The current prospects for Democrats, in 2022 and beyond, are discouraging to say the least. To begin with, Democrats are, as usual, confronted by the structural disadvantage that the Constitution creates by awarding each state two Senators irrespective of population, an arrangement that favors rural states that tend to be conservative and Republican. The same disadvantage is carried into the Electoral College. Beyond that, however, the performance of the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress—and the public perception of their performance—has made a challenging task an even more daunting one.
According to Real Clear Politics, Biden’s current approval rating is 41.3 compared to 53.8 disapproval and the Generic Congressional Ballot favors Republicans by a margin of 45.9 percent to 43.0. Most observers expect the Republicans to retake the House and quite possibly the Senate as well. If the Republicans gain control of Congress, the current state of polarization in that body will make Biden a very lame duck indeed during the last two years of his administration. And that will not bode well for Democrats in 2024, whether the Democratic candidate is Biden, Kamala Harris or some other hopeful.
Most Democrats will see that assessment as unfair. Despite its failures, the Biden Administration has enjoyed some notable successes. The economy has largely recovered from the Covid pandemic, and employment is surging; the pandemic itself appears finally to be in retreat, at least in serious cases; and Biden has shown effective leadership in rallying Europe to meet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Against those achievements, however, the public has felt the sting of inflation and the uncertainty that has arisen with the arrival of each new Covid variation. Moreover, the country has been forced, yet again, to confront and attempt to deal with divisive issues of racial justice, and with increased crime rates. It is not surprising that, according to Real Clear Politics, only 27.8 of the country believe we are on the right track, while 64.9 believe we are on the wrong track.
Against this bleak landscape, what are Democrats to do? One answer is that they must sharpen their message. Jennifer Rubin, writing in the Washington Post, spelled out the problem and part of the answer:
This White House crew knows there’s no easy way to convince voters that things are better than they think. But it can simplify the message: “We created 6.6 million jobs in our first year and are going to build roads, bridges and high-speed Internet capacity.” The president might think he’s saying that, but if he’s talking in the middle of the afternoon from the White House, a whole lot of voters aren’t hearing it. Instead, he should go out into communities. He can show up at new manufacturing hubs and construction firms that are hiring workers. “Show, don’t explain,” is sound advice.
Beyond that advice, however, there is a major weapon available to Democrats, if only they choose to use it. Donald Trump has shown that he is determined to make the 2022 midterm election a referendum on the 2020 election and his Big Lie. And, given his vise-like grip on the Republican Party, he has the capacity to do so to a very considerable extent. He will endorse Republican candidates who share, or at least espouse, his delusional view of history, and attack those who dissent or even waffle on the question. Framing the 2022 election in that fashion presents Democrats with a challenge that they should embrace eagerly at every opportunity. It is an opportunity that could prove to be a lifeline.
Republican candidates for every office, from the Senate to City Council, must be forced to say on the record whether they accept Donald Trump as the head of their party, and whether they endorse his bogus claim that Joe Biden is not our lawfully elected President. Many will squirm and dodge and attempt to avoid an answer, as Glenn Youngkin did with some success in Virginia, but they must not be allowed to escape. The questions must be put to them again and again until they provide clear answers. When they do, only affirmative answers will allow them to escape the wrath of Trump and his base, and such answers should be alarming to Independents and sentient Republicans.
Some Democrats will object that, whatever Trump may think, voters are not interested in re-litigating the 2020 election and the Trumpian plots and maneuvers it spawned. Voters, they will say, are more interested in pocketbook issues of the day. That is a fair point and the latter issues must be addressed. But voters must be made to understand that the 2020 election, and the responses to it by Trump and the Republican party are not just a matter of history but are of overriding current importance.
The crucial point is not merely to prove, yet again, that Joe Biden won the election in 2020; rather it is to demonstrate the danger of a party that has not only swallowed whole the Big Lie, but seized on it to justify a range of assaults on our electoral system. The importance of exposing the corrupt Republican strategy transcends the survival of any particular Democratic candidates. It is not hyperbole, but recognition of a chilling fact, to say that the future of democracy in America may well hang in the balance.
Across the country, and particularly in battleground states, Republican legislatures have been hard at work passing measures not only in voting suppression, (making voting more difficult), but enabling voting subversion: taking control of the boards and commissions that conduct elections and tabulate and certify the results. In the past, such bodies have functioned successfully on a nonpartisan or bipartisan basis, but that is not a goal that Trump Republican legislators have in mind. In addition to such legislative moves, countless incumbent election officials have been subjected to threats and attempted intimidation by verbal and physical abuse. Against that ominous landscape, responses from Democrats have been spotty, disorganized and lacking in leadership from the President.
As a country, we are putting great effort, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars, to preserve democracy in Ukraine. Those are worthy investments, but preservation of democracy in America is far more important. Democrats must recognize their duty to rise to the occasion in determined and focused ways before it is too late.
Thanks, Doug, for another statement of a cogent position. The problem, as you well know, is that anytime an argument or position includes the idea that “voters must be made to understand” anything, it is utterly doomed to failure. Educating voters is essential, but a long-term prospect. In this instance, Republicans have subjected voters to an unrelenting firehose of false information for decades. That cannot be turned around in one election cycle no matter how much we may think it necessary.
In the meantime, voters will vote their perceived pocketbooks, law and order, and, in some cases, racial fears – all stirred up by demagogues in the R party.
D’s must emphasize pocketbook successes, infrastructure successes, and do more to attend to middle class parents’ concerns on education and crime.
Yes, talk about democracy in the middle of a speech or presentation, but begin and end on pocketbook successes.
This is a big topic and this comment surely can only suggest the scope of the problem and potential solutions.
Hear! Hear!
Ditto Karen McPherson’s Hear! Hear!
But the people who believe that the 2020 election was “stolen” are like the people who believe OJ didn’t do it…and no amount of evidence to the contrary, nor any improvement in their own so-called “kitchen table” concerns, wd dissuade them from that belief.
That doesn’t excuse Biden from failing to take credit where credit is due (e.g., running-around the country to cut ribbons on infrastructure projects) or failing to take sensible action on immigration (we need workers, but don’t want masses of unknowns flowing across our borders).
And as nutty and cynical as the “don’t say gay” movement is…it’s also nutty that my own friends (70-something-year-old-center-left-types) are now forced by the “politically correct” to “declare their pronouns” in meetings. (One of my friends, a feminine-looking 72-year-old woman with a feminine name, and a wife, mother & grandmother, told me she was recently in such a meeting, and declined to reply for awhile…but the meeting moderator kept coming back to her INSISTING that she “declare her pronouns;” she finally replied that her pronouns were “me, myself & I,” which I thought was brilliant.)
If this kind of nonsense enrages the likes of my friend & me, it’s not surprising that it adds fuel to fires of the Trumpsters. The Republicans are mostly either evil or spineless, but the Dems are a confused hot mess.
I agree that our much-vaunted (albeit ultimately fragile) democracy is at stake…but more impt, so is our commonsense.
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