While Democrats may be relishing the prospect of Donald Trump's tormenting the Republican Party long after he is thrown out of the White House, they cannot count on it. The Left has been waiting for the day of reckoning for the Republican Party for supporting Trump since even before the 2016 election. However, Democrats need to accept the fact that a critical mass of people will not leave the Republican camp no matter what because they are simply living in a different universe. As a result, the Democrats need to work on messaging and get this handled quickly.

Trump May Not Be Around to Fire Up the Voters

There are reports that Donald Trump plans to go on a revenge tour in 2022, savaging Republicans who dared to acknowledge the reality of his crushing loss this year. This should be met with glee, but two years is a long time in politics. It is an even longer time when scores of lawsuits and possible criminal indictments are waiting to catch up with Trump. News out of New York strongly indicates that Trump may be a criminal defendant by the time that next primary season rolls around. This could potentially limit his influence in the Republican Party.

However, other Republicans simply live in an alternate reality. No amount of facts can reach them and shake them of their staunch viewpoints of things such as COVID-19 being invented in a Chinese lab. This means that the Republican Party will not splinter apart as many are predicting. There may be some turnout drops at the margin, but the long predicted GOP civil war may never materialize.

This means that the Democrats will need to run on what they are as opposed to what they are not. The 2018 midterm victory was largely based on the fact that Democrats were the Party of Not Trump. While there may not be a singular figure who can drive Republicans to the polls like Trump, there is also not a divisive figure to motivate Democrats.

Give Voters a Positive Reason to Show Up

This leaves Democrats in a quandary. Joe Biden appears to be off to a very solid start as president-elect, but his incrementalism may not excite the part base like a Bernie Sanders would. There may be some difficult days ahead in the Democratic Party, even if the two races in Georgia go their way. 2022 and 2022 are just around the corner, and the party may need to learn how to win in lower turnout elections. Americans are too often motivated by anger to show up and vote. Without the specter of Obama inspiring people or Trump angering them, the Democrats have shown that they could struggle.

This raises the stakes for the early days of the Biden Administration. The best-case scenario has a more organized and effective federal government righting the ship from the vaccine rollout disaster brought to the country by Trump. By June, the vast majority of Americans would be vaccinated, and the worst days of the pandemic would be over. Then, the economy would start coming back as full economic activity resumed. This would take the focus of some of the ideological disputes between wings of the party that could trip up Democrats. It would also mean that the party is hitting its stride right as the midterm election season is starting.

However, the Democrats' strategy cannot factor in GOP self-destruction. It may either never happen or the Republicans may actually start to wean themselves off the poison of Trumpism. Of course, there is always a chance that the sane wing of the Republican Party may reassert itself in the future. The fact is that Democrats need to stop basing everything on the day of reckoning that awaits Republicans. That may happen only in front of their maker and not at the polls.

While Biden is the head of the party, the messaging also needs to come from Congress. So far, Chuck Schumer has been brutal at the messaging game. At the very minimum, he needs to get out of the way and focus on recruiting solid Senate candidates for 2022. Pelosi should focus on keeping her caucus together, while rising stars such as Hakeem Jeffries and hopefully Jon Ossoff can play a large role in winning public support for the Democratic Party. This is the time to be more just not the other guy.