But it’s so much fun! Some puzzled over Mitch McConnell’s decision to silence Elizabeth Warren in the Senate’s overnight debate on Jeff Sessions’ confirmation as Attorney General, effectively promoting her otherwise unremarkable speech and transforming her into a leader of the Democratic “resistance.” The reaction of red-state Democrats has McConnell looking as crazy as a fox, as Chuck Schumer wants Republicans to stop using their Jedi mind tricks on them:

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is dismissing the GOP’s efforts to make Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) the face of the Democratic Party.

“It’s not going to work,” Schumer said of the strategy, according to Politico.

What prompted this retort? The NRSC is rolling out digital ad campaigns in states where incumbent Democrats face votes who put Donald Trump in the White House. They clearly want to make Warren the face of the Democratic Party:

Elizabeth Warren is going out of her way to take the Democratic Party to the extreme far left and isn’t being shy about it. Earlier this month, Warren, along with her publisher, announced her new book just hours before she broke Senate rules and then went on an all-out media blitz. She clearly wants to be the star of the Progressive Party and is shameless in her attempts to take center stage.

You would think Red State Democrats would try to distance themselves from Warren and her extreme agenda, but it won’t be that easy. The NRSC is out today with paid digital ads in these states to point out one awkward fact – the voting records of these Red State Democrats do not lie and it’s clear these 2018ers align more with Elizabeth Warren than the voters of their states.

The site then lists the percentage of times each red-state Democrat has voted with Warren — a rather common attack in both parties. In fact, as the original Politico article notes, Democrats plan to do the same thing, only tying Republican challengers in these states to Donald Trump:

Democrats argue that Trump, not Warren, will drive next year’s election. They say the GOP is grasping for a strategy now that it is in power and Trump is off to the least popular start in modern presidential history.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to be fooled,” said DSCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

Trump’s popularity wasn’t terribly high in the first place, so it’s not clear what good it will do to tell voters in the ten states that voted for him that they bungled the job. There is certainly plenty of time to build a better case based on his performance against expectations, but right now Democrats seem to think that playing Trump as the “boogeyman” in states he won will be sufficient. That sounds pretty close to their 2016 strategy. How did that work out for Democrats again?

It might turn out even worse in 2018. The traditional midterm turnout models will favor Republicans more than the previous cycle’s presidential election model did. That presents more problems for a Democratic Party facing a potential existential crisis in 2018, as Reid Wilson reports:

Near a nadir of political power, Democrats across the country say their comeback must begin with key races next year — and warn that failure to make big gains in state races in 2018 will doom them to another decade in the minority in Washington.

More than three-dozen states will choose governors in the next two years, while voters pick state legislative candidates in thousands of districts across the country.

In the vast majority of cases, those legislators and governors will draw new political boundaries following the 2020 census that will determine just how competitive the battle for the U.S. House of Representatives will be in the following decade.

“The 2018 races are central not only to the individual states, but also to the federal policies in the House of Representatives,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, vice chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, said in an interview. “The key that unlocks the governors’ doors also unlocks the House of Representatives. And we’ve got to get the national team to understand that.”

That’s precisely why Republicans want to make Elizabeth Warren the face of the Democratic Party. And if Democrats keep contributing to the elite-hysteria meltdowns in their coastal and urban enclaves with calls for impeachment and a 25th Amendment removal, the more her strident progressivism will dominate everywhere else in the country. Small wonder Schumer’s trying to distance the party from its own rising progressive star.