Is the country slip-sliding away or what?
Getting Democrats to think outside the box is a sisyphean undertaking. Getting the press to do the same is as much a challenge. If it bleeds, it leads. Both-sidesism is near-hardwired even in the face of “an utterly asymmetrical situation.” As is race-horse election framing and conventional wisdom.
Although polling is slowly trending blue, one needs to be cautious about reading too much into it, as Digby warned last week.
Nevertheless, it has been difficult to muster a lot of enthusiasm this election cycle. My Senate candidate continues to campaign as blandly as she’s been ill-advised by Emily’s List and the DSCC. Excitement is not in the air.
While coverage this year trends conventional wisdom, the times themselves are anything but. Damage wrought by Donald Trump’s four-year misrule continues to harm and irritate. So much so that “there’s reason to believe 2022 does not fit neatly into the old paradigms,” writes E.J. Dionne:
Tuesday’s primaries in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington are a reminder of another factor working in the Democrats’ favor, particularly in key Senate races: GOP voters have picked a lot of very right-wing and thus highly vulnerable nominees.
The result: If the public isn’t wild about Democrats, they like Republicans even less. That Pew survey found that 57 percent of Americans had an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party, but 61 percent had an unfavorable view of Republicans.
This means that many Democrats who take a critical view of Biden — often because they don’t think he’s fighting Republicans hard enough — are still telling pollsters they’re determined to vote Democratic in the midterm elections, as my Post colleague Perry Bacon Jr. pointed out this month. And the prospect of congressional breakthroughs for Biden’s long-stalled program could bump up the president’s numbers enough to make an electoral difference.
In the face of growing backlash over Republicans’ deepening fanaticism, Democratic Party leaders persist in believing kitchen table issues are the topic on which the fall elections will turn. They can read the polls but cannot seem to read the room.
Dionne again:
When it comes to the substance of the matter, you can count me as believing that until Republicans break openly and decisively with Trump, putting them in power is profoundly dangerous. But the numbers — especially when it comes to holding their slim House majority — are still daunting for Democrats.
Count me daunted yet resolved.
Republicans have become a radicalized faction bent on refashioning the U.S. as a single-party, strongman-led autocracy. Democrats might want to point that out to Americans who know it but are reluctant to face it. Women’s autonomy is the conversation-starter.
Democrats like U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas are doing that (ABC News):
An online ad she released last week highlights how Amanda Adkins, the Republican favored to emerge from Tuesday’s primary for a rematch with Davids in November, opposed abortion without exceptions. The ad points to Adkins’ support of an amendment to the Kansas Constitution on the ballot Tuesday that would make clear there is no right to abortion in the states.
“There were a lot of people who would not have known that I have an opponent who is extreme on this issue,” Davids, who beat Adkins in 2020, said in an interview. “It’s not hypothetical anymore.”
Other Democratic woman in tough reelection fights are getting there,
… including Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota, Cindy Axne of Iowa, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria of Virginia, and Susan Wilds of Pennsylvania. They all face Republican opponents who support the high court’s abortion ruling. Some are contending with rivals who back efforts to ban abortion in all circumstances, including when the mother’s life is at risk.
Polling shows overwhelming support for abortion in critical situations, exceptions laws now being considered by Republican legislatures deny (emphasis mine):
In an interview, Axne was adamant that she would make abortion a central theme of her campaign. Axne’s GOP opponent is state Rep. Zach Nunn, who indicated in a primary debate that he opposes abortion without exceptions.
“I can’t even believe I have to say this. I have an opponent who would let a woman die to bear a child,” Axne said. “This is crap we don’t see in this country. This is the stuff we talk about in other countries and women not having rights.”
Spanberger’s opponent made a statement on abortion reminscient of “legitimate rape.”
“Republican congressional candidate pulls a Todd Akin on abortion,” Spanberger’s campaign posted online.
These are not ordinary times. The Democratic response to Republican fanaticism is not anodyne statements about “fighting for you,” etc. Democrats have to show some fight. People see what the GOP has become. Democrats need to make that contrast, not merely soothe peope’s economic anxieties. Voters won’t say so out loud, but want to believe this country is not slipping into fascism. So do I.
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