The Republican of 2018 is in a very peculiar spot. The man who took the party hostage and rapidly remade it in his own image, Donald Trump, is nothing short of a demi-god to a significant slice of the Republican electorate – buck him and conservatives will rise up to devour you.
Yet Trump is also the millstone who may sink Republicans this fall. In special election after special election, Democrats have proven they can win or compete aggressively on turf Republicans are used to dominating.
Doug Jones and Conor Lamb weren’t outliers. They were harbingers of a blue wave that will, in one form or another, crash on the shore this November.
On Tuesday night, Danny O’Connor, a Democrat, ran in a virtual tie with Republican Troy Balderson in a special election for Ohio’s 12th congressional district. Trump, like past Republican presidential candidates, won the district comfortably. Pat Tiberi, who vacated the seat to take a lucrative gig with a business group, is a Republican.
Who wins and who loses is almost beside the point. Republicans, once more, had to expend tremendous money and effort (outspending the opposition) on a district that should easily be theirs. O’Connor is not particularly remarkable as a candidate, but like all Democrats running in a high-profile races now, he is an avatar of the times.
Trump horrifies Democrats and left-leaning voters. They can mobilize in typically low turnout elections, showing up in ways they never did when Barack Obama was president.
This is what anyone on the right should fear. Trump’s hateful and ludicrous administration has energized Democrats in a remarkable way. Republicans hold fewer and fewer safe seats. Towns and counties that swung dramatically into Trump’s column in 2016 are ready to come right back.
In some sense, this is what politics in America is now. The pendulum swings in faster and more disorienting ways. America can choose both an eloquent, African American law professor and a race-baiting reality TV star for president in the span of eight years.
Republicans rose to power on the strength of wrath toward Obama. Now, it is the Democrats’ turn to transmogrify fear and hate into electoral success. Their bogeyman is actually suited to the role, of course – Obama was nothing more than a center-left president who was demonized by those who could not stand a black man living in the White House.
Trump is so much more. As O’Connor has shown, Democrats are ready to do battle everywhere. The 12th district is a medley of affluent suburbia and dying manufacturing towns.
O’Connor’s performance is another data point for Democratic confidence.
The hard questions will only come after. Questions about the future of the Democratic party, or what it really stands for today, can be papered over for now.
There is a bigoted strongman in the White House to unite against, after all.
Trump is the ultimate antidote to apathy and nihilism. Everything does matter. A country is at stake.
Democracy, once optional for many, has assumed its rightful place as something to be cherished, protected and fought over. A Democratic House would be a crucial check on Trump, and the first step toward unraveling this nightmare.
Regardless of last night, Balderson and O’Connor are likely to face off again in
November. This showdown will matter.
