Regarding Wave

On the day that marked one year since the notorious election of 2016, results from elections on Tuesday showed impressive gains for Democrats and their issues, from coast to coast.  Some call it a Blue Wave, and why not, we need the rush.

For some, it suggested re-thinking conclusions based on 2016 results.  Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post wrote that pundits, like the DNC, underestimated how unpopular and polarizing a figure Hillary was, which doesn't account for other R victories.  Nevertheless one of her conclusions seems borne out by results Tuesday:

Jennifer Rubin:
"...the mood of the country a year after Trump’s victory may not be as anti-government as some thought. Instead of unrelenting hostility toward government, verging on nihilism, we see voters going for pro-government candidates, even ones seeking to expand health care. You never know what you stand to lose until you look into the abyss and see the loss of a politically sane and functional government."

Health care was the top issue in Virginia, guns was second.  These victories in Tuesday's elections aren't the only evidence on healthcare.  Despite the worst efforts of this administration to incrementally destroy Obamacare and discourage participation, new sign-ups are surging.

Analysts also pointed to the educated white vote, which flipped from R to D in Virginia.  More broadly:

New York Times:

The American suburbs appear to be in revolt against President Trump after a muscular coalition of college-educated voters and racial and ethnic minorities dealt the Republican Party a thumping rejection on Tuesday and propelled a diverse class of Democrats into office. From the tax-obsessed suburbs of New York City to high-tech neighborhoods outside Seattle to the sprawling, polyglot developments of Fairfax and Prince William County, Va., voters shunned Republicans up and down the ballot in off-year elections."

At Slate, the emphasis was on the importance of women, as candidates as well as voters.

In Washington, an ebullient E. J. Dionne saw a sea-change:

Forget those repetitious tales about some piece of President Trump’s base still sticking with him. It’s now clear, from Virginia and New Jersey to Washington state, Georgia, New York, Connecticut and Maine, that the energy Trump has unleashed among those who loathe him has the potential to realign the country.

In droves, voters rebuked his leadership, his party and the divisive white-nationalist politics that was supposed to save Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia governor’s race, the centerpiece of the GOP catastrophe...

The gun issue was supposed to hurt Democrats whenever it was salient. It was the No. 2 issue in Virginia, after health care. But in a historic rebuke to the National Rifle Association, voters who said they cast ballots on gun policy split narrowly. Sane gun policies are no longer a political third rail. It’s time for fearless opposition to the NRA’s extremism...

Republicans take note: You can demean yourselves all you want by trumpeting Trumpian themes. It won’t buy you gratitude, and — except in the most deeply red parts of the nation — it won’t buy you victory. The leader of your party is a boor, an ingrate and, as Northam declared in his effective Democratic primary advertising, a “narcissistic maniac.”

Dionne wasn't alone, though John Cassidy's  analysis was more tempered.  The most salient observation to me in terms of electoral futures was the impression that since 2016 Democrats recruited good candidates for the kind of offices up for election in a non-presidential, non-congressional year.  This has been a longstanding problem, and is reflected in the apparent dearth of clearly superior candidates for higher offices, including president.  That a not great candidate like Northam could win such a convincing victory in Virginia is fine in the short term, but for years Ds have not matched Rs in creating infrastructure for identifying and supporting candidates.

Another measure of the D wave is that the current internal strife over the 2016 campaign, especially related to Donna Brazile and her book, didn't deter voters.  Her own analysis of the results was: Tactically, Tuesday was nothing short of a blue wave, which proved that grassroots campaigns are the key to the Democratic Party’s success next year. Democrats must no longer cherry pick which states and which dates to invest in the grassroots. We must go everywhere. And we plan on doing that."

This was President Obama's veiled critique of 2016 and advice going forward, which he made shortly after that election.  It seems key to future elections.

Though D leaders anticipate 2018, at least one analyst says prospects are still difficult.  Of course as this tragic anniversary suggests, the damage to the country and the world at a very delicate time will continue and could very well get worse, because Homemade Hitler is still in the White House, and even if it does nothing else, Congress enables the destruction to continue through policy reversals and appointments of the profoundly ignorant, rigidly ideological and thoroughly corrupt.