Trump is vulnerable, but the public is looking for an alternative in tone, not a left-wing mirror image.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has made it official. The Massachusetts progressive is seeking the Democratic nomination for president. The new year has barely begun but it can’t end soon enough for liberals, so certain are they that Donald Trump is toast in 2020.
Their early optimism seems warranted. The president hasn’t delivered on his central campaign promise of building a border wall, even though his party has controlled Congress for the past two years. His job-approval rating hovers in the low 40s, and his unpopularity was a significant factor in Republicans’ losing control of the House in November. Mr. Trump had a net positive approval rating in 38 states when his term began. That number is down to 24 as of last month, according to a Morning Consult tracking poll.
Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama endured midterm losses and managed to win second terms. But Democrats will rake the Trump administration over the coals for the next two years. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, a group of the most liberal members of the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, will be bigger than ever, and newbies like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez believe they were sent to Washington to obstruct the president, not work with him. Impeachment proceedings are inevitable, and the president shouldn’t count on the Republican-controlled Senate to acquit him if his support among GOP voters starts to wane.
House Democrats will lead more than two dozen oversight committees beginning this week, and high on the agenda are the president’s tax returns and the finances of the Trump Organization. Adam Schiff, incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, remains unconvinced that the president was legitimately elected and is eager to explore what he calls “serious and credible allegations” that Russians laundered money through Mr. Trump’s businesses to gain leverage over him. Even the president’s family, including sons Donald Jr. and Eric, could find themselves in Congress’s crosshairs for their activities during the 2016 campaign and its aftermath. And we haven’t even gotten to the hay Democrats will make of Robert Mueller’s eventual report and the criminal probe involving Mr. Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen. The administration’s headaches are about to become migraines.
The big question, as ever, is whether the Democrats will misread public sentiment and overplay what looks today like a strong hand. Will they try to chalk up accomplishments to run on next year, or will they play to the “resistance”? Ms. Warren’s candidacy is an early indicator that centrists and independents could be a secondary concern. Mr. Trump should be so lucky. The problem isn’t Ms. Warren per se, but that so many potential candidates share her view that voters are eager to replace Mr. Trump with a left-wing populist bomb-thrower. Other Senate Democrats thought to be eying the White House, from Kirsten Gillibrand to Cory Booker to Kamala Harris, are falling over one another trying to get as far to the left as possible.
The smarter move for Democrats might be to field a more moderate candidate—moderate not so much in terms of issues but in tone. Someone who can begin to reduce the anger and hyperpartisanship, who plays well with others, who is closer in comportment to Mr. Trump’s opposite. In October, Obama adviser David Axelrod told Politico magazine that he disagreed with recent comments by Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and others that seemed to endorse uncivil behavior toward political opponents. “I don’t think people will be looking for a Democratic version of Trump,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll be looking for people who can go jibe for jibe and low blow for low blow. I think people are going to be looking for someone who can pull this country out of this hothouse that we’re in.”
While such Democrats have yielded party influence to progressives in recent years, they do still exist. Joe Biden comes to mind, as do Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio. Theoretically, they could be counted on to perform in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and other states that flipped from Barack Obama to Donald Trump two years ago and cost Mrs. Clinton the presidency.
For some on the left, the problem with such a list is that it’s comprised of white men, which is a nonstarter if you believe in the primacy of identity politics. Democrats may be forced to decide whether electability is more important to them than political correctness.
This piece originally appeared at The Wall Street Journal
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal