2018: A GREAT YEAR FOR THE DEMOCRATS, OR MAYBE A TERRIBLE ONE

Mike Gecan, co-director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, thinks Democrats are setting themselves for a disaster in 2018:

... the new Trump administration ... has studied the game films from Wisconsin in 2011, when Gov. Scott Walker declared war on organized labor, the Democratic Party and the moderate wing of his own Republican Party....

The unions and their supporters responded to this play by organizing massive demonstrations and sit-ins in the capitol in Madison....

The demonstrations took on a life of their own. Their leaders then called a second play -- a recall of the governor....
Here was the problem. These defensive moves didn’t work....

The Trump team is following the Walker playbook, with some variations. Like Walker, it is running aggressive plays right from the start....

Second, it’s counting on the opposition to fall into the same trap that the Wisconsin opposition did -- to rely on massive demonstrations and to ignore the need to do hard, local, person-by-person organizing back in the local towns, villages and counties.

If Democrats keep protesting and never get around to organizing, they'll experience more failure at the ballot box, replicating what's happened to Democrats in Wisconsin, Gecan says.

Josh Marshall agrees on the importance of organizing for the 2018 elections, but he sees the potential for serious Democratic gains:

By any historical standard, President Trump is almost catastrophically unpopular....

By every standard, Trump is courting even greater unpopularity and sowing the seeds of an electoral backlash in two years....

I appear to be considerably more confident than a lot of other people I know that Republicans may face a big electoral backlash in 2018. But if it happens it will happen because of grassroots organizing in red states and the red parts of blue states. The cities are already overwhelmingly Democratic. The fight is really outside the major cities. Nor is it just geographical. Trump's power will be broken most on issues like health care - some mix of Medicare, Obamacare repeal, etc. These are issues that cut across the urban/rural divide....

Put me down as a gravity believer. I think the White House and the entire GOP are setting themselves up for a 2018 reckoning. But it won't happen automatically. It requires activation of the Democratic base, which is already happening with dramatic speed. Just as much it requires cutting into the non-big city territories with specific messages which divide Trump from his voters or potential voters.

... [The] true [Trump] believers [are] authoritarians who are energized by Trump's destructive behavior. But there are not that many of those people. A big chunk of Trump's voters voted for him in spite of their dislike. Those people can be carved away.

Me, I'm expecting an okay 2018 for Democrats -- not disastrous but not game-changing. I worry that the anti-Trump movement is replicating an aspect of Hillary Clinton's campaign that seems to have hurt her: It's all about what's wrong with Trump rather than what's good about voting Democratic. Attacking Trump is necessary, but Democrats need an alternative agenda and they need to make sure voters know what it is. There's plenty of time to work on that, but I worry that Democrats won't.

I also worry that the "but I could never vote for Hillary" problem might extend to 2018 Democrats trying to make inroads in what Marshall calls the "borderlands." In too much of America, voting Democratic is just unthinkable for white voters. It may be lingering racism from the Obama years or just effective colonization of even moderate minds by Fox News and talk radio. Democrats have to overcome that, and I hope they know how.

On the other hand, by 2018 we'll have had two years of what we've experienced for the past two weeks, and I think that could wear even a lot of moderate voters down. And it's possible that there'll be some mini-Trumps running for office as Republicans, if this report by BuzzFeed's Tarini Parti and Alexis Levinson is to be believed:

Well before President Trump’s inauguration, his top adviser Steve Bannon met with a few top-tier donors -- the kind of donors capable of writing million-dollar checks.

The message, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversations, was that Bannon wants to use the 2018 midterm elections as the arena to test the political clout of Trump’s populist message.

“The days of [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell picking Republican nominees in Senate races are over,” Bannon has told the donors, according to sources familiar with the meetings. He also mentioned the US Chamber of Commerce as declining in influence, according to one of those sources....

[Bannon] he encouraged donors to starting giving to the outside entity created by Trump allies that was still taking shape at the time.

The group, a nonprofit called America First, officially launched this week.

America First will focus on issue advocacy, but could eventually direct fire on congressional Republicans who defy Trump’s agenda.

Parti and Levinson go on to express some doubts as to whether the Trumpers can seize control of GOP candidate selection -- we're told that one self-styled Trump clone, Kelli Ward, is struggling to raise the money she'll need to primary Arizona GOP senator Jeff Flake, a Trump critic.

We'll see how this all plays out. Will Trump's GOP be vulnerable in 2018 because heartland voters aren't financially better off and America doesn't seem safer? Or will Trump keep his head somewhat above water because he'll continue to be the guy who rages at whatever heartland whites hate? Will Democrats remember to organize in 2018 -- and if so, will they have a compelling message and good candidates? Will they still be fighting the Bernie-vs.-Hillary purist/pragmatist wars?

I don't know what will happen in two years. I don't expect huge successes, but I think there could be some gains -- assuming, of course, that we have relatively fair elections at all.