Is a Democratic Resurgence in 2022 Possible? Hell Yes!
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Many, if not most, political analysts are painting a daunting picture for Democrats retaining their House or Senate majorities in 2022. Even those who acknowledge that the U.S. economy will be in a state of overdrive by the time of the midterms point to the conventional wisdom that dictates the party in power will inevitably lose seats to the opposition, as the glow of the prior national election fades, and the tides of partisan resentment rush back in. They remind us that Democrats in 2022 will also be facing a variety of structural and institutional headwinds, including GOP voter suppression tactics and newly redistricted and gerrymandered Republican seats.
But, as a few have pointed out, “conventional wisdom” is the byproduct of conventional times. And these are not—by any stretch of the imagination—conventional times. While Democrats are understandably focused now on how Joe Biden’s presidency is faring (and thus far it seems to be faring quite well), it may be more instructive to focus on how Republicans are doing, and more importantly, how well they’ll be doing as those midterm elections approach in 2022.
Imagine the United States in October 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic, for all intents and purposes, is behind us, insofar as our lives have mostly returned to normal. Not every person is vaccinated but the great majority are, and indoor and outdoor activities are largely mask-free. Travel flows unimpeded. The economy is booming, with most Americans enjoying the fruits of an unprecedented and massive global spending spree that propelled the economy to such heights that the main worry has been fear of inflation, but even that is only a remote concern. Employment is plentiful and young people are back in school and college.
But for Democrats, a nagging feeling of dread still looms. Over the past year, there have been dire pronouncements of a surge of latent anger by Trump voters still furious about an election they are constantly told was stolen from them. The chatter that dominates the political pundit class is filled with dark scenarios in which gridlock returns in the form of a Republican-dominated Senate and House, thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Those former Trump voters, we are told, are impervious to the improvement in their economic outlook and livelihoods, because they, like their representatives in the Congress and Senate, remain wedded to the specter of Donald Trump, who has been popping in and out of the public eye (between court appearances) all summer long, churning up his base. The palpable fear is that the voters who propelled Democratic majorities in 2018, and to a lesser extent in 2020, will not turn out in the numbers needed to repel this inevitable GOP tide.
With that scenario in mind, former New York Mayoral candidate Mark Green, writing for The Nation, acknowledges how dispiriting the picture appears to be on paper for Democrats right now.
Continue reading at the Daily Kos.
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It is like someone from the sixties and seventies asked for a do-over. Was that you Mike?
Nope. Never asked for a do-over. Each decade, in my experience, brings with it it’s own set of problems.
You libtards have won your last election because you hate Mr Trump who will come back and you are as bad as the worst of the right.
Hey, Jan (that’s so cute). You and yours are the black panthers of the ’70s. BLM is the Nation of Islam. You know that nothing has changed in the last 50 or 60 years, or the 50 or 60 before that, etc. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Uh, do you know we are all ‘libtards’ over here, which pretty much makes you stupid.
Is it a mistake to use the word Democrat as though it referred to one category of politics? If we gain seats what kind of people will occupy them? The things we now associate with that party are disparate and the fringes include Nazis, communists,
anarchists and racists encompassing every sort of toxic personality disorder. The list of bogeymen to be taken out and shot in the courtyard seems to grow all the time and I just watched a vicious attack on a “Karen” who, when confronted by an angry mob and browbeaten about Rodney King’s beating 30 years ago!
Frankly one angry mob is no more appealing than another no matter what label you put on them.
Politics, it seems, attracts those with “toxic personality disorder.”