Rahm Emanuel writes:

Few could have predicted that President Donald Trump would be this good at surrendering the political advantage of a strong economy. Not only is he now underwater in the three states that pushed him to victory in 2016—he’s now unexpectedly vulnerable in places such as Texas, Florida, and Ohio as well. His popularity rises to 50 percent or higher in states that total a mere 102 electoral votes. Probably of more concern to his campaign: He’s fallen below 40 percent approval in states encompassing a 201-electoral-vote bloc.

But Democrats haven’t won the 2020 election yet—and we’ve got a long way to go. At this stage in the 1992 election cycle, President George H. W. Bush was riding high, buoyed by America’s success in the Gulf War. Less than two years later, Bill Clinton moved into the White House. Trump might prove incapable of engineering such a dramatic reversal of fortune. But if the economy continues to hum and he racks up a couple of wins on foreign policy, the public’s perception of his presidency could shift. Democrats can’t bank on voters being more dismayed by him than they are enamored of us.

For that reason, Democrats need to take a strategic approach to the next 20 months. In the last election, Democrats were too quick to dismiss the possibility that voters would take Trump “seriously, not literally.” This time, we should not only take him seriously—we should take him literally when he tells us exactly how he’s going to run his reelection campaign.

“Tonight,” the president said in his State of the Union address, “we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” That was a tell. Trump’s going to spend the next two years using the bully pulpit to convince voters that Democrats are big believers in “government coercion, domination, and control.” He’s making a bet that if he labels Democrats “socialists” frequently enough, he’ll be able to drive a wedge that scares swing voters out of the Democratic fold. [Continue reading…]