President Trump has been singularly unfortunate in his friends (think Steve Bannon), but exceptionally lucky in his enemies, both within the GOP and now on the Left. Even as his poll numbers sink and gaffes multiply, it is more likely that he will be saved by his foes rather than his friends.
Democrats are convincing themselves that the best strategy to win back power is to embrace full-on, hair on fire oppositionalism from the start. They may not actually have much of a choice, since their base demands nothing less, with a dose of daily vitriol and hysteria thrown in. In just the first three weeks of the Trump presidency, senators have boycotted hearings, staged all-night filibusters, and turned the volume to MAXIMUM fighting Trump’s Cabinet picks.
Around the country, there have been massive (mostly peaceful) demonstrations, but ominously, the Berkeley campus burned as masked thugs successfully sought to shut down a speech. Some GOP representatives are beginning to express concerns over their safety as protesters throng townhall meetings to protest the repeal of Obamacare. More is to come, as progressive groups report nearly unprecedented levels of engagement and activism. The question is just how to channel the anger.
So, what could possibly go wrong? Think Wisconsin.
I had a pretty good perch to watch the implosion of left-wing activism there in the wake of Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10 reforms. It ought to be (but almost certainly won’t be) a cautionary tale for Trump’s opposition.
In Wisconsin, Democratic state senators fled to neighboring Illinois to prevent votes, hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Madison and the level of Walker Derangement Syndrome continually escalated through the failed attempt to recall him from office. By then, it had become clear that things had gotten badly out of control.
Early on in the fight, polls showed that voters did not support the GOP governor’s anti-union measures, but the excesses of the protesters – including demonstrators dressed as zombies disrupting a ceremony to honor special Olympians — alienated the general public and bonded Walker to his base.
Anti-Walker protesters became addicted to their own self-indulgent melodramas, which could be sustained only by continually ratcheting up the level of emotional and rhetorical opposition. As time went on, Democrats found it harder to modulate the tone or to police the fringes, which inevitably became the public face of the protests. As conservatives also learned with the Tea Party, fires like this are exceedingly hard to control, especially when they are constantly fueled by hysterical fustian.
And so the protesters made themselves the issue.
Walker believes that the turning point in the fight may have been when protesters targeted his family home in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa. For middle-of-the-road voters, that crossed a line of civility and decency. But that line was crossed repeatedly as Walker’s oppositions morphed from petulant to obscene to threatening.
During one of protests in Madison in 2011 a video captured one demonstrator repeatedly shouting the F-word at 14-year-old girl who was speaking at a pro-Walker rally. On the floor of the State Assembly a Democratic state representative turned to a female republican colleague and shouted “You are f—-ing dead!
While the scorched earth tactics and massive rallies excited the base, they alienated independents and reinforced the loyalty of conservatives.
Over the next three years, Walker was re-elected twice.
The tactics of the left may also have accomplished that was once unthinkable: turning one of the country’s most reliably blue states red, even in presidential election years.
Which brings us to Trump. He does not need to succeed as president as much as he needs his foes to fail. As a candidate and now president, Trump has made it clear that he thrives on enemies; and, indeed, the harsher the opposition he encounters, the more loyal his base becomes. He would love nothing more than for the left continue to put Angela Davis and Madonna out front as their spokeswomen. Nor is he likely rattled by the prospect of more street activism. David Frum aptly noted that civil unrest “will not be a problem for the Trump presidency. It will be a resource.”
“Trump will likely want not to repress it, but to publicize it—and the conservative entertainment-outrage complex will eagerly assist him,” he writes, “Immigration protesters marching with Mexican flags; Black Lives Matter demonstrators bearing anti-police slogans—these are the images of the opposition that Trump will wish his supporters to see.”
Comparisons with Richard Nixon and the anti-war protesters that paved the way for his 1972 landslide are not far-fetched.
Of course the Democrats and their allies could disappoint Trump by moderating their hysteria, picking their targets more strategically, making common cause with disillusioned independent conservatives (the ones who still care about the rule of law and limited government), and by making sure that the moonbats do not become the face of anti-Trumpism.
Based on past history, this seems unlikely.
Charles Sykes is a Milwaukee-based author and commentator. He is working on a book titled “How the Right Lost Its Mind,’ which will be published in October by St. Martin’s press. If you would like to write an op-ed for the Washington Examiner, please read our guidelines on submissions here.
