THE BIG IDEA: As a House freshman, Jay Inslee lost reelection in 1994 because of voter frustration with Bill Clinton’s first two years as president. Tom Foley, who represented an adjacent district, became the first Speaker to lose reelection since the depths of the Civil War.
“I’ve personally experienced a 65-foot fall tsunami directed at a party whose president had caused a great backlash,” said Inslee, who returned to Congress four years later and is now in his second term as governor of Washington State. “So I know what blowback can look like, and I will tell you that the energy that now exists in the opposite direction is greater than existed in 1994.”
As the chairman-elect of the Democratic Governors Association, Inslee will quarterback his party’s efforts in next year’s gubernatorial contests. To say he’s bullish would be an understatement. “Democrats are going to crawl across broken glass on their knees to go vote in 2018, if the conditions exist as they do today,” Inslee said during an interview yesterday afternoon at the J.W. Marriott, before he headed to the White House for a black-tie gala hosted by President Trump.
Hm, not so fast. You see it’s like this. Folks vote their pocketbook. So, If Trump does deliver on bringing jobs back to America (unlikely), the economy continues to improve (we note the economy is stronger because of President Obama), he builds that wall and makes Mexico pay for it (ain’t gonna happen), and defeats ISIS (we’re still waiting for that secret 30 day plan to of his), none of his bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, legendary lying, or anything else will matter. Principals and values are trumped, pun intended, every time by the family’s financial and physical security.
We’re not saying Trump is going to succeed with his grandiose plan to Make America Great Again. In the first place America is already great, and for reasons Trump obviously doesn’t understand. Just as important Trump has already shown his ineptness with an executive branch in disarray and his inability to give sound rational guidance. Even to his own party. If things start to fall apart over the next 18 months, it is at least a 50/50 chance they will, then yes, 2018 may very well be the tsunami Inslee is talking about. Followed by sweeping an unprincipled and inept Trump out of office in 2020.
What is the bottom line here? Democrats had better not get cocky or too confident. Don’t forget what just happened in 2016. They also better forge solid relationships with the moderate wing of their own party, reach daily across the aisle to forge relationships with more reasonable and liberal republicans in congress, calm the nerves of the more progressive element in their party (because defeating Trump and his dangerously reactionary agenda in is job 1 for 2020), and they had better focus on governorships and state houses as well.
This writer has always been a fiscal conservative and generally believed the republican party was best equipped to handle both domestic and foreign affairs effectively. The last 16 years has taught me this is no longer true. Maybe it never was. At any rate the fight to defeat Trump, those supporting him, and his reactionary agenda is the most pressing concern and perhaps the most difficult challenge of the next four years.
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Governor Inslee and the state of Washington are across the river from me. Washington is sort of a microcosm of the red/blue: rural/urban divide..two
real extremes. Seattle is uber progressive and populous, the eastern plateaus are anti-abortion, pro gun. Inslee’s conservative counterpart is congresswoman
Cathy McMorris Roberts: detested by the liberals and tolerated by the far right.
It seems clear that there is no middle ground anymore; those that try that are
vilified by both sides. I will note however, that there IS a difference between real fact, real news, actual data and the foggy stuff being secreted and devoured by
the far right. There will be no compromises with that crowd, nor should there be.
So until logic, empathy, a sense of history and true patriotism again return, we
totter towards either third world of Orwellian doublethink or the cruel jackboots
of national totalitarianism. Kind of bleak, but we keep hoping.
My father spent some of his youth in Eastern Washington after his mom and dad moved from Minnesota in 1938 during the depression. They moved to Western Washington when he was 12 or so and lived in Longview Washington until he moved with my mother to the Seattle suburbs. I was actually born in Kelso Washington just across the Cowlitz river from Longview. I lived in Auburn Washington until I was 17 when I moved with the family to Rockford Illinois. I have many fond memories of Washington State (God’s Country my Mom always said) and still have cousins there. I miss the beauty and the independence of Washingtonians’.
At any rate I must agree that finding the middle ground through honest compromise has almost, if not entirely so, become a thing of the past. Perhaps one day folks will wake up (again) and realize that reasonable and rational compromise that benefits EVERYONE’S self interest as much as possible is really the only way to operate a true democratic republic. It is the only way to remain strong and prosperous as a Nation of immigrants with a diverse population.
Trump is the wrong person for any time IMO and the conservative evangelicals, the alt-right, and the petrified GOP need to wake up, open their face palmed eyes and realize this is the 21st century, not 1776. But what do I know? I’m just a balding, graying, personal trainer working with the aging population to help them improve their quality of life. And frankly nobody needs the divisive bullsh*t that exits in our country at present.