Schneider: Stealing Trump's playbook is a mistake for Democrats
Despite the popularity of his father, former British Member of Parliament Randolph Churchill excelled in making enemies all over England. Yet late in life, Winston’s son — known for his surly, combative disposition — was diagnosed with a tumor in his alimentary canal. The tumor ended up being benign and was removed surgically.
“What a pity to remove the one part of Randolph that is not malignant,” said one of Churchill’s rivals, Lord Stanley of Alderly.
In today’s America, Democrats largely share the same sentiment about President Donald Trump. His mere presence in the office has provoked marches, calls for impeachment and unprecedented procedural obstruction in Congress. And we’re only about 100 days in.
But despite their personal distaste for Trump, some Democrats have found the one thing about him that isn’t malignant — his ability to connect with “working class” voters who largely abandoned the Democrats in 2016. “We got wiped out in the Midwest, and we’re toxic in rural America,” Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio told his colleagues during an ill-fated leadership challenge to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) last November. “Ultimately, we’re responsible.”
It appears part of the Democratic outreach plan is to match the vulgarity Trump displayed on the campaign trail with some of the Democrats' own. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has made swearing a regular feature of his speeches; on its official site, the DNC is selling t-shirts that say “Democrats give a sh*t about people.” (Also noteworthy: Their “#Proud of POTUS” shirts are now on sale — wonder why?)
But other Democrats who are not inclined toward the scatological are trying to mimic Trump on policy. Last week, Trump endorsed a so-called “Buy America” bill authored by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) that would require the use of American iron and steel on some government water infrastructure projects.
“I’m very much into that, and I agree with her 100%,” the president told WTMJ-TV’s Charles Benson while in southeastern Wisconsin for a “Buy American and Hire American” event on April 18. “His support is very welcome,” Baldwin said in response, “but it has to be followed up with action.” (Republicans have rejected such “Buy America” provisions, arguing such “quotas” pick winners and losers between American companies and are ultimately bad for consumers.)
Clearly Baldwin’s bill is an attempt to cash in on some of that populist magic Trump rode to the White House in November. Baldwin is facing what will almost certainly be a tough election in 2018, and she needs to appeal to the same white working-class voters in Wisconsin that Trump dominated in winning the state in 2016.
But Democrats pushing economic populism as a campaign issue may not want to get their 2019 inaugural speeches ready just yet. For one, the left has promised protectionism would save America’s manufacturing jobs in campaign after campaign, and yet the jobs are still leaving. In 2016, GOP Sen. Ron Johnson’s challenger, former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, went after many of the same blue-collar voters that Trump targeted, but Feingold suffered a robust defeat.
In fact, since 2008, Republicans have dominated every election in Wisconsin that didn’t feature Barack Obama’s name at the top of the ticket — despite Democrats’ reliance on progressive-style populism.
Further, the lesson of Trump’s unlikely win in Wisconsin isn’t just that he connected with disaffected middle-class whites. It is also that he ran against Hillary Clinton, who in retrospect was one of the worst major candidates in presidential history. Those down-on-their luck rural voters wanted change, and Hillary wasn’t it. (Clinton lost Wisconsin badly to Barack Obama in 2008, lost badly again to Bernie Sanders in 2016, and lost narrowly to a spittle-flecked blowhard in the 2016 general election.)
So while some would say Bernie Sanders’ precipitous rise in the past two years is the result of the popularity of his heavy-handed protectionist agenda, keep in mind the thing Sanders and Trump had in common: Hillary Clinton. If scurvy ran against Clinton it might see a resurgence in popularity.
As last year’s embarrassing primary challenge to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan demonstrated, in order to run on Trump’s platform (whatever that is depending on which Fox News show he’s watching at any given time), you actually have to be Trump. If Democrats try doing a weak Trump impersonation in 2018, their new enthusiasm for four-letter words will extend far beyond election night.
Christian Schneider is a Journal Sentinel columnist and blogger. Email cschneider@jrn.com. Twitter: @Schneider_CM