Uncertainty by Nicu Bucelei, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0/Original

No matter what happens Tuesday, the outline of the narrative the Democrats, the media, and the Vichy Republicans (by the way, Kurt Schlichter has a great piece on these people) will follow beginning Wednesday is clear. It is a textbook “heads I win, tails you lose” strategy that is based on–and I know this will be a shock–branding President Trump and the entire GOP as racist.

This Washington Post article is the keystone description of the strategy: Midterms test whether Republicans not named Trump can win by stoking racial animosity. The article is less important–it focuses on robocalls with racist content that are not associated with either the GOP or a GOP candidate and weave in Steve King’s rather exotic comments as being typical of the GOP–than the narrative it sets up.

https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1059239171603095552

You see the same theme echoed in this Mediaite article which builds that site’s own bias into the headline: Morning Joe Reveals Trump Once Admitted He Plays Race Card: ‘I Know It’s Bad But It Works’. (The headline refers to an alleged Trump comment about his pushing the Obama Birther stories. I think conflating Birtherism and “the race card” is a huge stretch, but YMMV. Democrats did the same to Ted Cruz based on his Canadian birth.)

Scarborough wonders why Trump isn’t running on not ruining the “Obama recovery” (I sh** you not, he says that) and is instead running against “mythical caravans.” And he and Mika attribute tightening polls in Florida and Georgia to the racist appeals of GOP candidates.

This is the media narrative for the next two years. If the GOP keeps the House, they did it because they appealed to racism. If they lose the House, they blew an easily winnable mid-term election if only they had focused on the economy and not gone to the racism.

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