Where is the Democrat’s strategy?

 If there is one thing that stands out to me about this election and its aftermath it is that the Democrats appear to be completely rudderless, completely devoid of any effective plan for going forward. Democrats in the Senate seem to be driven by their most extreme and noisiest liberal followers to useless posturing, like last night’s 24 hour talkathon against Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, a stunt they knew from the beginning was ineffective (she was approved this morning), or like boycotting committee hearings (Republicans just approved the nominees anyway).

The Supreme Court nomination battle is another example of how rudderless the Democrats appear to be. Judge Neil Gorsuch is about as highly qualified as any nominee could be.  When he was appointed to the Federal Appeals Court in 2006 the Democratic-majority Senate confirmed him with a unanimous voice vote. He is a strict constructionist replacing Scalia, a strict constructionist, so his appointment does not change the recent balance of the Court. There is zero chance that Trump would have appointed a liberal, any more that Clinton would have appointed a conservative, so there is no surprise here. And he will be confirmed, even if the Democrats force the Republicans to use the “nuclear option” and change the Senate rules, something they can do with impunity because the Democrats unwisely already did it first under Obama, and promised during the campaign that Clinton, when elected, would do it again to to get her nominee approved.

So a sensible Democratic strategy would be to grumble a bit publicly about his being a conservative, just to placate the more rabid liberal base, and then let him get confirmed. Save the real battle for the next possible nomination which might indeed change the current balance of the court. If instead Democrats decide to go scorched earth on this first battle, which they can’t win, they are weakening themselves for the next battle, which may well be far more important.  If the Democrats had anyone thinking about long term strategy, this would be obvious.

It may be true, as some writers have recently asserted, that the liberal’s core problem is that they love to make themselves feel better with mass rallies and cute saying on signs, but are unwilling to do the hard, day-to-day talking and listening to people one-to-one, especially with people who may not agree with them. As near as I can tell the noisy protests, covered extensively by the liberal media, seem to be doing nothing effective about converting more people to their cause.

Fundamentally, Democrats desperately need to expand their base. That is the clear lesson from the tremendous losses they have suffered over the last decade at both the federal and the state levels.  And expanding the base means reaching beyond their current “true believers” to new people.  So doing things that just make the current base feel better is not effective – in fact some of the more over-the-top stuff that is going on now is probably driving people away.  It certainly drives me away. I agree with liberals on a lot of the issues, but I am reluctant to put the government back into the hands of people who appear to be so inept, so illiberal, so much like petulant children, and so lacking in any perceptible strategy.