There are normally two pretty much givens about going into the midterms of a new administration. One, the party in power normally takes a bloodletting. And two, it is a referendum on the policies and successes of the ruling party. And the worse that the second one is, the worse it tends to make the first one.
After inauguration day, Presidents normally go through what the media likes to refer to as the Honeymoon Cruise. Normally, regardless of which side wins, both the media as well as the general population have the, if not expectation, then the hope that the new President will do well. And that buys goodwill.
Trump is the ultimate outlier to that. His popularity basically flatlined at his election result percentage, and quickly went down from there. Biden is the polar opposite. 6 months into his term, he still enjoys a 66% popularity rating on Covid, a 53% popularity on the economy, and a 55% personal popularity rating. This is well after the Honeymoon Cruise, and Biden’s numbers bode well for 2022.
But there is also a political element as well. Normally, the party in opposition does everything it can to obstruct the governing party from getting anything done, and then they point those shortcomings out, and offer alternate programs that the swear they can get through if only they get the power again. And this is where the wheels fall off for the GOP.
The simple fact of the matter is that Biden and the Democrats are getting things done, and they’re things that are popular with the majority of the American people, including Republicans. The Covid relief act, with the Child Tax Credit for starters. And there’s no reason that the Democrats can’t hammer through the reconciliation human infrastructure bill. And if the GOP ends up balking on the bipartisan hard infrastructure bill, hell, the Democrats get another bite of the reconciliation apple on October 1st, the new fiscal year. They figure to have almost an embarrassment of riches to campaign on next year, especially since the GOP is opposing everything.
But the Republicans aren’t playing along. By this time, they’re supposed to be highlighting the shortcomings of the Biden administration, and bragging about what they can do if people just give them the power back. Here’s a perfect example. A well tuned GOP would be ridiculing the Biden administration for missing their 70% goal by Independence Day, and mocking Biden for trying to make Facebook a scapegoat for their miserable failure.
But what are the Republicans running on? Three things. Trump is the rightful President, critical race theory, and Stop the Steal! They are making absolutely no attempt to even try to manufacture Democratic failures, and have no opposing programs of ideology to appeal to voters with. This is a recipe for disaster for the GOP.
Hard core Evangelical identification is dropping off off a cliff. Trump’s endless assault on the military is making him no friends among either the active duty personnel, nor veterans, traditional GOP strongholds. And the GOP is now the smallest party, behind Democrats and independents. They can’t fuck around.
This is not how you run a midterm election. Midterms are a lower turnout affair, the troops have to b e motivated. The Democratic minorities will be motivated by voter suppression, and the base by the successes of the administration, which malleable GOP and independent voters will also take into account.
The GOP is going to spend the primaries by running far right Trombies against electable moderates, and run in the general election on a platform of fealty to El Pendejo Presidente, and promising more of the same. All of which is designed to give white suburban women night terrors.
History is history for a reason. It describes actual events that took place at a particular time. But when using history, one must remember that history requires that both parties proceed along a previously predictable path in order to provide an outcome. And we don’t have that this time, one of the parties has flown off of the rails. Don’t touch that dial.
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The Rs are trying to keep the IRS from auditing the wealthy, where most of the unpaid taxes are. What are they afraid of finding?
I would presume those unpaid taxes AND where they have been hiding all that money, as well as who has been cooking their books …
Nice to grab the money guy, see how well it is working for Trump? By now, Trump probably has a couple new hernias, when all the Kings men start singing for he’s guilty of so many things …
You write that as if the GOPers have never targeted the IRS for the benefit of the wealthy. The only other group that GOP tried (and succeeded in) protecting were the hundreds of Tea Party groups that popped up in the course of just a couple of years (2009-2010). In the eyes of the GOP, the IRS was unfairly targeting a bunch of “concerned citizens”; I mean, just because you have hundreds of groups wanting tax-exempt status while boasting their agenda of “taxed enough already,” it would be an utter shock if the IRS (the folks in charge of ensuring taxes are properly collected) failed to investigate the legitimacy of the claims. But the GOP threatened to cut funding for the IRS if they continued their “partisan witch hunts” so the IRS did largely back off (the GOP still made sure the IRS got less funding to conduct audits unless the audits were “fairly” distributed–so that the poor would be audited with the same frequency as the wealthy).
Truth is well before Obama’s first election, the IRS began closely scrutinizing tax returns claiming Earned Income Credit. The IRS had already begun auditing the poor with far greater frequency than the rich.
You wrote, ” Normally, the party in opposition does everything it can to obstruct the governing party from getting anything done,” This makes it sound like all opposition, no matter which party is the party in opposition, is mere political grandstanding, and that there is nothing particularly odious about the ground of opposition. Do you really mean to imply that all opposition from either party is largely without merit? And what exactly is “normal” about such opposition?