Yesterday I wrote that Trump’s Sunday tweet heard round the world would prove costly. A couple of readers pushed back against that notion, but I still maintain that the tweet was a bad idea. Why? Consider where the Democratic Party was pre-tweet versus where they are today.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were duking it out over the border crisis. Pelosi criticized Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow members of the “Squad” for not voting in favor of the $4.5 billion supplemental border funding bill to address the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Of the four freshman congresswomen, Pelosi said:
They didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got. All these people have is their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following.
Ocasio-Cortez struck back by calling Pelosi a racist — and in so doing lent credence to the point made since by J.E. Dyer about the ease with which the Left flings around that meaningless term. Ocasio-Cortez in turn took flak from the harpies on “The View,” fellow Congress members, and even the president, all of whom came to Pelosi’s defense.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
In short, the Democratic Party was coming apart at the seams even as it was attempting to gear up for a presidential showdown in sixteen months. In addition, as I noted yesterday, Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar are in deep doodoo in terms of their approval ratings. A mere 22% of the former’s congressional district has a favorable view of her, while 9% of the latter’s congressional district has a favorable view of her.
The thing Democrats needed most to alter the public perception of them was a distraction. Trump provided that, and then some. Not only did he redirect the spotlight from the Pelosi-Ocasio-Cortez catfight to himself, but he provided the Democrats with a unifying target. Suddenly there, bigger than life, was the man they love most to hate providing them with fresh ammunition.
By yesterday afternoon, the “Squad” was on live TV, assailing Trump as a racist and worse. Pelosi got busy organizing a resolution to censure the president.
Game, set, and match to the Dems.
