Remember what used to happen?
When a president warned Americans that there is a “threat” to “democracy” from “dark forces” that have placed everything from our “personal freedoms” to the “rule of law” “on the ballot,” that president was probably referring to something like World War II. “And you know what? He would have gotten a listen,” Kimberley Strassel assures readers in the WSJ.
What Happened Instead?
“The Biden speech, cynical and calculating, got a shrug,” reports KS.
Voters have sat through this apocalyptic movie many times now and know its anticlimactic ending. On top of that, “they’re busy searching for spare change to cover the rising grocery bill.”
Polycrisis Be Damned
It’s not like the left isn’t giving the old middle school try, blasts Ms. Strassel.
- In The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvelwarns warns that we are in a “polycrisis,” of “war, extreme weather, contagion, concentration,” coupled with “poverty,” “homegrown dictators,” “obscene inequality,” “big money,” “election deniers,” “nativism,” and “oceans of disinformation and dishonesty.”
- Barack Obama, saying it’s not an exaggeration, told an Arizona rally this week that democracy “may not survive” the midterm election.
- Tom Nicholsat the Atlantic warned that “the United States is facing the greatest danger to its constitutional system since at least the 1950s, if not the *18*50s, and millions of people are like: Yeah, but gas, man.”
But It Is the Gas, Man
And So Much More from Democrats:
- Worrisome, domestic policy issues at hand.
- Governing in an aggressively ideological and unserious way.
- Biden’s spending sent inflation raging, and recession looms.
- The stock market—meaning 401 (k)s and 529s—in the tank.
- The left’s assault on domestic energy feeds untenable energy prices.
- The defund-the-police movement producing soaring crime.
- Blue-state school lockdowns setting kids back by years.
- The border barely exists.
If you are not counting, be a little embarrassed, but not to worry. Ms. Strassel has a handle on it. This is the 4th time, writes she, that Democrats have made “histrionic claims of external threat, internal menace and political demise.”
Donald Trump became their foil, and no claim about him or his supporters became too absurd. Collusion with Russia! Institutions crumbling! Rule of law—gone! Climate melting down! Nation succumbing to nationalists, racists, misogynists, phobes of all kinds! Voter suppression! Minority tyranny! Insurrection!
Along the way the left conjoined its agenda with the saving of humanity: If you want to rescue “democracy,” kill the filibuster, end oil, put the feds in charge of voting, censor “disinformation,” raise taxes, forgive debt, expand entitlements, and celebrate Disney’s (lackluster) “Lightyear.”
Here’s the little problem, however. Donald Trump is not in the White House. Hell, he isn’t even on the ballot. The “collective American mind” is now free to “refocus on the real, and worrisome, domestic policy issues at hand.
A Potent Lesson for Republicans
If this election is showing anything, it’s that most Americans are “exhausted by hysteria, impeachment, live congressional investigations, conspiracy theories and politicians who keep wrecking standards and norms in the name of saving democracy.”
What Concerns America?
- Democratic spending sent inflation raging, with recession looming.
- The stock market—meaning 401(k)s and 529s—in the tank.
- The left’s assault on domestic energy feeds untenable energy prices.
- The Dem’s defund-the-police movement producing soaring crime.
- Blue-state school lockdowns set kids back by years.
- The border barely exists.
What’s the President to Do?
Tell the truth …
- Elect Democrats, and we’ll spend a lot more money during this time of inflation!
- Elect Democrats, and we’ll raise taxes on the verge of recession!
- Elect Democrats but make sure you put on a coat and knit hat in your darkened, energy-free apartment.
Democrats have clarified matters further by governing in an aggressively ideological and unserious way, continues Ms. Strassel. However, she also suggests Mr. Biden “could have pivoted long ago to “a message that resonates with more of the electorate: pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-fiscal-rectitude. But his base would lose its mind.”
So Mr. Biden is left talking to them alone, using the “threat to democracy” to spur Democratic turnout.
Although democracy isn’t on the ballot this year. Kimberley Strassel warns:
… America does have a lot of economic and domestic problems that need solutions.
Republicans have two years before the 2024 presidential election to prove they have a plan, that they can be better trusted.
Why didn’t the President, asks Ms. Strassel, pivot long ago to a message that “resonates with more of the electorate: pro-energy, pro-growth, pro-fiscal-rectitude?
(Biden’s) base would lose its mind. So Mr. Biden is left talking to them alone, using the “threat to democracy” to spur Democratic turnout.
Kimberley Strassel’s tip to Republicans: Don’t waste this opportunity.
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