Democrats are desperate to avoid a culture war with Trump in 2018

Democrats decided 16 months before the 2018 election how they would start winning races again. Gathered in a small Virginia town on a sweltering July day, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and their lieutenants laid out a “Better Deal” agenda focused on middle-class jobs and higher wages — a vow, they said, that their party would never again waver from a laser-like focus on the economy.

Donald Trump makes some promises difficult to keep.

Just days later, the president declared on Twitter that transgender men and women were banned from the military. His action drew a swift rebuke from Democrats, who rose in unison to denounce the president over the newest front in a cultural — not economic — fight.

The pattern would repeat itself through the summer and into the fall. Whether it was his response to the Charlottesville white nationalist march or his condemnation of NFL players who knelt during the anthem to protest police brutality, Trump forced Democrats onto the battlefield of his choosing.