With upcoming midterm elections in 2018, the Democratic Party hopes to reacquire the seats it lost in 2016 and turn the tables on the Republicans and President Donald J. Trump.
However, the strategic situation for the Democratic Party looks perilous in its current form, leaderless and worse, starting the year off without a battleplan.
The most obvious: the Democratic Party’s leadership is in absolute disarray.
Both parties are right to develop their infrastructure on the idea that they would win the presidential election.
However, it seems as though the Democrats never thought of a fall back plan.
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi isn’t particularly charismatic or suited to the high tech, around- -the-clock media coverage required of a politician or the entire party.
Pelosi led the Democrats in looking like petulant children during Trump’s State of the Union, where party members refused to stand and applaud very basic things, from North Korean defectors with horrifying tales of escape to continuing the search for a cancer cure.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is unfortunately not exactly the most charismatic either, nor is he in any palatable to centrist or Republicans who might feel left behind by Trump.
Neither seem politically savvy enough to realize the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue could’ve been resolved in exchange for votes on funding Trump’s border wall.
Principles are necessary in politics, especially when a party has tangible power, but when the entirety of the party is outnumbered, damn near powerless and lucky to get anything, pragmatism is the name of the game.
You lose on the wall, but you win DACA.
You might think: “What about Bernie Sanders? He’s still a political leader.”
True, but he’s not in the Democratic Party anymore, he’s only there, it seems, to add a new voice to the arguments between Republican and Democrat.
Which leads me to my next point, the scars of the 2016 election are still present.
Regardless of what the Democratic Party does, the fact Sanders got cheated will still be the craw of the more progressive voters.
A rift can very easily open up between the progressive voters and the more moderate business Democratic voters over which primary candidate is best to lead the party in it’s time of reformation. We can bet the question of whether or not this particular election would also be rigged will come up.
Another problem is that the Democrats have flung from protest to protest, without so much as thinking about a platform.
That’s not true.
With the March for our Lives protests, gun control is on everybody’s mind and it has, in essence, energized the Democratic party’s constituents.
The problem is they’ve rallied around a subject conservatives will instinctively rally against.
Gun control is one of, if not the most partisan issues in America today, and despite the rhetoric this will stick it to the National Rifle Association, just remember the protest has tripled the NRA’s donations.
Furthermore, the speakers rhetoric of “Give us an inch we’ll take a mile,” is not exactly endearing to the right.
Yes, it’s meant to be an energetic statement nothing more, but it’s also a taunt at the conservatives fear of government overreach, which the party takes seriously.
Now both sides are energized to vote.