Something this morning in an analysis of data at The Washington Post by James Hohmann strikes me as extremely hopeful for Democrats. It may prove, in 2018 and 2020, that what holds the Democratic coalition together to beat the fractured Republican coalition is Trump hatred–exactly as Hillary hatred held together the Trump coalition in 2016.
In other words, for the next two election cycles, Republicans may hold the HATE POTATO–which is Donald Trump himself–and they may hold it all by their lonesome. There’s no Hillary to kick around anymore. Here’s the key quote from Hohmann’s article:
Trump keeps talking about Hillary Clinton because it’s the best way to hold his coalition together….In every GOP faction…voters strongly dislike Clinton at about twice the rate that they strongly like Trump. (Similarly, Democrats are held together right now by their near universal disdain for Trump.)
Since Hillary is off of the political basketball court going forward, perhaps all that Democrats really need to do in 2018 and 2020 is to recruit nice, young, centrist, non-scary people to run for offices. Do you suppose they can do it–or will they blow the layup?
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Prometheus Unbound 
HATE. The demon Screwtape writes: Hatred we can manage. The tension of human nerves during noise, danger, and fatigue, makes them prone to any violent emotion and it is only a question of guiding this susceptibility into the right channels. If conscience resists, muddle him. Let him say that he feels hatred not on his own behalf but on that of the women and children, and that a Christian is told to forgive his own, not other people’s enemies. In other words let him consider himself sufficiently identified with the women and children to feel hatred on their behalf, but not sufficiently identified to regard their enemies as his own and therefore proper objects of forgiveness. But hatred is best combined with Fear. Cowardice, alone of all the vices, is purely painful—horrible to anticipate, horrible to feel, horrible to remember; Hatred has its pleasures. It is therefore often the compensation by which a frightened man reimburses himself for the miseries of Fear. The more he fears, the more he will hate. And Hatred is also a great anodyne for shame. To make a deep wound in his charity, you should therefore first defeat his courage.
Lewis, C. S.. Virtue and Vice: A Dictionary of the Good Life (pp. 28-29). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Ergo….Trump is really fearful.
Judging by PEW, 86 percent of Americans say the country is more politically divided than in the past. That number is up from 46 percent since 2009 – most of this increase happened under Obama. He certainly didn’t fuel those flames, but society is changing, becoming more polarized and tribal. Obama could still cater to tribals by simply being Black. But the fact that Trump succeeded him suggests that identity won’t be enough in the next election (Hillary likely ruined any female advantage). So I think the Democrats will have to get ugly too.