Voters Asked for Fairy Tale Economics?
Daniel Henninger in the WSJ doesn’t think so:
Voters know they ended up with inflation not experienced in most of their adult lives. Mr. Biden not only denies that some $4 trillion in federal spending during his term has anything to do with inflation but actually argues that his legislated subsidies, transfer payments and Medicare prices negotiated for 2026 will “reduce” inflation. This is tooth-fairy economics.
The remaining bulk of the Democrats’ claimed achievements is tax credits for 2030 climate goals, though virtually no one is running on climate because it rates so low in election concerns.
What’s left? Abortion was hot after the Supreme Court’s June 24 Dobbs decision but looks to have moved off the front burner.
Biden Ignores the Economy
Biden seems focused on the wrong issue, suggests Charles C. W. Cooke in National Review. Regardless of how much Biden might want it, abortion is “not the key issue of our age.”
Nor, for that matter, are any of the other issues that he has attempted to bludgeon to the fore since he took office.
The Democratic Party’s sweeping spending agenda has never interested the voting public.
- Not its climate-change obsession
- Not its hostility toward domestic energy production
- Not its crusade for draconian gun control
- Not its preposterous insistence that its fortunes are inseparable from the fortunes of democracy per se
From Biden’s first day, the fate of his presidency has been tied to the fate of the economy, offers Mr. Cooke. “Yet somehow, Biden has never noticed.”
Mr. Henninger thinks part of Biden’s bad approval ratings is discomfort over the President’s mental state, but Henninger also warns that “people aren’t going to vote for Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance or anyone else because of Mr. Biden’s teleprompter gaffes.”
… one reason Mr. Biden narrowly won is that he pulled over independents and disaffected Republicans by running as a moderate alternative to his party’s progressives—Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Mr. Biden’s moderate, “normal” presidency didn’t last past Inauguration Day. His switcheroo to progressive standard-bearer for the Sanders-Warren-Pelosi policy goals was startling. A lot of voters who decide close elections have to be wondering about the difference between what they wanted and what they got.
Chaos Didn’t Fall from the Sky
Voters are confronting inflation not experienced in most of their adult lives, continues Mr. Henninger. Inflation – as is the mess from our unchecked border and violent crime – is a form of social chaos, and chaos is not good for the party in power. It did not fall from the sky. Some follies are attributable to “policy decisions by Mr. Biden and the Beltway Democrats.” Many elected Democrats across the country are to blame for the rise in violent crime.
Most voters, especially the independents trending rightward, don’t like chaos. To ride it out, voters can choose between a red wave or a blue wave. The blue wave crested two years ago. It’s not going to return for Democrats in three weeks.
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