It is a recurring theme of Democratic agit-prop that Trump is a moron who must be relieved of duty under the 25th Amendment. This arrant nonsense will stop at some point as Trump’s enemies erratically come out of denial to survey the wreckage of the Democratic Party.
How to assess the Democrats? Ernest Hemingway advises on the key concept:
“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, and then suddenly.”
The Democrats are in debt and insolvent. They were going bankrupt gradually. Thanks to Trump they are about to go that way suddenly as well.
Trump, the mighty counterpuncher, has systematically set forces in motion that will kill just about every important source of Democratic Party funding, and most importantly, their lead investors in new talent. The thin bench is gonna get thinner.
Class, let’s do a survey. Who are the main pillars of Democrat party funding? Off the top of my head, I would suggest several groups.
Unions
In Rebecca v. Friedrichs, Justice Scalia was rumored to have been ready to rule against mandatory union dues for political purposes. His untimely, uninvestigated death prevented a clear ruling in this case. It is likely, however, that the same kind of case will present itself, and that Justice Gorsuch will vote as Justice Scalia would have. With fewer union dues, the unions will not have as much clout. A new case, Janus v. AFSCME, is winding its way towards the Supreme Court next year. In this case, Mark Janus, who is not a union member, is required under Illinois law to pay full union dues. The unions calculate that 84% of what they get is spent on politics, and he says the union views don’t represent his views. Ben Penn speculates the Dept. of Justice and the Dept. of Labor have switched prior positions under the Obama administration, and now say public employees should not have pay for politics. (Didn’t we try to do that with the Hatch Act for federal employees?) In fact, the SEIU appears to have read the writing on the wall, and has reduced its post Trump budget by 30%.
Hollywood, Television, and the MSM Glamourpusses
This paragraph pretty much writes itself just with a recent list of the accused, all of whom either are at the pinnacle of “culture” or the news. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Matt Lauer, Jeremy Piven, Brett Ratner, Russell Simmons, Ben Affleck, Garrison Keillor, etcetera etcetera and on and on and on.… What has been shattered in Hollywood is the triumphant, and perverse, simultaneously both holier and sexier than thou attitude which has dominated the culture for the last 60 years. It’s over. The NFL is kneeling and reeling. Trump is forcing issues, and returning fire on an unprecedented scale in the culture wars, pretty much for the first time ever in the electronic age. The sports franchises, which are locked in PC nonsense, have probably squandered a third of their value by antagonizing the core of their audience. George Clooney laid the biggest egg of his career a few months ago. Telling half your domestic audience to go screw themselves because they are not as pure as you are while you are hypocritically abusing the women in your clutches and pissing on America turns out to be… bad for business! Who knew? The virtue signaling that Hollywood did for so long, will be much more subdued. And using your personal brand to loudly launch new candidates… risky!!! The secret to Hollywood is you are only as good as your last box office hit. Clooney is lucky he sold the Tequila line when he did. It’s tough enough to make a film that actually works. Making and distributing films that cost $35 million but gross $5.8 million is even less sustainable than coal mining. Kevin Spacey has disappeared, as if he was a Stalin Politburo member. Most of Hollywood is going to be a lot more gun shy about jumping on the PR machine of the now tainted Democratic Party. Free cash from Hollywood for Democratic politicians will probably be… just like SEIU’s new budget… down 30% to 50%.
Foreign Money
For many years, foreign governments freely gave staggering amounts to the Democrats, expecting a quid pro quo. That is the true scandal of Secretary Clinton. Pay to play. Uranium One. After all, the Clinton Foundation alone collected $2 billion with a B! But recent events in Saudi Arabia suggest the new administration is not partial to pay for play. And if the foreign government and mystery donor money dries up, that will likely disproportionately affect Democrats. Score it worse than above, because there may be new found liabilities associated with past practices. For example, if the Clinton Foundation gets investigated, that money will turn radioactive. I handicap this funding source at down 90%.
Government Slush Funds
It has not been widely reported, but the Obama administration found all sorts of ways to turn what should have been non-political fines and government contracts into fresh funds for politically favored groups. For example, Zerohedge reported last week that GMMB, a liberal political advertising firm, was the sole recipient of a $40 million contract to promote the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And left-wing activist groups like the National Council of La Raza and the National Urban League were the beneficiaries of slush funds created with fines from mortgage infractions enforced by the Obama DOJ. The article suggests as much as $640 million was earmarked for over 600 advocacy groups. I handicap this funding source as 99% toast going forward.
The General Public
Broad swaths of Christians and Jews will respond to Trump’s bold decision to “acknowledge the obvious” and move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. And issue by issue he has been doing this. For example. the House just passed Concealed Carry Reciprocity, doing things that were undreamt of in prior Republican let alone Democratic administrations. How much it will change donations is not clear, but the Trump base loves it. Which brings us to…
The Ace in the Hole
The Dems are out of ideas, e.g. ignoring new populations of voters other than felons (really McAuliffe, you think that will work?), and moral swagger, and are accelerating towards Hemingway’s bankruptcy. Donna Brazile is now fond of pointing out that President Obama left the DNC $24 million in debt after 2012. The Washington Times points out that so far in 2017, the Democrats have raised $51 million, compared to the Republicans’ $104 million. What could push the Democrats over the edge in 2018? The 20 million virgin voters who Trump can still register ahead of the 2018 elections. Bill Still was pretty much alone on reporting this, but he had it exactly right, as they say on Fox. Still says 25% of the vote in Florida was never-before-voted voters. In truth, while the MSM complains that Trump is only playing to his base, no one really knows how big that base can get. If Trump figures out how to activate some of the other 120 million could-vote-but-never-voted-before voters, the Democrats will find themselves in a world of hurt unimaginable before this year.
Elfego Baca is a pseudonym for a seasoned observer of American politics.
