All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tami]

They Seemed Like Democratic Activists. They Were Secretly Conservative Spies.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The young couple posing in front of the faux Eiffel Tower at the Paris hotel in Las Vegas fit right in, two people in a sea of idealistic Democrats who had arrived in the city in February 2020 for a Democratic primary debate.

Large donations to the Democratic National Committee — $10,000 each — had bought Beau Maier and Sofia LaRocca tickets to the debate. During a cocktail reception beforehand, they worked the room of party officials, rainbow donkey pins affixed to their lapels.

In fact, much about them was a lie. Mr. Maier and Ms. LaRocca were part of an undercover operation by conservatives to infiltrate progressive groups, political campaigns and the offices of Democratic as well as moderate Republican elected officials during the 2020 election cycle, according to interviews and documents.

Using large campaign donations and cover stories, the operatives aimed to gather dirt that could sabotage the reputations of people and organizations considered threats to a hard-right agenda advanced by President Donald J. Trump.

At the center of the scheme was an unusual cast: a former British spy connected to the security contractor Erik Prince, a wealthy heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune and undercover operatives like Mr. Maier and Ms. LaRocca who used Wyoming as a base to insinuate themselves into the political fabric of this state and at least two others, Colorado and Arizona.

In more than two dozen interviews and a review of federal election records, The New York Times reconstructed many of the operatives’ interactions in Wyoming and other states — mapping out their associations and likely targets — and spoke to people with whom they discussed details of their spying operation. Publicly available documents in Wyoming also tied Mr. Maier and Ms. LaRocca to an address in Cody used by the former spy, Richard Seddon.

[Tendrin]

A Republican congressional candidate from Wisconsin, who lost his 2020 race, allegedly used his leftover donor money to pay for a trip to the Capitol building on January 6, according to a Daily Beast report.

Derrick Van Orden, a former Navy SEAL and small-time actor, was reportedly left with $12,500 after narrowly losing to longtime incumbent Rep. Ron Kind in the November race for Wisconsin's 3rd congressional district.

Oh WBE-eee, etc etc.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-candi...162419976.html

[Tami]

Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump

Donald Trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, but few betrayals have enraged him more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by claiming that the election had been stolen.

In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke, for the first time, about the events surrounding his break with Trump. I have also spoken with other senior officials in the Trump White House and Justice Department, who provided additional details about Barr’s actions and the former president’s explosive response. Barr and those close to him have a reason to tell his version of this story. He has been widely seen as a Trump lackey who politicized the Justice Department. But when the big moment came after the election, he defied the president who expected him to do his bidding.

Barr’s betrayal came on December 1, over lunch in the attorney general’s private dining room with Michael Balsamo, a Justice Department beat reporter at the Associated Press. Also in attendance were the DOJ chief of staff, Will Levi, and spokesperson Kerri Kupec. Balsamo was not told the reason for the invitation. When Barr dropped his bombshell between bites of salad, he mumbled, and Balsamo wasn’t sure that he had caught what the attorney general had said.

“Just to be crystal clear,” Balsamo asked, “are you saying—”

“Sir, I think you better repeat what you just said,” Kupec interjected.

“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Barr repeated. This time Balsamo heard him.

Balsamo’s story appeared on the AP newswire shortly after lunch ended: “Disputing Donald Trump’s persistent baseless claims, Attorney General William Barr declared Tuesday the U.S. Justice Department had uncovered no evidence of widespread voter fraud that could change the outcome of the 2020 election.”

The story blew a hole in the president’s claims. Nobody seriously questioned Barr’s conservative credentials or whether he had been among Trump’s most loyal cabinet secretaries. His conclusion sent a definitive message that the effort to overturn the election was without merit.

Barr told me that Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell had been urging him to speak out since mid-November. Publicly, McConnell had said nothing to criticize Trump’s allegations, but he told Barr that Trump’s claims were damaging to the country and to the Republican Party. Trump’s refusal to concede was complicating McConnell’s efforts to ensure that the GOP won the two runoff elections in Georgia scheduled for January 5.

To McConnell, the road to maintaining control of the Senate was simple: Republicans needed to make the argument that with Biden soon to be in the White House, it was crucial that they have a majority in the Senate to check his power. But McConnell also believed that if he openly declared Biden the winner, Trump would be enraged and likely act to sabotage the Republican Senate campaigns in Georgia. Barr related his conversations with McConnell to me. McConnell confirms the account.

[Mister Mets]

An increase in Democratic turnout in 2022 and 2024 is the best result we can hope for.

Turnout in 2020 was really high, so Democrats don't really need to increase turnout (as the main groups that didn't show up in that election are people who were too young to do so) as much as they need to keep it high.

I kind of hesitate to enter in to something like this, but I feel as though my fellow comic nerds are perfect and can discuss these things in a way that's far better than Reddit. Not that I'm going to start off saying anything controversial (well maybe).

I like the way this condo collapse tragedy is being handled by the Miami-Dade community. Terrible that the odds are low, but it's nice to see something that isn't being taken for a ride on the narrative train these days.

Right now, there isn't much partisan disagreement about it.

It's a tragedy and there will be serious investigations into what caused it.

[worstblogever]

Oh WBE-eee, etc etc.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-candi...162419976.html

He was on my radar, but being a seditious motherf***er makes him next level.

[TheRay]

Right now, there isn't much partisan disagreement about it.

It's a tragedy and there will be serious investigations into what caused it.

As I said.

Interesting you say right now though

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled John Lloyd Ellis, the former Chairman of the Alabama Cherokee County Republican Party whose career ended when he was discovered to have a massive marijuana farm being operated out of his home by police. Last we heard, he was looking at a prison sentence of one to ten years.

On this date in 2016, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Alex Beinstein, who as a 28-year old libertarian who filed as a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives seat for Colorado’s 3rdCongressional District, as a primary challenger to incumbent Congressman Scott Tipton, focusing almost entirely on a single issue… destroying all foreign relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Now, among the many Saudi-related conspiracies that Beinstein believes is that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks, helped protect Osama bin Laden while he was hiding in Pakistan, and are responsible for helping create ISIS. But how do they get away with it, you ask? Bribes. Bribes all over the place. Saudi princes have spent money to corrupt everyone from President Barack Obama and CNN’s Anderson Cooper to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Fox News leadership. Beinstein also told The Huffington Post that Bill Gates, Apple Inc., The Plaza Hotel in New York and the Four Seasons hotel chain are among other alleged lackeys of the kingdom. (Let’s not even get started on Hillary Clinton.) Beinstein compares cutting ties to Saudi Arabia as to when the United States chose to stop doing business with Nazi Germany, so we’ll add a little dash of Godwin’s Law to his wacky mix. And of course, Beinstein said his primary opponent, Tipton, is in on the conspiracy, and his evidence is… Tipton has failed to publicly condemn Saudi Arabia and has ties to local oil, gas and coal companies. Beinstein, being a libertarian, also has thoughts on gun control… he’s against all of it, specifically even arguing against the idea that those deemed mentally ill or incompetent should still be allowed to have their 2nd Amendment rights. (We suspect this might be because a psychologist might one day recommend Beinstein not have firearms, since he’s already showing some signs of needing to shop for real estate with padded walls.) Beinstein managed a meager 21% of the vote against Tipton in the 2016 GOP primary for that Congressional seat, and it bears watching if he makes another run for office on the platform of, “I REALLY DON’T LIKE SAUDI ARABIA, YOU GUYS.”

On this date in 2017, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” posted a profile of Paul Blair, a radical anti-gay pastor from Oklahoma who has twice run for the Oklahoma State Senate, and a big ally of State Rep. Sally Kern, who proudly spoke of her political credentials (i.e. her dedication to oppressing the LGBT community) at the “Rally for Sally” back in 2008. You see, he was all lathered up after she said that gays represent a bigger threat to America than terrorism (since gay rights made people like Blair and Kern victims). Blair is a former player for the Chicago Bears (and could easily be operating under the effects of long term head injuries), the pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma, the founder of Reclaiming Oklahoma for Christ, head of the Reclaiming America For Christ organization. He's also appeared at an anti-hate crimes “Rally for Religious Freedom” where he and anti-gay activists vowed never to stop fighting homosexuality and challenged the Justice Department to prosecute them. Blair was the driving force behind a video called “The Criminalization of Christianity” in which he warns that hate crimes legislation is actually a “Pedophile Protection Act”, would “make it possible for a pastor to be prosecuted for doing nothing more than preaching a Biblical sermon on Sunday”. Which would be breaking a commandment about bearing false witness, because hate crime legislation does nothing to criminalize free speech (because that would be an unconstitutional violation of the 1st Amendment now, wouldn't it?) But it would seem that lying is a frequent habit of Pastor Blair, who claims he receives death threats from the gay community over his stance (that are repeatedly unfounded). And that's when Blair tried saying the unsubstantiated death threats were his motivation for making himself a 2012 candidate for the Oklahoma State Senate (endorsed by that anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council), where he lost in the Republican Primary, earning a shockingly impressive 43% of the vote. Some of the more disturbing and/or homophobic quotes from Paul Blair's most bats*** speeches include that "The Devil is behind gay rights and gay culture", before whining how America has gone from "Ozzie and Harriet to Desperate Housewives" and "from True Grit to Brokeback Mountain", claiming that the “communists” are trying to “inculcate homosexual values, or lack of values, into the American culture” in order “to destroy the family” and create “a global utopia", adding that "Satan is the source and ultimate conspirator” behind “the force of communism, the force of the radical homosexual agenda, the secularist movement in America.", and of course, comparing his battle against gay marriage to be similar to “the fight against slavery and Nazi Germany”. Paul Blair has also promoted conspiracy theories about how our government deliberately launches EMP attacks against conservative Christians, and that Jade Helm 15 and began promoting the alternative history that the ancient Israelites had a Constitutional Republic. It takes an extremist to be too far to the right in Oklahoma, but Paul Blair manages to pull it off.

On this date in 2018, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled the former member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan’s 11th District, Dave Trott, who was first elected back in 2014, when the GOP were desperate for a sane candidate to replace the far more bizarre CSGOPOTD legend Kerry Bentivolio. Trott just straight up outspent Benvolio in the 2014 Primary for this seat by a ratio of 25-1 and took his infamous reprutation as being “Michigan’s foreclosure king who got rich during the Great Recession of ’07 and ’08 by preying on homeowners who couldn’t afford to pay their mortgage and were being evicted from their homes, including signing off on the paperwork to evict a 101 year old Detroit woman from her home, leaving her belongings in the street.. In many ways, that’s actually a perfect representation of modern Republican values. While in Congress, Trott’s voting record exemplifies that “rich white men first” mentality, trying to repeal the ACA and defund Planned Parenthood among many other stereotypical conservative measures. Only about seven weeks into Dave Trott’s second term in office that he was caught on a hot mic with aides after a tense town hall talking to advisers about how the protesters who showed up to complain about their Congressman ignoring the working class were “un-American”. One of his aides claimed it was his voice on the recording (maybe, maybe not)… but needless to say, Trott didn’t have the courage to ever host another town hall after kicking the hornet’s nest and announced his retirement after only two terms in office in September of 2017.

On this date in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Ron Beaty, a human thumb with hair and Republican candidate for the Massachusetts state legislature, who lost in an attempt to get elected to the Massachusetts State Senate the 2014 general election. That bid seemed like a long shot even with the GOP having political momentum that year, because Beaty served a 16 month prison sentence back in 1991 for making death threats against Republican President George H.W. Bush, the late Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, and Massachusetts State Senator Lois Pines. Beaty was trying his luck again to pull an upset in 2018 even in the face of the forecasted Blue Wave to represent the Cape and Islands district of the state,. With the momentum Donald Trump showed in 2016, Beaty hoped as a fellow member of the “bloated old white guy” demographic, that he could ride the white nationalist coattails of Trump into a second chance at political success beyond just being a County Commissioner, branding himself as “Deplorable and Proud of It”. Go figure, Beaty lives up to that promise. Because in the weeks after the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Beaty took to Twitter to call shooting survivor David Hogg “a communist pig” for his anti-gun advocacy. He refused to apologize, and ignored calls to resign as County Commissioner. The only good news to come out of that is… Beaty became as politically radioactive as Chernobyl as a result, and lost the GOP Primary in 2018 for the state legislature with only 21% of the vote. Still, after the election, and prior to us having printed this article, he made the news again in April of 2019, when he again took to social media to suggest that LGBTQ Americans cannot serve in political office, because they are ‘too self-absorbed and self-centered”. Yet again, Ron Beaty refused to apologize or resign from his position as County Commissioner. Instead, he defended his Twitter post, comparing it to the sorts of things Donald Trump posts about.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” profiled Lynne DiSanto, the former model turned owner of a modeling agency in Rapid City, South Dakota, who was a member of the South Dakota House of Representatives from District 35 elected three times in 2014, 2016, and 2018. In that time, she racked up a voting record that was unabashedly pro-gun, anti-choice, and anti-union. She once sponsored legislation to ban educating school children about what gender dysphoria was for kids up to 7th grade (because heaven forbid the existence of transgender children be allowed) and supported a transphobic bathroom ban. She was also repeatedly a source of controversy, for reasons that show a general lack of empathy normally only seen in sociopaths. Let’s start with how on her own Facebook page back on September 7th, 2017, where she posted an “All Lives Splatter” meme, upset about protesters at Standing Rock blocking the highways in South Dakota, and, y’know, generally just mocking the Black Lives Matter movement and peaceful protesters who apparently deserved to be run over for doing so. Now, in many instances of conservatives who shared this sort of meme or supported legislation to make it legal for drivers to run over protesters was “B.C.”, or “Before Charlottesville”, Lynne DiSanto shared the meme only a few days AFTER Heather Heyer was murdered in such a scenario. She faced calls to resign and refused, and within a few months, she needed a new cause. And this… is where things start getting strange. In January of 2019, a nine-year old girl in foster care named Serenity Dennard ran away from the facility where she was staying, and is still, as of the writing of this article, missing. Police searches could not find her, and the theory in the community is that she may have wandered into the woods and froze to death. However, Lynne DiSanto saw a cause that she could invest herself into, and by that we mean “exploit for political gain”. DiSanto soon started a Facebook page titled, “Lyn seeks Truth” in May of 2019, and soon registered the domain name for a website lynneseekstruth.com, where she would conduct interviews and organize searches for Serenity. The local police, however, seemed to have the opinion that these civilian gatherings were potentially trampling on potential evidence and were in no way helpful other than, y’know, perhaps setting Lynne up to take Nancy Grace’s job one day. Thus, a constituent posted on DiSanto’s Facebook group page that it was pretty evil to exploit a kid’s death like she was doing… and Lynne had the level-headed response to tell her, “I see you live close to me!!! Awesome! I’ll be stopping by to say Hi so we can talk face to face soon.” And so it was that her constituent filed a police report to get a “no trespass” order to keep DiSanto off her property. But DiSanto was not to be stopped in her quest to become infamous while hunting for Serenity Dennard and online views and likes. She tracked down her biological mother, who was in a state correctional facility, and met with her to get some more background about Serenity from the woman who gave birth to her… and illegally videotaped their conversation against the policies of the State Department of Corrections. DiSanto claimed she was given permission to do so, but was temporarily banned from visiting inmates. She, of course, played the victim the whole time. Our story ends with, oddly, Lynne DiSanto separating from her husband on September 5, 2019, legally changing her name to Lyndi DiSanto, separating from her husband Mark DiSanto, and resigning from the South Dakota legislature to move to Montana and beginning a career in real estate there In February of 2021, a story broke that DiSanto was harassing a woman in Wyoming whose husband went missing and DiSanto stalked her until the woman could get a restraining order to keep DiSanto the f*** away. As of late 2019, stories were out that Lynne and her husband Mark were getting a divorce and she was going to move to Montana. Well, it seems on January 7th, 2020 she was back in South Dakota and called the cops on her husband, claiming she was assaulted and choked on Jan. 6th. The officer on scene was about to arrest her husband when he provided an airtight alibi that he was playing racquetball with a friend, who confirmed it. At that point the cop noted that she had waited a day after the assault, and hand not a scratch or bruise on her, so he got suspicious. Eventually, cell phone records confirmed neither Lynne, nor her husband were at the house when the assault happened. Lynne got charged with filing a false police report and pleaded no contest to the charges in court in March 2021. She was given a 90 day suspended sentence and $250 dollar fine. She, last we checked, hand changed her name to Lyndi Meyer, but has also been known by the names Lyn DiSanto, Lynne Hix-DiSanto, and Lynne Hix. Whenever she is on social media, she continues to posit weird theories about random missing persons and paranoid conspiracies. We will not, however, link to any of those, because she doesn’t deserve to have it promoted. As it is highly unlikely that she will ever reach office again, we will retire her profile at this time to take a look at a different wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 996-50, since this was established in July 2014.


Steve Watkins

Welcome to what is the 996th profile here at “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day”, where we’ll be profiling the former U.S. House Representative from Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, Steve Watkins, who served in office for one term after winning an UGLY election in 2018. To his credit, Watkins had a pretty impressive start to his resume for “credible badass” as far as people we profile go, being a graduate of West Point, an veteran of the war in Afghanistan. After leaving the military and starting a career as a defense contractor, Watkins focused on a simple hobby of, y’know, running sled dogs in Alaska, including in the Iditarod (he finished in 58th place out of 66 competitors in 2015).

But reporters fascinated with the guy began to notice a lot of the other details Watkins was providing about his professional career, though, that had… let’s just say some inconsistencies that looked like he may have padded his resume as a candidate a bit, and Watkins played the “FAKE NEWS” card that Donald Trump made infamous.

Watkins continuously was trying to win Trump’s endorsement to push himself to the head of the pack, in the primary, and prior to getting fired, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale noted Watkins was sending out mailers with Trump on them without the endorsement of the White House occupant. And his primary opponents were asking the question, “Wait, how can he have two homes in Alaska and be dog-sledding up there and also be living in Kansas, where he’s never voted? His guy’s carpet-bagging, man!” The Associated Press took note that there was no sign Watkins had lived in Kansas since leaving for the military in high school, but still, with a crowded seven-candidate primary field, Watkins emerged victorious with 26.5% of the vote in it.

Watkins still had to beat Democrat Paul Davis in the general election, and eventually officially won favor with the nation’s hot-garbage-chief-executive by supporting Trump’s stupid f***ing idea for a physical wall on the U.S./Mexico border, saying things in favor of it like "That doesn't make us mean-spirited or the racist bigots that some leftists would have you believe. It's just common sense," or the quite White Nationalist-ish statement of “I want to keep our culture,” about it. So OF COURSE Donald Trump ended up appearing with him at a rally in October 2018. Like many Trump-endorsed candidates, Steve Watkins was then accused of sexually harassing a woman who he worked with on an Alaskan military base, only days after getting Trump’s seal-of-approval (not that Trump would retract it, after his endorsing of Roy Moore showing how little he cared about if men he endorsed were creeps).

[worstblogever]

And yet, and YET… Steve Watkins still won that race by less than a percentage point, say by around 2200 votes in the Blue Wave year, which should just be regarded as having the benefit of Kansas’ 2nd District having a +11 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. Watkins’ tenure was a clear and repeated pattern of idiocy:

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Watkins voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Watkins votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Watkins votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Steve Watkins is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Watkins votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Watkins votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Steve Watkins votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 17th, 2019: Watkins is one of 60 Republicans who vote against HJ Res 77, which opposed Donald Trump’s disastrous decision to abandon Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria to the mercies of a Turkish invasion.
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Watkins ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the first impeachment of Donald Trump.

So what was it that really made us focus on this one-term member of the House, and profile him, other than his voting record? Well, it would be that he helped prove the Republican Party’s incessant complaints about voter fraud by committing such an act personally and filing his voter information with the Federal Elections Commission that listed his residence in Topeka as what was actually the location for a UPS Store.

Yes, all the questions regarding his residence seemed to hold some merit. Three separate felony charges were filed related to the voter fraud he personally committed, and he was slapped with a fourth charge for lying to a detective who was investigating the matter. Watkins chalked it up to being just an error, and only narrowly avoided jail time by signing a controversial agreement with the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office where he admitted all four of the things he was charged with were true. (White privilege has its perks, it seems).

Steve Watkins ended up losing in the GOP primary in 2020 for his seat, what with all the fraud surrounding him, losing in the GOP Primary with about 34% of the vote. We would like to wish him our heartiest “GOOD RIDDANCE” salutes at this time.

[GindyPosts]

An increase in Democratic turnout in 2022 and 2024 is the best result we can hope for.

The problem is, Democratic voters tend to be apathetic in midterms, usually thinking once you get rid of the main problem, that's all you need to do. As we have seen, it's far from the case.

Complacency always, always does the Democratic Party in.

[CSTowle]

They Seemed Like Democratic Activists. They Were Secretly Conservative Spies.

Oh I guarantee this is one of those things where "both sides" actually applies. Seems like a waste of money when the Project Veritas D-bags can just approach and talk to people without dropping 10k a plate, but I'm sure there's an equivalent Democratic or leftist attempt to reveal secrets. Sadly and increasingly since the Reagan years though Republicans wear their crazy on their sleeve so there's not much dirt to dig that outdoes what we already know and they seem proud of.

As I said.

Interesting you say right now though

You seem to be hinting at something, is there a particular partisan divide you see potentially popping up? If so, what is it? Different standards for building codes and housing regulations? Or something else?

[Jack Dracula]

The problem is, Democratic voters tend to be apathetic in midterms, usually thinking once you get rid of the main problem, that's all you need to do. As we have seen, it's far from the case.

Complacency always, always does the Democratic Party in.

Complacency isn't an option anymore. Democrats need to remember that.

[Tendrin]

Complacency isn't an option anymore. Democrats need to remember that.

I'm not sure the old rules about Dem midterm woes apply anymore, anyway. Republican extremism has seen to that.

[Mister Mets]

As I said.

Interesting you say right now though

I try to be cautious when making predictions.

It's possible that this won't go into a political fight, but it's also possible there will be some kind of partisan wrinkle.

[TheDarman]

The problem is, Democratic voters tend to be apathetic in midterms, usually thinking once you get rid of the main problem, that's all you need to do. As we have seen, it's far from the case.

Complacency always, always does the Democratic Party in.

The only thing is that it used to be true for Democrats that their coalition relied on lower-propensity voters. It was a fully working class coalition. But the Republican’s erosion among suburban and college-educated voters has led in a rise of high-propensity Democratic voters and a Republican coalition that is reliant on those who were either apathetic to politics prior to Trump or working class voters who migrated over to Republicans, and are more low-propensity voters in mid-terms.

It’s unclear if the gains Democrats made with suburban voters is more permanent though. So, we’ll have to wait and see how the mid-terms work for them when Trump, who garnered so much negative attention, is out of office.