will Americans care about democracy
That’s what it looks like, anyway:
Most Americans consistently say in polls that they believe that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have mismanaged crime, the border, and, above all, the economy and inflation. But roughly as many Americans say that they view the modern Republican Party as a threat to their rights, their values, or to democracy itself.
Based on Biden’s first two years in office, surveys show that most Americans are reluctant to continue following the policy path he has laid out. But polls also show no enthusiasm for returning to the programs, priorities, and daily chaos of Donald Trump’s presidency. In an NBC national survey released last weekend, half of registered voters said they disagreed with most of what Biden and congressional Democrats want to do, but more than that said the same about congressional Republicans and Trump. About half of all voters said they had little, or no, confidence in either party to improve the economy, according to another recent national survey from CNBC.
It remains likely that two negatives will still yield a positive result for Republicans. Most voters with little faith in both sides may ultimately decide simply to give a chance to the party that’s not in charge now, Jay Campbell, a Democratic pollster who helps conduct the CNBC survey, told me. That would provide a late boost to the GOP, particularly in House races, where the individual candidates are less well known. But even if that dynamic develops, Campbell said, the Democrats’ ability to hold so much of their coalition over concerns about the broader Republican agenda has reduced the odds that the GOP can generate the kind of decisive midterm gains enjoyed by Democrats in 2018 and 2006, or Republicans in 2010 and 1994.
If Republicans make only modest gains this fall, it will be a clear warning that the party, as currently defined by Trump’s imprint, faces a hard ceiling on its potential support. But even a small Republican gain would send Democrats an equal warning that concerns about the GOP’s values and commitment to democracy may not be sufficient to deny them the White House in 2024. “If I was advising the Biden administration, I would say this is the No. 1 priority: Fix the fundamentals,” John Sides, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University and a co-author of a new book on the 2020 presidential election, The Bitter End, told me. “The biggest priority is inflation, and everything else is secondary.”
Contrary to the inspiring hope and change messages of Barack Obama yesterday, who gave a couple of excellent, barn burning speeches yesterday, if this holds up it will be because all the beltway wags were right that people only care about money. Not even jobs, jobs, jobs can trump that — obviously since we have the lowest unemployment since the 1960s.
I fear that the lesson Democrats will take from this will be that they can never win any elections on anything but money because that’s what people truly care about above all else and nothing else matters. If Republicans win it will be because they believe that crime, immigration and general fear mongering are the only things the American people care about. Gee, I wonder where that’s all going to end?
So let’s just ditch all the freedom and democracy talk completely, shall we? Nobody gives a shit, not even when one party storms the capitol to try to kill the Vice President and Speaker of the House. Gas prices are higher than they were during the pandemic when nobody was driving and that is the nightmare no American will abide. Abortion rights have been gutted? Well, that’s a shame, but the Halloween candy I bought was more expensive this year. Democracy is nice, but I hear crime is out of control because Mexican immigrants are raping and killing everybody in sight so maybe it isn’t so important.
I’m sorry I sound cynical. But I am. This weekend yet another right wing nutjob broke into Speaker Pelosi’s house to kill her with a hammer and assaulted her 82 year old husband instead. Extremists are all over the country saying they plan to have only Trump voters count votes in the future because they refuse to admit they can ever lose and armed “poll watchers” are intimidating people trying to drop their ballots off in drop boxes. Down in Florida the Governor arrested people on dubious charges of voter fraud and managed to scare off legitimate voters — their plan all along. And inflation is all people care about? OK. But that happened before in a certain European country a while back and it didn’t end well for the 75 million people who died as a result and the countries reduced to rubble.
Now is not the time to stage protest votes over pocket book concerns. This isn’t really about democracy. Fascism is staring us in the face.