The Trump cheer squad in Australia is having a tough time of late. Most of them are establishment rightists, masquerading as populists, so they are firm “free” traders, and the Donald’s heavy-handed protectionism sits ill with them. Then there’s Stormy Daniels, the porn star whose silence he bought, who is now free to talk about their affair — and appears to be a tenacious and strategically minded gal. There are rumours of dick pics floating around, and Trump has chosen John Bolton as new national security adviser — and if that ain’t a dick pic, I don’t know what is.
But what they’ve been utterly silent about is Trump’s greatest setback to date: the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th district, in the state’s west. The 18th stretches from the southern ‘burbs of Pittsburgh to the West Virginia border; the rural parts of it are, in some way, the northern tip of the South. In its most recent form, the district is part of a state gerrymander, leans Republican by 11 points, and their candidate won it uncontested in 2016. Trump won the district by 19 points in that election.
The seat was designed to keep incumbent Tim Murphy there for life; but the married Christian conservative got his mistress pregnant, she had a termination (the three exceptions for pro-lifers: rape/incest, life of the mother, or if she has to be bullied into it), and so did Murphy. The Democrats decided to run, chose Conor Lamb, an ex-marine state DA, who ran on a strong union/worker, pro-protectionist ticket.
Lamb backed Trump’s tariffs, but opposed his tax cuts, and supported Obamacare. He distanced himself from the Clinton/Pelosi Democrats intersectional palooza, and had Joe Biden as his sole big-name supporter. The Republicans chose Bible-thumper Rick Saccone, who is much as his name sounds. They had Trump, Ivanka and Vice-President Mike Pence come through. To no avail — or even to a contrary effect.
The Republicans lost the southern white working-class suburbs of Pittsburgh by 15,000 votes (of 100,000 in that county), and only made it a close contest (700 votes) because of a 10,000-vote Republican surplus in the district’s most rural county.
That result, if repeated in 2018, would wipe out the Republican majority in the House, and leave Trump, isolated and unsupported, dealing with a Democrat speaker. But it will only happen if the “18th formula” — pro-tariffs, in favour of working with Trump on them, but opposing him on a whole range of other measures — can be generalised in a party wedded to “free” markets and globalisation.
It underlines the raw truth for the Democrats in 2018: will they commit to being a party of the working-class, and create a new political synthesis, or will they decisively commit to the new social classes, and a globalist, identity politics agenda? America, down to the crossroads again.
The Pennsylvania result gives us hope.
It is said that an additional 20 million American youths will be on the electoral roll by 2020 – many of those who have survived the dangers of attending US schools will be motivated to actually vote. The chances are they will support gun control candidates. The Republicans will be in trouble whether Trump is re-running or not.
“motivated to actually vote” – there’s a concept
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.” – Gore Vidal. He implies that it doesn’t matter what either of the the two right wings appears to be doing, they both serve the same masters. Since Hawke and Keating we should be considering whether that’s what we have here. We shouldn’t pay too much attention to what they say, we should see what they do and not accept excuses for not doing what they said they’d do. Will Labor rescind the company tax cuts?
Trump “isolated and unsupported, dealing with a Democrat speaker”, is a somewhat inviting prospect.
Allow Trump to continue to tarnish the Republican name; while ramming thru an agenda by running legislative rings around a lone and hapless Trump.
Fair risk it all blows up in your face, of course!
“He distanced himself from the Clinton/Pelosi Democrats intersectional palooza”
I wouldn’t have know what you were talking about 12 months ago. Now I think the article was worth it for that line alone.
Interesting to see how it plays out Guy but will any of it stop the warmongering, exceptionalist, bullying trajectory the US has been on since WWII.
Michael Pembroke’s book “Korea – Where the American Century Began” gives a good account of how they got to here.
We are in still there with them hanging on.