UH-OH: Is the Tax Bill in Trouble in the Senate?

MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hollywood, ESPN and other debacles: Why can’t our ruling class do its job? “Our elites care more about what their peers think of them than about what they’re supposed to be doing. No wonder so many institutions are failing.”

SO EVEN AFTER EVERYTHING, Trump Would Run Dead Even With Hillary If The Election Were Today. That’s got to depress the Dems, after a solid year of nonstop freakoutrage. It’ll depress them even more if they look under the hood of this poll, which should have been pretty favorable for Dems: “Partisan divisions are 31-23-38 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.” And it’s “adults,” not “likely voters” or even registered voters. Done in English and Spanish. And still just a tie for Hillary. (Bumped).

GOOD GUYS WITH GUNS: Pictured: The two heroic locals who exchanged gunfire with Texas shooter, ran him off the road as he tried to flee and shot him dead. “Willeford, a local plumber, has no military experience, he is an excellent shot according to the resident, and when he came face to face with Kelley, he shot in between his body armor, hitting him in his side.”

KATE PACKER BEESON: Democrats are so focused on tearing down the GOP they can’t see their own shortcomings.

The Democrats seemed shocked the race between Clinton and Trump remained relatively close because they seemed to stop talking to the white working-class voters who, for decades, had defined their base.

So when they lost the election, there was a reckoning. The leadership of the Democratic Party was drummed up and new, forward-looking leaders took the reins and offered an alternative to what they saw as the disaster of Donald Trump. Wait, no. That isn’t what happened. Instead, they re-elected Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the house. They elected Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader and completely sold out to the New York and California wings of the Democratic Party.

Instead of talking about middle-class tax cuts, they talked about transgender bathroom access. Instead of talking about fixing Obamacare, which was crushing many in the middle class with high premiums and complicated doctor selections, they walked right into the trap of the alt-right and began tearing down Civil War statues.

In the first big test of party strength: the Virginia governor’s race, they have thrown up all over themselves. Virginia should be easy for them. Clinton won it in 2016. Trump’s numbers are completely under water. The Republican candidate has awkwardly embraced Trump and some of his controversial positions while trying not to hug him too close. But somehow they ended up with one of the least inspiring Democratic candidates Virginia has seen in a long time. And they backed an ad that seemed to depict Virginians who drive pickup trucks as a bunch of rednecks looking to plow down children of color.

As Bill Whittle likes to say, if Republicans had to run unopposed, they’d lose every time.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? Louis C.K. directs movie about Harvey Weinstein (or is it Roman Polanski?)

WHAT’S GOING ON IN SAUDI? Saudi deputy governor of Asir province killed in helicopter crash.

AND: Lebanon PM forced to resign by Saudi Arabia.

MORE: Bahrain orders citizens to leave Lebanon as Saudi Arabia and Iran spar for influence in Beirut.

AND THE BIG ONE: Saudi Arabia Arrests 11 Princes, Including Billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal.

The last item is Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman consolidating his power and perhaps trying to instill faith in foreign investors for his mega-city projects. As for the other three, either the Middle East is just a little more chaotic than normal, or perhaps Salman just had a very busy weekend.

Stay tuned.

IT’S ALWAYS NICE TO MAKE TWITCHY.

GIVE THE VOTERS WHAT THEY ASK FOR, GOOD AND HARD: Democrats Poised for Complete Dominance in the West.

It is the stuff of liberal fantasies: a vast, defiant territory, sweeping along the country’s Pacific coastline, governed by Democrats and resisting President Trump at every turn.

A single election in a wealthy Seattle suburb on Tuesday could make that scenario a reality, handing the party full control of government in Washington State — and extinguishing Republicans’ last fragile claim on power on the West Coast. The region has been a rare Democratic stronghold on an electoral map now dominated by vast swaths of red, and Republicans’ only toehold on power there has been a one-seat majority in the Washington State Senate.

The prospect of such far-reaching autonomy for Democrats, who already hold all three governors’ offices as well as both houses of the legislatures in Oregon and California, has infused extraordinary energy into what might have been a low-key special election. The race is on track to draw more than $9 million in campaign spending, a record-breaking sum for Washington State. National environmental and abortion rights groups have mobilized, business associations and oil companies have poured in money, and a former vice president, Joseph R. Biden Jr., has intervened on the Democratic side.

Sharon Nelson, the Democratic leader in the Washington State Senate, conveyed the party’s grand aspirations in an almost Trump-like phrase: “A blue wall,” Ms. Nelson enthused, “from the Canadian border to the Mexican border.”

Leading in the polls and anticipating victory, Democrats have sketched an aggressive agenda on issues where strong consensus appears to exist in the party, including new laws on gun control, contraception and environmental regulation. Ms. Nelson said she had met with the speaker of the Oregon Statehouse about enacting policy across state lines. The three states’ Democratic governors have spoken regularly about policy collaboration, and over the summer began coordinated talks on climate change with foreign heads of state.

Let’s hope Kurt Schlichter is taking notes for another People’s Republic prequel.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON ALEC BALDWIN VS. THE STARLETS: “I don’t think Baldwin has anything to be ashamed of there, but I can see why the women are sensitive. He’s gently (but clearly) accusing them of wanting to further their careers. I’ll paraphrase and avoid the subtlety: These women put their career first, and accepting money and silence may have been better for them, but it protected Harvey and meant that many other women would be victimized as they had been, that the system, within which they sought favor, would continue, and that they willingly became part of that system. I’m sure it hurts to hear that.”

Related: “These women were leading me to the lion’s den,” Margulies said of the women involved in both alleged incidents.

It’s in the actresses’ interest — and in Harvey Weinstein’s interest — to make this an all-men-are-evil thing. But women are complicit too.