Connecticut Democrats ran against Trump in the last off-year
presidential election, and he was not on the ballot. There were no ringing
defenses of Trump among Connecticut Republicans, who tend to be rather shy on
the subject of Trump’s accomplishments, the most important of which involves
jobs produced in Connecticut by Trump’s aggressive military procurement policy.
Electric Boat, Sikorsky and Pratt & Whitney are producing jobs and hiring
new workers at a record pace, all of which will, during the next 20 years,
produce tax revenue for a state still mired in a recession that ended elsewhere
in the nation about 10 years ago.
Despite Connecticut’s 30-year-long descent into economic
turmoil, Connecticut progressives did very well in the 2018 elections. Hard won
Republican gains in the General Assembly were wiped out, and the progressive
caucus in the Democrat dominant General Assembly is now approaching 50 percent.
In 2020, Trump will be on the ballot in Connecticut, despite an effort by some
Democrats to remove his name from the ballot.
Will the state witness in the 2020 elections a repeat of the
2018 election?
This is doubtful, because there are no such exact repetitions in
politics, except for well-organized incumbent Democrats running in safe
districts that have money and influence enough to win elections. U.S.
Representative Rosa DeLauro and U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal fall into this
safe zone, DeLauro because large cities in her district will continue to
support her even if, to borrow a memorable phrase from Trump, she shoots
someone on Main Street in New Haven. And, of course, DeLauro has plenty of walking
around money with which, over the years, she has purchased support from other
Democrats. Blumenthal --- who came by his wealth the old way, by marrying into
it -- also is fabulously rich, and highly esteemed by a media that cringingly
assents to Democrat socialist Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ eat the
rich messaging. Blumenthal favors Sanders’
universal health care proposals, which would make a wreck of Connecticut’s
insurance industries, as well as New York Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez’s anarchic vision of a universe without fossil fuels.
Republican office holders did not rush to Trump’s defense
when he was being accused, inferentially, of colluding with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to deny then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton her coronation
at the White House. Now that Robert Mueller’s report has been tucked into bed,
most of us know there was no collusion. Most recently, Hillary has implausibly accused
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of being a Putin plant.
Since 2018, Trump has had some indisputable successes.
Conservative Republicans might easily commend him for his originalist – not
conservative -- Supreme Court appointments, and Democrats may have overplayed
their hand with respect to Brett Kavanaugh, Blumenthal leading the charge to
defame the Supreme Court Justice. After some important tax cuts and
deregulation, the national economy appears to have responded as anticipated.
Groups that usually huddle under the protective umbrella of Democrat programs –
African Americans and Hispanics – cannot be too disappointed with their current
low unemployment numbers.
In any case, 2020 will not be 2018. And, who knows, there
may in Connecticut be some courageous Republicans bright enough to realize that
silence in the face of an unjust criticism signifies assent. If you are silent
in the face of a false accusation that you beat your wife, you should not be
surprised when the public votes down the presumed wife beater and his
associates. The aphorism that a false accusation may travel half way around the
world while the truth is still getting its boots on simply means that
propaganda works. Joseph Stalin, a suburb propagandist, used to say – give me
Hollywood and I could rule the world.
At this remove, it may be impossible to imagine what would
happen if Republicans in Connecticut were able to prevail upon Trump to hold a
2020 rally in, say, New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport or some other urban
Democrat Party reservation in super-blue Connecticut. Some think a Trump appearance
in the state might be, at the very least, entertaining, and showmanship, as we
all know, pulls in votes.
In the 2016 presidential race, Clinton beat Trump in
Connecticut by only 5 percentage points, a poor showing in a state in which
Democrats outnumber Republicans by a two to one margin. Trump toted up wins in Windham
and Litchfield counties, losing to Clinton by only 2 percentage points in
Middlesex. More importantly, Republicans in the General Assembly later drew
even with Democrats in the Senate and came within striking distance in the
House. Republican losses occurred when Trump was not on the ballot and the
pending Mueller investigation hung perilously over his head in a
non-presidential election, a propaganda triumph for Democrats.
Despite strenuous efforts to repeal the 2016 election, Trump
is not going anywhere. He will not be driven out of office by 1) an “impeachment
inquiry” held behind closed doors that will permit partisan U.S. House
Democrats to selectively mold campaign bullets from testimony given in secret
by no less partisan “witnesses” to shoot at Republicans during the upcoming
elections or 2) an open impeachment in the House requiring votes and testimony
given by the accused that will certainly fail in the U.S. Senate to remove Trump from office.
If – following an upcoming Inspector General’s report on a
defective FISA application, and John Durham’s report on the prequel to the two
year old Mueller report -- Trump does campaign in Connecticut, a state reeling
from 30 years of Democrat hegemonic misrule in the General Assembly, who knows
what mischief might be set afoot. Republicans who step from behind the
flowerpots to defend the nominal head of their party from unjust assaults may even
now be asking themselves– what have we got to lose?
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