The Highest Priority (It's Not Beating Trump)

As the Democratic caucuses and primaries approach, Americans concerned with ending the current, reactionary regime in Washington must engage in some serious strategic thinking.  And one thing they must come to terms with is this:  Defeating Donald Trump is not the most important thing that can happen in 2020.

Yes, Donald Trump is a loathsome human being.  He is also - which is a different thing - a terrible president.  He manifestly deserves to be defeated in 2020 - ideally by someone whom he cannot stomach losing to.  Ideally by such an overwhelming popular and electoral margin that he refuses even to show up to witness his successor being sworn in.

Or the size of the crowd assembled for that glad day.

But there are two things more important than ending the Trump presidency.  First, we must elect a clear majority of Democrats and/or progressive independents to the US Senate, thus ending the reign of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Second, we must elect a new President who will not be vulnerable to defeat in 2024 by a Republican even worse than Donald Trump.

Keeping these two objectives in mind will likely be too much for some institutional Democrats.  Since its founding, by Andrew Jackson - just years after the final exile of Napoleon Bonaparte - the Democratic Party has always had a profound institutional bias toward heroic presidential leadership, the politics of the "man on a horse".  As a result, Democrats tend to ignore "down-ticket" elections - a fact which has often allowed Republicans to gain more national and state legislative seats than they should, with often dire results.

Moreover, institutional Democrats - being institutionalists - tend to worry only about the next election, rather than the long arc of historical change.  Most of the time, this is understandable.  Parties are, after all, organizations designed to win elections.  But parties are not as evolved as, say, professional sports teams.  Parties have a hard time thinking about "building years".  They should learn.

At times, there are actually things worse than losing a particular presidential election - even the one that happens this year.

Now, I assume I won't have to belabor my first point.  Anyone familiar with recent history will understand - if not absolutely agree with - the argument that Mitch McConnell is actually more dangerous than Donald Trump.  McConnell's management of judicial appointments, by itself, has drastically altered the constitutional scheme the Founders had in mind - denying a sitting President the right to name a Supreme Court justice, and later ramming through the confirmation of a Justice almost absurdly lacking in judicial demeanor, to say nothing of basic integrity.

McConnell's control over budgets, legislation - even the trial phase of the impeachment process - has been equally malign.

Imagine any Democrat moving into the Oval Office next January - with Mitch McConnell still commanding a majority of the Senate.  You will find it difficult to imagine how that new President would be able to accomplish much - legislatively, or even in terms of naming judges.  Mitch McConnell - once a man of some principle - has become the living embodiment of the truth that great power corrupts.  Donald Trump can have, at most, one more term in office.  Mitch McConnell could go on running the Senate for another ten or twelve years.

Ending McConnell's tyranny - by reducing the Republicans to minority status in the Senate - is, for me, Job One.

My second argument may require more consideration.  Donald Trump is so bad - so historically dreadful as President - that it is difficult to imagine that anyone worse could be elected.

But consider the state of today's Republican Party.

Under the terror inspired by Trump, the Republican Party has become, essentially, a cult of personality.  We'd all like to think that defeating Trump would be the equivalent of Dorothy's throwing the bucket of water over the Wicked Witch of the West - that all of the Senators, Congressmen, governors, state legislators, opinion writers, talking heads, and others Trump holds in thrall - would be suddenly and gratefully liberated by his demise.

I suspect the opposite would be true.  One effect of the Trump era has been his purge of what few moderates and principled conservatives the Republican Party still had in office.  Over the past three years, dozens of Senators and Congressmen have decided not to seek re-election.  Those who have hung on have had their spirits broken, their honor stolen. 

What remains of the once presidential Mitt Romney?  What haunting - if easily-imagined - secret has converted Lindsey Graham from the principled legal thinker and shield-bearer to John McCain, to the fawning lick-spittle he has become?

In imagining future Republican candidates - at least for the next few election cycles - we must imagine that they will be creatures of Trump's malign influence.  In the long run, this will likely spell the doom of the Republican Party, but so long as Trump's influence lasts, it also means that future Republican candidates will be cast in his mold.

What if, in 2024, one of these Trump acolytes should win?

The danger is that the next Republican candidate - perhaps one of Trump's own children - will be far more competent than this President.  Trump is, after all, seriously deficient in the qualities that make for an effective dictator.  Aside from his ruthless efficiency in purging the Party of those who defy him, he has proved appallingly ignorant of domestic and foreign affairs; thin-skinned, cowardly and vacillating when criticized; easily-distracted and lazy in carrying out the duties of his office.  He is an aging child, more willful than intelligent, and likely in the early stages of senescence, if not some form of dementia.

It is not hard to imagine a future right-wing populist President who is younger; smarter; better informed; more energetic; more capable of assembling and working with a team; braver; and more resolute than the overgrown child now in the Oval Office. 

And, as that is true, we must understand that defeating Donald Trump will mean little if we do so by electing a President who will be vulnerable to defeat in 2024 - by a new, horribly improved Trump 2.0.

Thus, if ousting Mitch McConnell is Job One, beating Trump by electing a President capable of initiating several consecutive terms of progressive leadership is Job Two.

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The time to start thinking strategically is now upon us.  The Democratic field is rapidly narrowing.  There appear to be four - at most five - viable options left.  Americans who want to bring the present horror-show to an end must consider, with great care, which candidate will be most likely to help elect a Democratic Senate majority; and most able to create an administrative and legislative record worthy of re-election in 2024; and most successful in passing the torch to another progressive President to succeed her/him.

Defeating Donald Trump will be a daunting task.  But, t'would be great pity, so it would, to do all the work necessary to bring this tyrant down - while leaving undone that which would assure that the entire, distorted movement which he represents falls with him.