Why Aren’t Democrats Walking Away With the Midterms?

The night Donald Trump was elected was supposed to be, for most liberals and a few conservatives, the beginning of the end of the world. The economy would surely implode. The U.S. would probably blunder into a catastrophic war. The new American president would be blackmailed into conducting foreign policy as Putin’s poodle.

But as Trump’s presidency moves forward, it’s no longer smart to think it’s right. There’s more than one type of intelligence. Trump’s is feral. It strikes fast. It knows where to sink the fang into the vein.

Surprising article from the NYT, even though it's only an op ed.

The salient point is that it is written by Bret Stephens, an op-ed writer formerly for the Wall Street Journal. This does not mean, however, that I consider him a fellow conservative. He once wrote (my words, not his, but) that conservatives think the Constitution is so perfect that it doesn’t even need conserving.
. . . which is obviously the last thing that an actual conservative would think.

Not just the Times. From Bret Stephens. He had to leave the WSJ because the rest of the editorial board there made peace with the reality of the Trump presidency but he just couldn’t.

I too noticed the byline.http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3702540/posts?page=65#65

He was the guy who wrote "If you're not appalled by Trump you're appalling".

That’s a great line, but it needs work: "If you're not appalled by ~~Trump~~ ^{The New York Times,} you’re appalling”.

The fact that he is now slowly, haltingly, kicking and screaming, coming around to realize he was wrong is very interesting. Should the Blue Wave fail to materialize next Tuesday he may just do a complete mea culpa.

That, I doubt. He’s a MSMer from way back. The only way to get that type of person’s attention is with a two by four. IMHO nothing short of winning a huge libel suit against the Associated Press and its membership, joint and several liability has any chance of getting their attention. Like the First Amendment, the NY Times v. Sullivan SCOTUS ruling which makes it essentially impossible for Democrats or Republicans to sue for libel is predicated on the assumption, not that journalists are objective, but that journalism is ideologically heterogeneous. The wire services in general, and the AP in particular, invalidate that assumption:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776)
The AP “wire” is a virtual meeting of all major US journalism - and it has been in continuous operation since before the Civil War. You have to be naive in the extreme to take for granted that "all major US journalism” has, in more than a century and a half, found no way of exploiting their opportunity to conspire against the public. The NY Times v. Sullivan SCOTUS ruling applies to Democrats and Republicans alike - and is precisely as fair to both as the proverbial law against sleeping under bridges is to poor people just because it applies to rich and poor. Republicans get libeled frequently, and Democrats almost never do.

Does anyone venture over to Democrat Underground? What is their attitude toward this election? Are they confident?

They think they have the House under control and have one thread started on how they can get 60 senators by 2020. It has a list of 10 or so Republican senators with a democrat governor and pose the premise of "if these senators resign or have an untimely death, the governor would appoint a democrat in their place."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.