Did you think the progressive takeover of the Democratic Party was going to be easy? No chance, pal. Just take a look at the vitriol being spread by defeated Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill on her way out of Washington. She took her strongest shot at, of all people, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “She’s now talked about a lot,” McCaskill told CNN. “I’m not sure what she’s done yet to generate that kind of enthusiasm.” She boiled down Ocasio-Cortez’s appeal to her “cheap rhetoric,” then remarked that “getting results is a lot harder.” This from a woman who, when asked for an example of the results she so prizes, pointed to her bill to reduce the price of hearing aids.
This has gotten lost over the past two years, but until Trump’s election the biggest obstacle to progressive policies was not Republicans, it was so-called “moderate” Democrats, who are plying the same waters, fishing for the same corporate dollars, as moderate Republicans. That’s why once the carcass of the GOP stops twitching, Democrats are in for their own party-rending battle.
But all hope is not lost, because the Democrats’ foes have been reduced to the same fantasy-mongering that so preoccupies Fearless Leader. They’ve now managed to convince themselves that the government shutdown is a big win for Trump because it means Nancy Pelosi will have to spend days or weeks dealing with immigration, which — midterm drubbing aside — they consider a winning issue. Now you know how he could bankrupt four casinos.