Politics, at its core, is a series of never-ending tribal conflicts. Sometimes it’s the Republicans against the Democrats, other times it’s the executive branch fighting with the judiciary and occasionally it’s as petty as members of Congress warring with one another over television news air time.
One of the battles that is sure to be popping up in the next two years is House Democrats versus Senate Democrats.
Yes, they are members of the same political party, oppose President Donald Trump and want their party to recapture the White House in 2020, but beyond that their agendas couldn’t be more different.
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump carried 30 states, which covers 60 percent of the seats in the U.S. Senate. In 2018, 10 Democratic senators will be up for re-election who represent states that Donald Trump won — in some cases by wide margins. These senators represent constituents who want Trump to succeed.
In the House, things couldn’t be more different. Thanks to the gerrymandering of congressional lines, the affinity of Democrats to live next to each other in big cities and the Republican tilt of rural America, most Democratic members of Congress represent very safe, very liberal districts. Their voters want Trump to fail and get ginned up whenever Democrats let it be known that they’re working hard to block his legislative agenda and cause him fits.
In other words, the Democratic worlds are about to collide.
The problem for vulnerable Senate Democrats is that the more reckless and outrageous their colleagues in the House get, the more they gobble up all of the headlines and brand the party in their image.
At this pace there won’t be an available bottle of Tums at a CVS pharmacy anywhere near the Washington, D.C., metro area.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis said that he couldn’t imagine forging a working relationship with President Trump because, “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.”
In the 2016 election, Rep. Lewis won re-election in his Atlanta-based district with over 84 percent of the vote.
Earlier this month California Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, said that she doesn’t want Trump to serve all four years of his term, “And my greatest desire is to lead him right into impeachment.”
When asked to explain herself at a subsequent press conference, Waters said that she didn’t like “the fact that he is wrapping his arms around Putin while Putin is continuing to advance into Korea.”
Either I missed a huge international story or Putin really loves playing the board game Risk.
Waters was re-elected by 76 percent of the voters in California’s 43rd District last November.
And then one day after House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was grilled by NBC’s Chuck Todd about whether or not she and other members of the Democratic leadership team were out of step with the majority of the country, Pelosi called a press conference where she declared, “While it’s only been a couple of weeks since the inauguration, we’ve seen nothing that I can work with President Bush on.”
Apparently Jeb Bush’s election to the presidency happened on the same day that Russia invaded Korea and my neighbor stole my copy of the paper.
San Franciscans just re-elected Pelosi with 81 percent of the vote.
Without the White House or an elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, there is no de facto spokesman for the Democratic Party. The worst case scenario for Senate Democrats is that by default that role will be assumed by the loudest voice in the room.
John Phillips is a CNN political commentator and can be heard weekdays at 3 p.m. on “The Drive Home with Jillian Barberie and John Phillips” on KABC/AM 790.
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
