House Democrats spent last week in a bitter public war of words that deepened the fissures between leadership, traditional liberals, and the prominent young socialist wing of the party. But over the weekend, President Trump threw his opponents a life raft by uncorking a series of racist tweets that created an opportunity for Democrats to unify. This teaches us an important lesson to keep in mind as the 2020 election plays out.
The long-simmering conflict between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the quartet of young congresswomen (Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley) boiled over when Pelosi dismissed their influence as being confined to Twitter, and AOC complained that Pelosi was singling out women of color. The fight expanded as other party members started sniping at each other and got so bad that on Friday night, the official Twitter feed of the House Democrats went after AOC’s chief of staff. This would have been a good moment for Trump to grab a bucket of popcorn, and enjoy the show. Instead, he decided to grab a hand grenade and toss it in for the heck of it, providing Democrats with a common enemy to rally around.
Now, when I made this point on Twitter, a lot of Trump fans scoffed at the idea that there was anything racist in Trump’s tweets, so it’s worth taking a moment to explain why they struck me, at least, as racist. And I say this as somebody who has been disgusted by many of the statements being made by the young congresswomen, having criticized Tlaib and Omar and AOC many, many, many, many times.
So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 14, 2019
Now, the only defense that could possibly be offered on this tweet is that he was merely speaking about all the derogatory comments made about America by Omar, who as a refugee from war-torn Somalia found a safe haven in the United States, and eventually got elected to Congress. That would be an argument that she should express more gratitude to the U.S. rather than being relentlessly negative. Even then, the counterargument would be that as an American citizen, she’s an American just as everybody else and should be free to criticize without being told to get out. But it’s really not necessary to focus only on the Omar-specific argument, because Trump was clearly referring to “congresswomen” plural and the “countries” that “they” came from.
Though he doesn’t mention them by name, the context — especially the reference to Pelosi — left little doubt that he was referring to Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, and Pressley. But AOC was born in the Bronx, Tlaib was born in Detroit, and Pressley was born in Cincinnati. So there’s no real way to read his tweet as anything other than lumping in four people based on their being brown and black, and treating them all as foreigners, regardless of whether they were born in America.
Not surprisingly, Pelosi took the easy layup by delivering a message that everybody in the Democratic caucus will agree with:
When @realDonaldTrump tells four American Congresswomen to go back to their countries, he reaffirms his plan to “Make America Great Again” has always been about making America white again.
Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power. https://t.co/ODqqHneyES
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) July 14, 2019
The reason why this is something to consider heading into 2020 is that there’s a fantasy among many Republicans that this Democratic civil war between liberals, centrists, and socialists will tear apart the party, making it easier for Trump and down-ticket Republicans to divide and concur. But with Trump as the nominee, he’ll inevitably provide a steady stream of outrageous statements that will allow Democrats to find common cause. They will, in other words, be unified in 2020 no matter who is the nominee — even if it takes a contested convention to get one.
Trump is sitting on a booming economy, watching tension in the Democratic Party, and seeing many leading presidential candidates take positions that are brutal to Democrats running in swing states. But they will nonetheless always have a shot to win because of Trump’s ability to unite the opposition while limiting his potential to convert voters who aren’t already with him.
Some would argue that he played the same strategy in 2016. That all the experts predicted he would lose, and yet he won. Dominating the conversation through polarizing statements managed to excite a critical mass of voters in the crucial swing states. It’s certainly true that things could play out the same way in 2020. But there are a few additional things to consider.
In 2016, because Trump was not given a chance of winning, the threat didn’t seem real enough and so it’s possible that this depressed turnout. The element of surprise will not be a factor next time around. Also, Hillary Clinton was the least popular candidate Democrats had nominated in the modern era, and that’s when looking at polling of both winning and losing nominees. Being more popular than Clinton will be a low bar for a 2020 Democratic nominee. Furthermore, any voters enthused by Trump’s tweets would be voting for him anyway, whereas his behavior does have the potential to scare away people who may be considering voting for him when looking at the direction of the Democratic Party.
