I read an interesting article about Joe Biden and the upcoming midterm elections at Yahoo News the other day.
Little is going President Joe Biden’s way as the summer lull sets in before the crush of midterm elections.
Gas prices are up; his approval rating is down. A conservative Supreme Court majority is hacking away at his agenda by abolishing federal abortion rights and undermining environmental protections meant to curb climate change. His own party is losing patience, fearing that any chance of consequential change while Democrats control Congress is vanishing.
“There needs to be urgency and action,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, who was an aide to the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “Folks have been saying since the day Joe Biden was elected that we need to move fast. There are a lot of things we need to get done for the American people.”
I think that Mr. Biden has done quite enough to the American people. Note the bias though; “abolishing abortion rights”, “undermining environmental protections”. I would say that the recent Supreme Court decisions have gone a long way toward restoring constitutional government.
Biden has been rolling out plans to cope with the mounting crises. He has a three-part plan to reduce inflation. Another plan to suspend the gas tax in hopes of bringing prices down. Then there’s his long-shot plan to enshrine abortion rights into law by suspending the Senate filibuster rule requiring 60-vote supermajorities.
Is Biden planning to reverse his cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline? Will he allow more leases on federal lands to develop our energy resources? Will Biden cut the red tape to allow more refineries to be built? Probably not. Biden is not going to do anything to reverse the bad decisions that caused the inflation and high gas prices. Instead, the man “elected” to restore the democratic norms destroyed by Trump is going to weaken our democratic norms to appease the most extreme Democratic constituencies.
“He has to change course,” said a Democratic congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the White House. “His numbers are in the toilet. Whatever he’s doing is not working.”
“There needs to be urgency and action,” said Rebecca Kirszner Katz, who was an aide to the late Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. “Folks have been saying since the day Joe Biden was elected that we need to move fast. There are a lot of things we need to get done for the American people.”
Biden has been rolling out plans to cope with the mounting crises. He has a three-part plan to reduce inflation. Another plan to suspend the gas tax in hopes of bringing prices down. Then there’s his long-shot plan to enshrine abortion rights into law by suspending the Senate filibuster rule requiring 60-vote supermajorities.
Inside the White House, though, advisers grasp that what’s required aren’t just plans, but votes. The 50-50 split in the Senate between the parties has proved an insurmountable obstacle for Biden’s grandest ambitions — to expand the social safety net in ways that insulate the most vulnerable Americans from economic shocks.
“He has to change course,” said a Democratic congressman, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the White House. “His numbers are in the toilet. Whatever he’s doing is not working.”
“There’s a benefit to having the president out there every day using his executive power to show the country you’re fighting for them,” the Democratic lawmaker said. “And it’s almost like he’s hiding. He has the bully pulpit, and he’s either hiding behind it or under it. I don’t know where he is.”
The problem is that every time Biden makes a public appearance, his poll ratings drop, for good reason. People can see just how incompetent and senile the man is. The best strategy for the Democrats might be to hide Biden in the basement of the White House and hope people forget he’s the alleged president.
Allies say that Biden, along with others in the administration, will take better advantage of their megaphone in the run-up to the midterms, portraying Republicans as out of touch. Biden, they said, is energized by the Roe v. Wade decision, which may be a prelude to future Supreme Court rulings rolling back rights to same-sex marriage and contraception.
Unpopular presidents tend to fare poorly in midterm elections. But Biden-world sees an opening to defy the historical trends, springing from some of the same setbacks that have so angered the Democratic base.
“I can tell you that on the street, what you hear is a bubbling, seething cauldron of anger at the Republican Party for putting in these antediluvian judges who think they can take us back to the 18th century,” said Jay Inslee, the Democratic governor of Washington state. “My spidey sense and the polling indicate it’s going to help people decide not to vote for the red team.
That bubbling, seething cauldron of anger that Mr. Inslee is sensing is from people finding themselves unable to afford to buy groceries, fill their car’s tanks or walk the streets in safety thanks to policies promoted by the Democrats. I have a feeling that trying to distract voters from their misery with shiny objects isn’t going to help the blue team this time.
Most Democrats fret about a midterm wipeout, but recent polling shows grounds for optimism. Bryan Bennett, a pollster for Navigator Research, a coalition of progressive pollsters, noted that something “weird” is happening in this political moment. Biden’s approval rating is hovering around 40%, which suggests that Republican victories in the November midterms will be not so much a wave as a “tsunami,” he said. And yet in polls pitting generic Democrats against Republicans in congressional races, Democrats perform better than expected given the president’s low standing. Indeed, since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade, three polls came out showing Democrats leading Republicans by anywhere from 3 to 7 percentage points.
“It’s a new election,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg wrote in a blog. “The chances of the anti-MAGA majority showing up again — as it did in 2018 and 2020 — have increased dramatically.”
I take it that the Democrats are going to repeat their strategy of 2020 and cheat whenever and wherever possible. It may be harder to cheat in 435 Congressional and 35 Senatorial elections than it was for the presidential election, but they may manage to fortify the results of some close elections. I hope the Republicans are watching out for a November Surprise this election cycle, but they are the stupid party so I’m not terribly optimistic.
David's Commonplace Book 