Trump can defeat Trump.
That, exactly.
They don't have to defeat Trump, all they have to do is make it hard enough for him...and he will self destruct...some of his intentions may have been good, but he is way too in-experienced and unstable.
Not just the Democrats that will be working at it either...Pence is just standing in the background I think and licking his lips with a few others and stoking the fires.
I think there is still those half of dozen big establishment anti-Trump contingent but I think Pence is not against trump in any way. I think as meek and mild as he appears, he will be a MUCH hardliner than Trump AND will unite the Republican party better than Trump has (not necessarily better than he will). I think Trump's son in law and Bannon and Jason Miller are going to keep him from making huge errors. I am sure he will say some crap or get stuff wrong or be a douchebag or clown or whatever on occasion BUT nothing that will knock him. They will keep him on track.
But imagine if on one of his big promises that he is going to get voted through has 4 or 5 or 6 members of his own party vote against him. Republicans have the majority BUT 5 or 5 people being minused from trump and going to a united Democrat party? He would not handle that well. The spinmasters and the calmers and influencers that help him negotiate policy and such would be rocked and trump would go off the deep end. The claims of traitors and picking of sides and fractures in the Republican party would start. Public sentiment may well take a beating depending on how crazy Trump would go. They would also turn on the Republican party traitors.
But not now. The Democrats need a figurehead to rally behind. They need to stop being outraged and thrashing at everything and blowing everything out of proportion. They have to pick their battles and fight smarter. Being crazy and lashing out at everything disperses the focus and makes the Left look crazy. Which they mostly are.
Personally, where I stand on things is that I have always considered myself Liberal. A classical Liberal (Perhaps more Libertarian depending on your definition) BUT the space I occupy has not shifted and yet is shared now with some holdout Liberals, Libertarians and plenty of moderate and right of centre Conservatives. I think that the Progressives are a bane and that this Trump term will clean a lot of the Progressives and strip them of their Authoritarianism and Control of the Left. I think that is great.
I think too that this gives the Left to realise that the identity politicking and shaming tactics and PC culture and Progress stack are not any longer a powerful consideration and that the Progressivism is NOT Classical Liberalism. One is Authoritarian and the other is not. I think it is time for the Liberals to take stock and to marginalise and minimise the influence of sweet old crazy, Bernie and his lapdog Warren and the radical Ellison and the DNC race baiting cronies like Jackson and Sharpton and get smart. Get less radical and less disingenuous. Allow or freedom of ideas and make their side the reasoned and intellectual alternative. Don't get mad, get even.
The truth is that on average, Republicans and Conservatives are far more sane and persuasive than Liberals and Democrats. At the moment. A few years of eating humble pie, absorbing the loss and doing better and becoming stronger would be great. Thinning out the herd. Getting rid of dead wood.
I think it's important because these reasonable Conservatives winning continually as they are will not be reasonable forever. In 4,5 or 6 yearsof this, they will likely become powerful and become the excessively authoritarian polarised opposite of the Progressive Left and they will be the unreasonable basket cases. Liberals WILL come back.
phobia.