A prominent activist I know (only online) has left the country. He’s done his part for years to protect this democracy and in his retirement, seeing the country’s trajectory, he’d rather live somewhere else, and he has the wherewithal to do it. I get it. Best wishes.
Other friends have left to stretch their retirement incomes. One to Thailand, one couple to Ecuador, a third couple is moving to Canada and a fourth is considering Spain. (I hear Portugal is nice.) But more are considering bailing for reasons of political turmoil, I suspect. International Living after last year’s election reported that Americans are interested in leaving, “over the last five months, International Living has seen a surge of 1676% in traffic around ‘How to Move Out of the U.S.’”
And why? Perhaps yahoos like these who appeared Saturday evening at the Lincoln Memorial:
This is the Christmas card a Republican congressman is sending to friends and family:
But remember, the American Nazi movement from Madison Square Garden in 1939 went nowhere. IIRC, in Heather Cox Richardson’s Thursday Facebook live, she too noted that this is not the first time Americans have been terrified over where this country was headed and democracy survived. Of course, in the 1850s we were headed for the bloodiest period in American history.
Dan Pfeiffer urges readers to take a deep breath. “Democrats are a superstitious lot,” he suggests, always afraid of jinxing their wins. Some version of “are we doomed?” was the hottest topic suggested for Pod Save America‘s annual Thanksgiving Mail Bag Episode. Don’t make that a self-fulfilling prophecy, Pfeiffer warns (superstitiously):
If Democrats believe they are doomed, they will be doomed. Republicans are trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are three specific tactics Republicans will use to fulfill this prophecy:
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Encouraging Dems to Retire: Let’s be honest being in the minority sucks — particularly in the House where there is almost no opportunity for the party out of power to have a substantive impact. For members contemplating retirement, the prospect of returning to the minority is enough to convince them to forgo the exhausting endeavor of raising money and stumping for reelection in a tough political environment. Thus far, 19 House Democrats have announced plans to retire after 2022 with several more sitting on the fence. While some of these folks are in safe seats, many are in battleground districts. Every open seat creates another opportunity for the Republicans. In general, it’s easier to defeat an unknown candidate than an established incumbent with a high name ID and a long-term relationship with the voters. Therefore, the Republicans want to push as many Democrats as possible off the fence and into retirement.
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C.R.E.A.M: If Republican majority leadership appears likely, lobbyists and corporate PACs will start writing checks to Republicans in order to garner favor. The greater the likelihood, the bigger the checks. This is, of course, a searing indictment of our corrupt campaign finance system, but it is the reality.
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Demobilization: Democratic success in 2022 — or any other year — depends on mobilizing the tens of millions of Americans who became engaged in the political process after Trump’s 2016 victory. If even a few sit out this election, we are doomed. The best way to get people to disengage is to convince them that their engagement is pointless. Why donate money, knock on doors, text back, or even vote if the outcome is predetermined? This is why McCarthy et al declare victory early, brazenly push voter suppression, and support gerrymandering. Convincing people that their voice doesn’t matter is a classic authoritarian tactic.
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Based on the high number of House retirements, the polls, and the results in Virginia, it’s clear that Democrats are preemptively preparing for defeat. And that’s a very real problem.
Tell me about it. The three Democrats representing my county in the state House in Raleigh all announced this week that they would not run again next year. Panic set in. Candidate filing begins at noon tomorrow (Monday) and we need three candidates before noon on December 17.
We must do a better job of “hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst,” Pfeiffer writes, offering reasons for optimism:
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Things Will Get Better Eventually: In elections, nothing matters more than the reality on the ground. The Virginia election could not have come at a worse time. Delta was still lingering, food and fuel costs were up, the supply chain and labor shortage issues were front of mind, schools opened while most kids were still unvaccinated. Just because things are tough now doesn’t mean they will still be that way when people cast their votes next year. Despite all of the news about the Omicron variant, it’s very possible the pandemic is better under control. More people are vaccinated, prices came down and the economy is roaring into next year. We can rest easy knowing there may be a sense of collective relief and jubilation that will benefit the president and the party that fixed the economy and controlled the pandemic.
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Senate Map: The House map is going to be difficult. But while the Senate structure favors Republicans, the 2022 map is still decent for Democrats. We could not only maintain but expand our majority without flipping a single Trump state. In fact, all we need to do is turnout people who voted for Joe Biden last year. While that’s not easy, it is very doable.
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Youngkin’s the Exception, Not the Rule: Given the rogue gallery of Republican Senate candidates and the general Republican preference for MAGA-types with very loose grasps on reality, Glenn Youngkin is likely to be the exception not the rule in the Republican field. Whether it’s Herschel Walker in Georgia, Tedd Budd in North Carolina, or Josh Mandel in Ohio, the Republicans seem likely to nominate a bunch of candidates unable or unwilling to replicate Youngkin’s deft tightrope act. In 2010, Democrats held the Senate despite losing 63 seats in the House. This was a result of Republicans nominating awful candidates like Sharon Angle in Nevada. In 2012, we held onto Senate seats in Indiana and Missouri — two states Obama lost handily — for similar reasons.
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The Return of Trump: One misguided takeaway from the Virginia election is that running against Trump is a strategy doomed to fail. Running against Trump in the overly simplistic hackish way of the McAuliffe campaign should not be replicated, but it’s naive to think that Trump will not be a factor in the 2022 election. Trump never visited Virginia. He isn’t on Twitter. For all but the most politically engaged, the former president is nothing more than an afterthought. But that is unlikely to be the case in 2022 when he is actively campaigning up and down the ballot and the media is saturated with stories about his potential 2024 run. While Democrats still need a compelling message that incorporates Trump and Trumpism, his return to the political scene should light a fire in our voters and remind some Independents and other persuadable voters why they turned against the Republicans.
“While the odds may be long, the outcome is not predetermined,” Pfeiffer writes. “Every single one of us has agency in this situation.”
Another friend quotes David Graeber’s “Bullshit Jobs“: “A human being unable to have a meaningful impact on the world ceases to exist.” Hint: Don’t cease to exist.
It’s why I do this every morning. So even if I get run over, I don’t feel like roadkill.