Dems Seem Determined To Fight The Midterms On Which Party Is The Lesser Evil

But Trump is worse

Biden's gotten some things done this past year-- but none of the transformational stuff people-- although God knows why-- were hoping for. Drug prices haven't come down; the minimum wage hasn't gone up. Infrastructure improvements-- from the crappy bill Manchin, Sinema and some Republicans wrote-- are going to be apparent in a few years... in some cases more than a few. DeJoy is still postmaster and no one in the Biden administration even mentions that the eligibility age for Medicare is 65. The pandemic is still raging, student debt is still ruinous for millions of Biden voters and for the economy and the Climate Crisis remains largely unaddressed. Is Biden looking up? It doesn't appear so. And on top of that, Trump has gotten over his fear of prison and is running his mouth again and causing chaos and unrest. The country looks closer to a fascist take over or a civil war than before Biden was elected. None of the perpetrators of Trump's criminal regime and attempted coup are being butt-raped in prison. It doesn't feel like voters made a good choice to elect Biden and give him what appears to be Democratic majorities in Congress.

Promise kept

Polling shows that virtually no one feels their lives are getting better and clear majorities, fairly or not, blame Biden. The best that could come of this-- and I do not expect is to come, especially any tike soon-- would be a split in the Democratic Party... as well as in the Republican Party, making for 3 parties. It would make more sense for a fascist party on the right, a progressive party on the left and a corporate whore mush in the middle, so that the mainstream media have something to champion. I mean, can Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman rationalize forever being in a party with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema? The Republicans are handling this more rationally as we saw yesterday, when John Katko (R-NY) announced he won't be running for reelection and Fred Upton said he's not sure if he will, something he wouldn't have done unless he was sure he wasn't going to, since an announcement like that will impact his ability to fundraise and encourage his opponents.

The AP's Steve Peoples put it like this: Biden Backers 'Not Seeing The Results' A Year Into His Term, noting that Biden's "coalition" is now "in crisis," if it ever was an actual coalition that went beyond being a diverse group of people who hate Trump. Peoples noted that Biden isn't making good on his campaign promises, not even on protecting his own base from disenfranchisement by Republicans, "intensifying concerns in his party that fundamental democratic principles are at risk and reinforcing a broader sense that the president is faltering at a moment of historic consequence. 'People are feeling like they’re getting less than they bargained for when they put Biden in office. There’s a lot of emotions, and none of them are good,' said Quentin Wathum-Ocama, president of the Young Democrats of America. 'I don’t know if the right word is "apoplectic" or "demoralized." We’re down. We’re not seeing the results.' The strength of Biden’s support will determine whether Democrats maintain threadbare majorities in Congress beyond this year or whether they will cede lawmaking authority to a Republican Party largely controlled by Trump."

If Biden cannot unify his party and reinvigorate his political coalition, the GOP at the state and federal levels will almost certainly grow more emboldened, and the red wave that shaped a handful of state elections last year could fundamentally shift the balance of power across America in November’s midterm elections.

For now, virtually none of the groups that fueled Biden’s 2020 victory are happy.

...We mobilized to elect President Biden because he made promises to us,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) told The Associated Press, citing Biden’s pledge to address police violence, student loan debt, climate change and voter suppression, among other issues.

“We need transformative change-- our very lives depend on it,” Bush said. “And because we haven’t seen those results yet, we’re frustrated-- frustrated that despite everything we did to deliver a Democratic White House, Senate and House of Representatives, our needs and our lives are still not being treated as a top priority. That needs to change.”

...“Biden is failing us,” said John Paul Mejia, the 19-year-old spokesman for the Sunrise Movement, a national youth organization focused on climate change. “If Biden doesn’t use the time he has left with a Democratic majority in Congress to fight tooth and nail for the promises that he was elected on, he will go down in history as a could-have-been president and ultimately a coward who didn’t stand up for democracy and a habitable planet.”

Lisa Lerer and Emily Cochrane had much the same thing to say to NY Times readers this morning. "With the White House legislative agenda in shambles less than a year before the midterm elections, Democrats are sounding alarms that their party could face even deeper losses than anticipated without a major shift in strategy led by the president. The frustrations span the spectrum from those of the party’s liberal wing, which feels deflated by the failure to enact a bold agenda, to the concerns of moderates, who are worried about losing suburban swing voters and had believed Democratic victories would usher a return to normalcy after last year’s upheaval. Democrats already anticipated a difficult midterm climate, given that the party in power historically loses seats during a president’s first term. But the party’s struggle to act on its biggest legislative priorities has rattled lawmakers and strategists, who fear their candidates will be left combating the perception that Democrats failed to deliver on President Biden’s central campaign promise of rebooting a broken Washington."

“I think millions of Americans have become very demoralized-- they’re asking, what do the Democrats stand for?” said Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent in charge of the Senate Budget Committee. In a lengthy interview, he added, “Clearly, the current strategy is failing and we need a major course correction.”

Representative Tim Ryan [a careerist and establishment hack who stands for nothing much], a Democrat from a blue-collar Ohio district who is running for the state’s open Senate seat, said his party isn’t addressing voter anxieties about school closures, the pandemic and economic security. He faulted the Biden administration, not just for failing to pass its domestic agenda but also for a lack of clear public health guidance around issues like masking and testing.

“It seems like the Democrats can’t get out of their own way,” he said. “The Democrats have got to do a better job of being clear on what they’re trying to do.”

The complaints capped one of the worst weeks of the Biden presidency, with the White House facing the looming failure of voting rights legislation, the defeat of their vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers at the Supreme Court, inflation rising to a 40-year high and friction with Russia over aggression toward Ukraine. Meanwhile, Biden’s top domestic priority-- a sprawling $2.2 trillion spending, climate and tax policy plan-- remains stalled, not just because of Republicans, but also opposition from a centrist Democrat.

...The end of the week provided another painful marker for Democrats: Friday was the first time since July that millions of American families with children did not receive a monthly child benefit, a payment established as part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief plan that Democrats muscled through in March without any Republican support.

Plans to extend the expiration date for the payments, which helped keep millions of children out of poverty, were stymied with the collapse of negotiations over the sprawling domestic policy plan. And additional pandemic-related provisions will expire before the end of the year without congressional action.

...While there’s widespread agreement around the electoral peril that the party faces, there’s little consensus over who, exactly, is to blame. Liberals have been particularly scathing in their critique of two centrist senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and their longstanding objections to undermining the Senate filibuster, as well as Manchin’s decision to abruptly reject the $2.2 trillion spending plan last month. For months, Democratic lawmakers, activists and officials have been raising concerns about sinking support among crucial segments of the party’s coalition-- Black, female, young and Latino voters-- ratings many worry could drop further without action on issues like voting rights, climate change, abortion rights and paid family leave.

“In my view, we are not going to win the elections in 2022 unless our base is energized and ordinary people understand what we are fighting for, and how we are different than the Republicans,” Sanders said. “That’s not the case now.”

But many in the party concede that the realities of their narrow congressional majorities and united Republican opposition have blocked their ability to pass much of their agenda. Some have faulted party leaders for catering to progressives’ ambitions, without the votes to execute.

“Leadership set out with a failed strategy, and while I guess, maybe they can message that they tried, it actually isn’t going to yield real laws,” said Representative Stephanie Murphy, a Florida [corrupt right-wing asshole], who is retiring but has signaled aspirations for a future Senate run. [God forbid.]

Representative Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from rural Illinois [and another corrupt right-wing asshole], said Democrats should consider less ambitious bills that could draw some Republican support to give the party accomplishments it can claim in the midterm elections.

“We really kind of need to reset at this point,” said Bustos, who is retiring from a district that swung to Donald Trump in 2020. “I hope we focus on what we can get done and then focus like crazy on selling it.”

Biden effectively staked his presidency on the belief that voters would reward his party for steering the country out of a deadly pandemic and into economic prosperity. But even after a year that produced record job growth, widely available vaccines and stock market highs, Biden has not begun to deliver a message of success nor focused on promoting his legislative victories.

Many Democrats say they need to do more to sell their accomplishments or risk watching the midterms go the way of the off-year elections, when many in the party were surprised by the intensity of the backlash against them in races in Virginia, New Jersey and New York.

“We need to get into the business of promotion and selling and out of the business of moaning and groaning,” said Bradley Beychok, the president of American Bridge 21st Century, a[n etablishment] Democratic group.

Others say that as president, Biden has fallen out of step with many voters by focusing on issues like climate change and voting rights. While crucial for the country, those topics aren’t topping the list of concerns for many voters still trying to navigate the uncertainties of a pandemic stretching into a third year.

“The administration is focused on things that are important but not particularly salient to voters and sometimes as president you have to do that,” said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a [corrupt right-wing asshole no one takes seriously but the NY Times and Washington Post] Democratic think tank. “Now, we need to begin to move back to talking about the things that people do care about.”