The Daily Escape:
Oregon City Bridge, OR with Willamette Falls in background – January 2022 photo by Sanman Photography
Gallup says that the Dems are losing the battle for hearts and minds. Their most recent poll shows a dramatic shift over the course of 2021, from a nine-percentage-point Democratic advantage in the first quarter to a five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter. Here’s a chart showing the bad news:
More from Gallup:
“Both the nine-point Democratic advantage in the [2021] first quarter and the five-point Republican edge in the fourth quarter are among the largest Gallup has measured for each party in any quarter since it began regularly measuring party identification and leaning in 1991.”
Gallup points out that the GOP has held a five-point advantage in a total of only four quarters since 1991. The fourth quarter of 2021 was the first time Republicans held a five-point advantage since 1995, when they took control of the House of Representatives for the first time since the 1950s.
Republicans have only held a larger advantage one time, in the first quarter of 1991, after the U.S. victory in the Persian Gulf War led by then President George H.W. Bush.
We’ve known that the Democrats aren’t at the top of their political game for months. The current issue of The Economist reports that while Biden looked great in 2020 as an alternative to Trump, in 2021, with Trump virtually invisible, Biden managed to look less compelling:
“Americans find themselves being led through tumultuous times by their least charismatic and politically able president since George H.W. Bush.”
The Economist listened in on a focus group of 2020 Biden voters conducted by Conservative pollster, Sarah Longwell. There were eight panelists, all under 30, from Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania:
“Asked to grade the president, the group…gave him four Cs, three D’s and an F. And it was not a hostile crowd. All the group’s members were Biden voters, and none regretted their vote. Indeed, if asked to support the president again in 2024, all said…they probably would…”
While a few things have been accomplished, much of the progressive agenda hasn’t. So half of the Democrats are mad at Biden for not accomplishing more. The focus group was young, and just one of them watched cable news; the rest got their facts from social media, where the president’s two recent good speeches barely register.
Ezra Klein points out that Biden learned from the weak Obama effort at stimulus after the Great Recession. He met the pandemic crisis with an overwhelming fiscal stimulus, supporting the passing of the $2.2 trillion CARES Act (passed during the Trump administration) and then adding the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Biden made it clear that he preferred the risks of a hot economy to mass joblessness.
From Klein: (emphasis by Wrongo)
“That they have largely succeeded feels like the best-kept secret in Washington. A year ago, forecasters expected unemployment to be nearly 6% in the fourth quarter of 2020. Instead, it fell to 3.9% in December….Wages are high, new businesses are forming at record rates, and poverty has fallen below its prepandemic levels.”
Since March 2020, Americans have saved at least $2 trillion more than expected. A JPMorgan Chase analysis found the median household’s checking account balance was 50% higher in July 2021 than before the pandemic.
But we now have inflation, supply chain issues and most importantly, we still have Covid. This may not be the presidency Biden wanted, but it’s the one he’s got. Biden has problems with the media. Crises sell, after all. But the reason Biden’s approval numbers are so underwater is that neither side thinks he is fighting for them.
Biden’s a career politician who survived by steering toward the middle of his own Party. That’s fine when you’re an incumbent Senator in the liberal Northeast, but not when you’re fighting a war of attrition against a Republican opposition that wants to destroy you and your Party.
Remember Biden’s talking point in his 2020 campaign was that this was a fight for the soul of America. He was right, but both Biden and the Party have drifted away from that and from designing programs that would rescue America’s soul.
If the Dems are to win in the 2022 mid-terms and the 2024 presidential election, they must start acting like they’re fighting for us. There’s no grey area in American politics. The entire Party must unite behind fighting the Republicans and Trump.
Democrats need to be on the offense – all day, every day.
How about taking a few minutes for a musical palate cleanser? Since we need Biden to find his way home to the Democratic Party, Let’s watch Rachael Price, lately of Lake Street Dive, along with the Live from Here Band with Chris Thile, performing in 2018 a cover of Blind Faith’s 1969 “Can’t Find My Way Home“:
Blind Faith was a Supergroup comprised of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker, and Ric Grech. They released just one album. Winwood wrote this and sang lead, despite Clapton’s reputation.
