The Wrongologist

The Daily Escape:

Abandoned homestead, Sanpete County, UT – photo by Jon Hafen Photography

Wrongo hates writing about dysfunction among Democrats, but lately, they seem to be all too willing to assemble the circular firing squad. And they’re doing it at a time, as we said yesterday, that the Dems seem to be getting back in the mid-terms race.

Wrongo heard an NPR reporter asking if Democrats were angry with Biden because he wasn’t doing more after the Dobbs decision. The point was that many Dems seem to think there’s a magical way of reinstating the Constitutional right to abortion when Democrats have at best, barely nominal control of Congress. Here are some media comments:

• The WaPo reported that “some Democrats” think Biden “risks a dangerous failure to meet the moment” and quoted a Democratic consultant lamenting Biden’s “leadership vacuum.”
• Politico reported that “Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated at what they perceive has been the White House’s lack of urgency” and “Biden’s seeming lack of fire.”
• CNN reported: “Top Democrats complain the president isn’t acting with … the urgency the moment demands.” Anonymous Democratic lawmakers called the White House “rudderless,” with “no fight.”

Is it time to remind Democrats that the radical change in the Supreme Court was a self-inflicted wound? It was Democrats who failed to turnout in Obama-strength numbers in 2016 for an admittedly weaker candidate, Hillary Clinton.

Also, by not electing a few more Dems to the Senate in 2020, Democrats gave their majority over to Manchin and Sinema, and by extension, gave Republicans more control than they had earned.

As Dana Milbank said in the WaPo:

“The fratricide is…stoked by the press, which likes a “Dems-in-disarray” story and would love a presidential primary. Democrats are habitually more self-critical than their Republican counterparts…. And there’s genuine frustration that more can’t get done.

But that’s the fault of Joe Manchin, not Joe Biden — and of a broken political system that protects minority rule. What’s depressing Biden’s (and therefore Democrats’) poll numbers isn’t alleged timidity…but inflation and gas prices.”

One issue that is particularly galling to Wrongo is that many Dems want Biden to do more about Britney Griner, a WNBA basketball player who was arrested in Russia on a drug possession charge. She took vape vials containing cannabis to Russia, and was arrested when she tried to leave the country with them. She has now pleaded guilty to the charges.

While Wrongo and all Americans can feel sorry for her plight, her decision-making was terrible. As a Black lesbian American celebrity athlete, she became a perfect target for the Kremlin. Now she’s placed the US government in a difficult position, and many Democrats are pushing on Biden to do something. But his calculation has to be based on geopolitics. Her decisions aren’t Biden’s fault.

Once again, we’re seeing that Democrats are a herd of cats and Republicans are a herd of cattle. Republicans are satisfied to follow the bell cow, while Dems want to change the world to reflect their individual needs on the first day we get in power.

Republicans worked 50 years to achieve what they have today. They never gave up. Democrats always look for a shortcut to power, and then are angry when that door isn’t opened immediately. All we do is complain.

It’s fair for Democrats to ask whether they should re-nominate an 82-year-old man for the 2024 presidential election. But right now, we need to bear down and add to our Senate majority in November.

Holding on to the House isn’t a bad idea either.

Enough politics, it’s time for our Saturday Soother, those few moments stolen from our overly-scheduled lives when we can prepare ourselves for the trouble to come. If you are feeling exhausted by the news and the lack of action on the part of politicians, it’s understandable. But right now, we must recharge our batteries and throw ourselves back into the fray on Monday.

We’re back on the Fields of Wrong from 10 days in the south, including a stop on July 4 at Monticello. The fourth is also the date of Jefferson’s death, in 1826, 50 years after the Declaration of Independence. Here’s a photo of Jefferson’s gardens and his view to the east in Virginia. The white building is the textile workshop:

July 2022 iPhone photo by Wrongo

To help you prepare for what’s coming, listen to Rossini’s Overture to “La Gazza Ladra” (“The Thieving Magpie”). Rossini hadn’t finished the overture to the piece on time, so the day before the premiere, the conductor locked him in a room at the top of La Scala with orders to complete it. He was guarded by four stagehands whose job was to toss each completed page out the window to a copyist below. The opera was first performed in May, 1817. Here, it’s performed in 2012 by the Mannheim Philharmonic, a youth orchestra conducted by Boian Videnoff. You should watch just to see Videnoff’s conducting style: