The Democratic Party is acting recklessly and unpatriotic. So far, the Democrats have spent tens of millions to help Trumpist candidates in Republican primaries.
In Illinois alone, the Democratic Governors Association and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker spent at least $30 million attacking a Trumpist’s moderate gubernatorial opponent. In Pennsylvania, a Democratic campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads designed to help a Trumpist candidate win the GOP presidential election. A political action committee affiliated with Nancy Pelosi worked to boost far-right Republican House candidates in California and Colorado.
They do it because they think far-right Trumpist candidates are easier to beat in the general election than more moderate candidates.
What the Democrats are doing is sloppy in the best of circumstances. If you love your country more than your party, you must want the best candidates to grow in both parties. And in these circumstances, what they are doing is insane: The far-right candidates who support the Democrats could easily win.
Many Democrats, living in their own information bubble and apparently having learned nothing from 2016, seem to fail to understand the horrific electoral landscape they face. They don’t seem to understand how much their “business-as-usual” approach could lead to a full-blown Republican takeover by 2025 — which, as the January 6 uprising hearing reminded us once again, would spell disaster for our democracy.
Many Democrats hope the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision will mobilize their voters for the coming midterms, and it appears to have happened, at least in the short term. But I am convinced that these elections will mainly be about the economy and the existential condition of the country. Things look extremely bleak for the ruling party.
A whopping 83 percent of Americans believe the economy is bad or not so good, according to a May Wall Street Journal-NORC poll. And a whopping 83 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country, according to a Gallup poll.
Parties are punished if they make mistakes. Recently, Democrats have made the kind of mistakes that infuriate voters.
Liberal economists underestimate the threat of inflation, and democratic fiscal policies, which have ignored that threat, appear to have escalated it. The Democratic Party as a whole was associated with progressives who simply saw the police through a lens of racial injustice. That’s an important lens, but progressives ignored the public safety lens and were unprepared for the widespread public anger at the increase in crime.
Likewise, many progressives argued that cancellation culture was either nothing or was seriously exaggerated. Americans who dare not think out loud think the left has become too censored and that the Democratic Party is once again held guilty by association. Progressives have also largely failed to address the shortcomings of their governance model. The rampant inequality, homelessness and other social problems plaguing San Francisco and other cities are visible to all.
We live in an era of threat, an era in which people feel unsafe on all sorts of fronts. These are times when voters tend to gravitate to conservative parties, which they associate with law and order.
And then there’s the underlying problem, which has not been addressed since then Donald Trump achieved his unexpected victory in 2016, namely that while Democrats support many popular policies, progressives are associated with a set of social and cultural values that are unpopular with most Americans. According to a new More in Common survey, 69 percent of Americans believe America is a country where you can do anything if you get a good education, develop your talents and are open to innovation. Only 36 percent of progressive activists agree.
That’s just a fundamental difference in how people see the country, and time and again Democratic politicians have been punished for the messages coming out of progressive educational and cultural institutions.
The Republican Party has become quite extreme in recent years. But it’s important to remember that Americans believe the Democratic Party has also gone extreme. According to a DailyExpertNews poll, 46 percent of Americans believe the GOP is “too extreme” and 48 percent believe the Democratic Party is “too extreme.” I suspect this is not about democratic domestic policies, many of which are popular, but about progressive cultural and social positions. It’s about people who feel alienated from metropolitan elites.
I’ve had a recurring mystification for the past six years: How can Democrats not crush these guys? The GOP has worked full-time during these years to disgrace itself. And yet pundits expect Republicans to easily retake the House and perhaps the Senate. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.
And this is all going to get catastrophically worse for Democrats if the economy continues to deteriorate and a recession hits.
In 2020, Biden was the candidate who appeared not to be tied to the coastal elites. But the Democrats are still mistreated for that association. And what are they doing to solve the problem? Spending money to support Trumpists.
Those lunatics could be running the country in a few years.