time.

Which doesn't mean that the Democratic majority I envisioned is unobtainable. It just won't be as easy as Trump handing it to us. It will have to be earned, precinct by precinct, district by district, preferably before the next reapportionment of seats after 2020. Democrats--and more specifically Bernie's Our Revolution--will need to do the digging, just as Republicans did some 10 years ago, and lay the foundation for their base. There's room there to build it.