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Confession: After a bout of low-key (likes-and-RTs) knee-jerk Pelosi/Dowd bashing this morning, I did what I should have done first and read through the Dowd NYT piece. As flaming left as I am, Pelosi makes good tactical sense and Dowd's paean is quite rational. 1/
As much as we may long for a progressive or quasi-socialist revolution and want to cheer its exponents, the dynamics of E2020 say beware. If the "extremes" of the Democratic candidate and Democratic behavior are put in play, Trump is far more likely to win. God help us. 2/
Trump's approval rating just hit a career high and is now egding into FourMoreYears territory (and that's without all the thumbs on the electoral scale). I'd venture to guess that a major factor in that surge was the Democratic Debates Round 1 (can you think of any other?). 3/
Yes t'was exhilarating (for us) to hear Medicare For All & Decriminalize Illegal Immigration & Green New Deal. But WE'RE going to vote against Trump if the Dem nominee is a cat or its litter box. The crucial swath that find him personally appalling but don't want a revolution? 4/
The Democratic lurch left likely scares the bejeezus out of a lot of them. All of a sudden it's a better-of-two-evils kind of election (though very different from the better-of-two-evils of E2016, before Trump made so clear just how evil he was that every non-moderate Democrat 5/
...would, quite literally, get up from their deathbed to vote against him) - and that better-of-two-evils election is big-advantage Trump. That is why Bland Joe Biden (baggage notwithstanding) is the only candidate currently beating Trump in that poll. 6/
I'm not saying we should nominate Biden or that no other candidate can beat Trump. What I am saying is that Pelosi and an admiring Dowd are both very astute in their sense that, as provoked as we all are, we have to be careful not to let Trump make the 2020 campaign about 7/
how the Democratic candidate will pursue a socialist wet dream and "take away your [fill in the blank] and give it all to immigrants." Because that message will resonate outside his "base" and give him his only chance to win - and it will be a good chance. 8/
Does that mean we can't attack his criminality, tell the truth about wealth inequality, highlight his cruelty, his predation, his sucking up to the world's dictators and devils? Not at all. But it does mean we should not be falling all over ourselves to pitch concrete proposals9/
that immediately become easy targets for a fierce counterattack that resonates with Trump-disapproving-but-not-hating voters. Things are so polarized - especially in our beloved Twittersphere, that it's easy to forget such voters exist, let along that they are likely to be 10/
decisive in November 2020. That is, I think, what Pelosi was getting at - though it may have sounded like gratuitous mockery. As have many here, I've bounced all over on @SpeakerPelosi - and I suspect she is making an ethical if not a tactical mistake on impeachment. 11/
But I don't think the gears in her mind have lost all their teeth. She and Dowd both want Trump gone and this nightmare ended as much as we do. Time will tell how it all plays out and we can agree to disagree on tactics. 12/
But I think she can still sniff out political danger with the best of them. The very thought that there is ANY political danger in this situation is appalling to us and very hard to process. It shoud be slam-dunk game-set-match. Should. Then there's IS. 13/13
