Texas Reveals No Wave. Democratic Crackup is Coming.

Lambert Strether's Water Cooler from yesterday examined the numbers from this week's primary election in Texas:

TX: “Here’s what happened in the 2018 Texas primaries” [Texas Monthly]. Some snippets: 1. “More than 1.5 million people voted in the Republican primary, with close to 100 percent reporting, compared to about 1 million Democrats, also with a near 100 percent reporting.” Hard to see how that signals a wave that will “turn Texas Blue,” as the slogan has it, though of course that doesn’t preclude the pickup of individual seats. 2. “Laura Moser secured a slot in the party’s primary runoff Tuesday, despite rare attempts [Rare? Really?] by national Democrats to end her bid over concerns she is too liberal for the district. Moser, (24%) a journalist and activist, will face attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (30%) in the May 22 runoff — which will likely be a brutal intra-party fight and could divide west Houston and the national Democratic Party.” I’d be happier if there were 10 such races.

But according to Musa al-Gharbi in "About That Blue Wave …" the Texas results don't point to Dems picking up Lone Star congressional districts:

As for the specific seats Democrats hope to capture in November, it appears that Republicans would retain control if the races were decided on the basis of Tuesday’s primary vote. Democrats have a lot of work to do to catch up.

But just as important, if not more so, there were marked differences between the parties in terms of the tone of their primaries.

On the Democratic side, there was bitter internal strife, dating back to the previous election cycle, between the “establishment” Democrats and the populist “Berniecrats.” Many of the latter are not committed partisans: While they are highly motivated to support populists, many refuse to lend their support to more conventional Democratic candidates. As we saw in 2016, many former Sanders supporters sat out the general election, voted for a third-party candidate or voted for Donald Trump.

Democrats should be concerned about their ability to mobilize populists in the races “establishment” figures won. So the party could find itself facing another enthusiasm deficit for many key races, even with Mr. Trump in the White House.

On the Republican side, there was clear unity behind the president and his party. The races were mostly about which candidate was most supportive of President Trump. As a result, it seems likely that Republican voters will support whoever is on their ticket in the general election.

We can count on Republican primary voters to turn out in November as well. Republicans reliably vote in midterms, and again it is important to note that primary patterns suggest that enthusiasm is particularly high in the Republican base this year, too.

The base GOP voter likes his guy, Trump, while the base Democratic voter is split. One part of the base feeds at the MSNBC trough and is praying for a Joe Biden run; the other is sharpening its pitchforks as Bernie readies for another presidential campaign.

Trump is going to have his base solidly beneath him. (It turns out those tariffs on aluminum and steel were part of the NAFTA negotiations.) Partisan Dems are going to have to be broken. It is existential crisis. Biden is not the answer. All he has to offer is Russophobia. And what does that get a voter at the end of the day? Nothing.

The successful teachers strike in West Virginia shows the way forward. See "What the Teachers Won":

First of all, if we can do it, anybody can do it. It’s not like we’re a special group of activist teachers who have been studying for twenty years about how to mobilize the working class. We’re not. 

Another one of the big lessons I’ve learned is that you need to organize people around a specific issue. For us, it was the insurance. That’s a big-tent issue that affected one in seven West Virginians. It meant that we had a large base of support.

Bernie has it -- Medicare for All, and he's campaigning on it. The partisan Dems only have Russiaphobia. It's not going to work. The Dems might keep Bernie from the nomination again, but it's not going to beat Trump. If Bernie does manage a miracle and capture the party's nomination, expect a well-funded third-party challenge. And Trump wins again.