David Gergen has served as a White House advisor to four Presidents–three Republican, one Democrat: Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

He is now a senior political analyst for CNN.

In addition, he is a U.S. Navy veteran, a member of the D.C. Bar and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  And as if that wasn’t enough, he graduated with honors from Yale and Harvard Law School.

In short, he is a serious man who intimately understands politics from both the Republican and Democratic perspective.

David Gergen

So when he says the Democrats are in trouble, they should listen closely.

In a June 22 analysis for CNN, Gergen warned that President Donald Trump “could be on his way to re-election in 2020.”

To back up his assertion he cites two defeats Republicans handed Democrats in just one week. At stake: Two vacant seats in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives.

On June 20, Ralph Norman defeated Archie Parnell in a special election for South Carolina’s 5th congressional district. The seat had been occupied by Republican Mick Mulvaney, who was chosen by President Trump to become the new director of the Office of Management and Budget. 

Ralph Norman

And, on the same day, Karen Handel defeated Jon Ossoff in another special election for the 6th District of Atlanta, Georgia. The seat became vacant in January, when its Republican holder, Tom Price, became Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

Karen Handel

Since Trump took office on January 20, there have been four special elections to fill vacant Congressional seats.  And Republicans have won all of them.

“What’s really important is that Donald Trump has seized the narrative back,” said Gergan during a June 22 appearance on  CNN’s Erin Burnett Outfront, “that he’s doing better with the voters than Democrats think he is.

“It should be a wake-up call for Democrats. It is possible that he could actually get re-elected if Democrats aren’t careful.”

Recently, a Democratic friend of mine, whom I’ll call Dave, came to the same conclusion.  Admittedly, he has never served any President, let alone four of them. 

But an email exchange with Kamala Harris, his own United States Senator from California, left him angry and despairing. 

Kamala Harris

First, his email to her—sent on June 20:

Democrats are fatally neglecting a key weapon against the Trump abomination: Effective language.

In 1996, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich wrote a memo that encouraged Republicans to “speak like Newt.”

Entitled “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” it urged Republicans to attack Democrats with such words as “corrupt,” “selfish,” “destructive,” “hypocrisy,” “liberal,” “sick,” and “traitors.” 

Such terms have proven highly effective in making Republicans masters of Congress and the White House.

Unfortunately, Democrats have shown themselves indifferent to or incapable of making language work for them.

Consider what conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks said last year about how Donald Trump used language to demolish his political opponents:

“Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].

“And that’s a word.  And that’s how marketing works.  It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under. It sticks, and it diminishes.  And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. 

“And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’ These are words that are not exciting people. And her campaign style has gotten, if anything…a little more stagnant and more flat.” 

But there ARE exciting words that Democrats CAN use to quickly destroy Trump’s credibility.  It only takes imagination and courage—imagination to create them, and courage to use them.

Let me offer some examples:

Everybody knows that Vladimir Putin is the ONLY politician Trump has refused to attack. In fact, he has formed a Mutual Admiration Society with Putin. Yet Democrats have failed to effectively capitalize on this by fusing the two together.

No longer: “TrumPutin” should be CONSTANTLY on the lips of every Democrat when referring to Trump. It’s easy to remember and say–and it says “traitor” and “dictator” without having to actually use those words.

Republicans should be CONSTANTLY referred to as “RepublicaNazis,” or “Nazi Republicans.” Given Trump’s use of Nuremberg-like rallies, his Nazi-like salutes and demands for personal loyalty from his followers, creating TV ads that drive home this message will be easy.

If you want a more modern term to liken Republicans to dictators, you can use “Republican Guard,” as in: “We are facing a Republican Guard of opposition in the Senate.”

This would establish a subliminal link in the minds of voters between Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard and Republicans holding sway in Congress….

Above all, Democrats should not simply borrow but co-opt a page from the Republican playbook and CONSTANTLY brand Republicans as TRAITORS.

America’s foremost Intelligence agencies have proven, categorically, that Russian Intelligence agents played a major role in securing the Trump’s election.

And Trump’s firing James Comey to short-circuit the Russia investigation—as he himself admitted in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt—only proves how much he wants to hide his guilt.