Democrats are screwed
After disastrous results for the Democratic Party recently, many in the party and their supporters have been examining the loss and refuse to blame the party itself
Democrats do not have a clue how to win. That has become blatantly obvious over the last half of a decade or so, as they consistently lose to candidates who are beyond terrible on the other side of the aisle.
There is very much an easy way to win elections. It’s called delivering on the policies that the voters care about, and the Democrats have all the power in the world to do that.
They have the house. They have the Senate. They have the White House. They can pretty much do whatever they want.
However, despite all that, they have achieved absolutely nothing.
There are a series of things that poll at well over 60% that were in the initial Build Back Better reconciliation bill that Democrats have since stripped out of the bill. If they had done these things months ago, it is unlikely that Terry McAuliffe would have lost in the Virginia gubernatorial election recently, despite the fact he has all the charisma of a bowl of cereal.
These things are all massively popular and were in the initial Build Back Better bill, but they were mostly stripped out because corrupt Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema wanted them to be in an effort to please their corporate donors, while Joe Biden and the progressive caucus sat idly by and allowed them to do whatever they wanted, not caring about the implications that this would have on very real working class families.
The truth is that if this bill passed in its initial form, it would have probably have gotten a decent reaction from people seeing their lives improve slowly. It would have been a good PR win for the Democrats before the election, but they surrendered the bill to whims of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, and, as a result, nothing has got passed and if it does, it will be worth nothing.
The Build Back Better plan is now completely dead. They have stripped out so many of the popular provisions, such as lower drug prices, and have left in things that aren’t going to have the necessary revolutionary effect on the lives of working class Americans.
This failure to do anything through the reconciliation bill is only one of the reasons why they consistently lose elections. Another is their complete disregard for actual electoralism and how to win votes of independants.
There is a misnomer that independants are all centrists who vote on which party offers them the most bland nothingness. That simply is not true. You will get the votes of independants if you manage to improve their lives.
One of the things that is very popular with independants is medicare-for-all, with 69% of the country, and 68% of independants, supporting the policy.
Joe Biden doesn’t even need Congress to do this. He can do it all by himself under Section 1881a of the Affordable Care Act, which says that the President can grant every American healthcare during an emergency, such as covid-19.
You could also do the $15 minimum wage, something that Biden and the Democrats have promised to do over many years. This also polls very well.
We do not know exactly what percentage of independents support the $15 minimum wage, but we do know that it is a high proportion of the country, so to do it is a no brainer for the Democrats.
Another thing that polls extraordinarily well at the moment is the legalization of marijuana, given that the vast majority of the country, including most independants and most Republicans.
These are just some of the policies that would be no brainers for any sane politician but Democrats are incapable of delivering on.
The reason that they refuse to do any of these things is because they are, for the most part, corrupt. They are mostly owned by lobbyists in Washington from\ Big Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex, Wall Street, fossil fuel companies and others. This means that they are afraid to actually do some shit to help the American people, because that would harm their chance of receiving more money from their corporate donors.
If you, as a politician, deliver economic populism in a social democracy form, there is no doubt that you will win an election.
The only President to do proper economic populism was rewarded politically, that being Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1936, he won his second of four elections (there were no term limits at this point) in a big way. He carried 46 of the 48 states that existed at the time, won 80% of the house and 80% of the Senate. He won massively. This is a victory the like of which we have never since seen. And it came as a result of his Left-wing new deal policies which helped pull the United States of America out of the great depression.
Joe Biden and his Democratic party is afraid to do this, because that would harm their chance of receiving donations from millionaires and billionaires.
This brings us to the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey in particular, and the polling of the modern Democratic party.
Let’s start in Virginia. The Democrats ran the dullest, most boring and uninspiring candidate possible in Terry McAuliffe. He did not campaign on economic populism: he campaigned on Trump bad and the other side are racist.
Hillary Clinton attempted to run the exact same campaign nationally in 2016 and lost. McAuliffe did not learn from this.
The Republican in the race, Glenn Youngkin, did a decent job of toeing the line on the Donald Trump, keeping him onside while keeping anti-Trump centrists interested by accepting his endorsement but keeping him out of the state.
Trump is not popular in Virginia. He lost by a significant margin to Joe Biden last year, despite the fact that Joe Biden has all the charisma and political skill of a demented turtle.
This is why the Youngkin campaign’s policy on Trump was so brilliant. They kept the base onside while managing to win over many voters alienated by the former President.
However, most of these Youngkin voters could have been won by the Democrats if they stood for anything at all.
The McAuliffe campaign was run on an uninspiring message, that being that the other side is just too bad to allow to win. No one is going to win on that message. Hillary Clinton tried it and lost. Democrat after Democrat has tried it and lost. Terry McAuliffe then tried it and lost.
That being said, some of his loss was out of his control. He partly lost because the Biden economy is one of the worst in recent memory, his months of negotiation over a bill has resulted in nothing for the working class. People are not inspired by this and punished Democrats at the ballot box.
They are punishing Joe Biden in the polls as well. According to a recent poll published by fox news showed his approval rating to be just 36%. According to the economist, on no issue is his approval above 50%, including covid-19, which was the one area where his approval has been sky high for a long time.
Probably the most telling poll numbers, however, are not the ones about any politician in particular. They are about the direction of the country. Over the last two weeks, an average of about 65% of respondents have said that the country is on the wrong track. That is a devastating number for whoever is in charge, especially when they have the supermajority they have at this time.
There is also the fact that Congress has an approval rating of just 21% according to statista. 21%. People hate the people who they just elected one year ago. When they had just been elected in November last year, their approval rating was 23%. People do not like any of their politicians, and are rebelling against them in a big way.
Of course, the biggest loser in that situation is Joe Biden and the Democratic party as a whole. They are in charge, and have done nothing to help people. That is why they keep losing.
At this point, it seems inevitable that the Democrats are going to be wiped out in the mid-term elections next year.
In the famous tea-party wave of 2010, when the Republicans gained over 60 seats in the house, 6 in the Senate and 6 governor positions. The generic, Democrat vs Republican ballot went to the GOP by 3 points. According to polls, at the moment it is GOP leaning by 10 points. They are going to win by way more than that calamitous wave in 2010. And remember that these polls tend to lean Democratic more than the general populace does. It’s realistically about 13 points to the GOP on the generic ballot.
As I said, Democrats are fucked in 2022.
And, as I also said, they only have themselves. To lose to a party with awfully unpopular economic & foreign policy, and one who spends half their time talking about Dr Seuss, Mr Potato Head and Big Bird.
It takes a special level of incompetence to lose to them.
Before I sign off here, I will just add that you may have noticed that I have not mentioned inflation, something that is very much playing a role in how Democratic policy failures have led to political failures as well.
Unlike some in the Mainstream media, that is not because I don’t consider it consequential. That is nonsensical. The real reason is that in the next few days I’ll be releasing a deep dive into the current inflation situation and what is really to blame. It is such an important issue that it merits its very own deep dive.
Anyways, Democrats stand no chance in 2022 unless the Republicans shoot themselves in the face, which you can’t put past them. Either way, it is not a good situation for regular Americans.