Conventional wisdom has the Democrats going down the tubes in the November midterms. Five Thirty Eight the number one independent political forecasters rate the Democrats’ chances of hanging onto the House at thirteen percent and Senate at forty - seven percent. The reasons given by most pundits for this doomsday scenario are multiple.They include the high inflation numbers, the rising interest rates and gas prices as well as Biden’s low approval numbers. Adding to the Democratic woes are, the traditional mid term poor performance of the party that occupies the White House, the gerrymandering of constituencies and voter suppression enacted by the Republicans. To add insult to injury certain sections of the Democratic Party, who don’t understand how it all works, have their hands in the air screaming that Biden should do more about gun control and abortion rights. Also Senator Joe Manchin’s refusal to provide the fiftieth vote needed on to push forward on axing the filibuster and help codify abortion rights into Federal Law, has produced frustration towards the whole party.
THE DIVIDED AGENDAS OF THE “REPUBLICANS” AND THE PROBLEMS THEY COULD FACE
But Jay H. Ell is not so sure that the situation is hopeless as there are number of factors, with five months to go, which could mitigate the situation. First and foremost the “Republicans" are divided on what their message should be. Mitch McConnell would like their policy to be simply making the Biden Presidency “disaster” front and central, offering no “Republican” agenda. He is a lone but influential voice in the latter regard with even his own senatorial head of the midterm election thrust, Tim Scott, having laid out a detailed GOP manifesto. Others want to run simply on the economy. Nearly forty percent are committed to the Big Lie and the others just want to avoid answering questions about Trump. While yet another groups want to run a culture war against the "woke" radical left agenda.
The economic situation is complicated while the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion and the issue of gun rights ostensibly having no influence on the voters cannot be valid when the polling numbers indicate that over seventy percent of the population are in favor of abortion rights and want stricter gun control legislation. Also the belief that the January 6 testimony will have no influence on voters has to be nonsense. No “Republican” candidate is making a thing of attacking it nor is Fox full blast twenty four seven blasting it off the face of the earth or challenging any evidence routinely.
It is necessary to look at these variables that really don’t jive with a wholesale slaughter of the Democrats this November.
TRUMP VERSUS BIDEN
This line up is becoming more and more inevitable. Trump will frighten several "Republican" candidates away by announcing early but will there be enough in the field to allow him to win the nomination with less than fifty percent as he did in 2016? Trump is leaning on announcing soon on the assumption that the Justice Departments then won't indict him. The reason that this is relevant now is that Trump in order to keep his narrative going has to run on that he is still President. He will hog the lime light and suck all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. Biden beat him last time sitting in his basement while Trump held his madcap rallies and spat out out hundreds of tweets. So he is at no new disadvantage with Trump hogging the media.
Already the generic ballot which the Republicans led on is evening out. Some polls even have the Democrats ahead. The fascinating statistic is that of those that disapprove of Biden, sixty percent, a sizable amount are still prepared to vote Democrat. This is a departure from previous midterms but is not really unexpected as Biden is no charismatic leader but at the end of the day he represents stability.
The Democrats claim their internal polling sees them ahead in all the Senate seats that they hold as well as two that were formerly Republican - Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. They have even argued that Ohio and North Carolina are trending their way. Put another way is it really comprehensible that the swing voters in all the states on the Senate ballot who gave Biden his victory in 2020 are going to vote for candidates who either support Trump’s Big Lie or just duck the question? As Five Thirty Eight has researched, thirty six percent of “Republican” candidates for Congress, Governorships or Secretary of States have backed the Big Lie. This is what the Republican Party is running on whether McConnell likes it or not. Trumpism is so entrenched that Kevin McCarthy the candidate who has an eighty - seven percent chance of being the next Speaker of the House of Representatives has indicated that he is going to have an investigation into the January 6 Committee, impeach Biden and investigate all Trump’s claptrap.
But the pundits claim the voting will boil down to the economy.
“IT’S THE ECONOMY - STUPID”
James Carville’s iconic statement that ushered Bill Clinton to two terms to the White House, “It’s the economy - stupid” is trotted out as a article of faith only second to the dictum that in the midterms the Party that has the Presidency gets, in President Obama’s phraseology, “a shellacking”. The perception is that the economy sucks. The main parameter for this belief is the record high inflation figures and the high price of gas. With regard to the latter it has come down fifty cents in the past few weeks and is at least half the price of anywhere else in the world. Rationally it comes at the cost of supporting the Ukrainians who have bipartisan support, notwithstanding that the Bannon/Trump clique back Putin - “a genius”. Recession is on everyone’s lips. The latter defined as two quarters of negative GDP and always a retrospective diagnosis made when the economy is recovering.
The facts on the economic ground don’t paint such a bleak picture. Unemployment rate at three point six percent is at its historic low and wages have increased dramatically. The minimum wage is fifteen dollars forty cents in twenty states. There are job vacancies, two available for every individual who might be available for employment. In every commercial window there are notices, “We are hiring”, offering bonuses in some instances up to thousand dollars for minimum wage employment. Yet the doom and gloom persists.
Admittedly Apple and other major companies have slowed down employment but this relates to engineers and doesn’t impact the average worker. The Federal Reserve has increased interest rates to a basic three point eighty - five percent. Thirty year mortgages are at five point three percent. This modest increase has brought down house prices and the price of commodities all round have come tumbling down. However, if this was the central issue in the election it would obviously favor the "Republicans".
Interestingly enough, to Mitch McConnell, the "Republican" Minority Leader in the Senate’s, dismay the “Republicans” are not running on what is perceived to be their strong point namely Biden’s “dismal” performance”. Besides The Big Lie they are campaigning against the left wing “woke” agenda. Rick DeSantis, the Governor of Florida who is considered Trump’s main opposition, is running his gubernatorial campaign against the left wing “woke” agendas.
The Heritage Foundation is a key “Republican” think tank that often lays down the line, They are instituting a massive campaign against the Environmental, Social And Governance Movement, ESG, which produces reports on investing in those who fulfill their criteria of meeting societal needs. The Heritage Action Committee, claims, “The Latest and most dangerous attempt to undermine our market and force a woke agenda on America is called the ESG - Left - wing activists".
This awakening of business practices and investing and even governmental assessment of projects has been brought into the pubic consciousness coinciding with the midterms and has to be new to anyone other than those in the “Republican” inner circle. It coincides with business allying more and more against the nihilistic and cruel policies supported by the “Republicans” and the Supreme Court. For example every major company has offered to cover out of state abortion costs for their employees. The Foundation have to be aware that one of the major catalysts that sent apartheid packing was big business.
On the face of it is not only the Democrats who want the midterms to be more about, “Who we are as a people”.
ABORTION AS A CAMPAIGN ISSUE
This issue is only beginning to show the sad outcome of the ideological activist ignorant decision of the Supreme Court which was the predictable result as the Trump Court delivered what he said they would. According to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Political Action Groups spent nearly six hundred million dollars in advertising and caucusing for the election of Justices, Gorsich, Kavanaugh and Barrett. Most of this anonymously donated, the largest contribution being seventeen million dollars. This could be legally undertaken as a result of a Supreme Court decision where the Court interpreted money as the equivalent to free speech.
The aftermath of the Court's ruling on abortion has been greeted with glee and action by the “Republicans” who have interpreted the ruling to enact, in the States they control, more and more draconian laws with severe penalties to the doctors that perform them.
First allow Jay H. Ell to give a short explanation on what the term abortion encompasses.
One out of four normal pregnancies end in an abortion or a miscarriage. Several of those need no treatment as the foetal material is absorbed. However a large number develop what are called incomplete abortions or miscarriages. Often they only expel a portion of the fetal parts and they need medical intervention to prevent serious complications such as hemorrhaging, infection, infection in the blood stream, sepsis, infertility and even death. Then twenty of a thousand pregnancies in the United States are ectopic pregnancies. They are a leading cause of mortality in women in the first trimester. So much for the complications and risks to more than one quarter of the women who are being treated by law like the rest.
At the outset no one but no one is happy about a miscarriage or a planned abortion.
Planned or elective abortions fall into two groups - those that even the most rabid of “pro life” advocates should acknowledge, namely rape violent or statutory, pregnancy in anyone under the age of consent, incest, and to prevent serious complications including death to the mother. There are those that are elective which decision is made for a host of reasons including health, financial or social. Planned or induced pregnancies as a group have decreased dramatically over the past decades and the latest figures from 2019 indicate there were approximately six hundred and fifty thousand as compared to the 1990’s were there were a million and a half. This pales into insignificance as to the one in four that follow a normal pregnancy.
However several “Republican" States are not making any distinction between a miscarriage and planned termination. They are banning all abortion care throwing the medical world into chaos. Doctors are threatened with legal action and in America they are licensed by the state. Some are not only not making any exceptions for generally accepted criteria, they are not differentiating between miscarriages and planned abortions because the laws do not. To reinforce the point conventional miscarriages far exceed the number of planned abortions many of which are performed for medical reasons any way.
Since the Supreme Court ruling a few weeks the media has been plastered with incidents where morbidity and death of women have been at risk for common complications of a miscarriage, as doctors and pharmacists withhold treatment. The feeble response of the apologists was that these stories are anecdotal. The argument has been flattened by the new President of the American Medical Association, Dr. Jack Resnick, who states that he has had multiple reports from all around the country of clinical situations where doctors have refused to give routine treatment risking complications. In fact severe life threatening complications have been reported as doctors literally waited for women with miscarriages to get sick enough to treat
Just to quote one response from the Texas Attorney General who maintained that there could not be a legal basis for the differentiation between miscarriages or “illegally” started abortions, as the ER would become a walk in abortion clinic. He is right because women will be unable to go to their regular doctors and they will go to the ER which hopefully has the back up of a corporation.
The pathetic story of the ten year old child from Ohio who was raped and then counseld that she could carry the child to term was considered “unfortunate”. She then crossed state lines to have a medical abortion. Murdoch’s Fox snd Wall Street Journal in tandem with Republican Congresspeople challenged the story, claiming it was made up. When the rapist was arrested and confessed there was no contrition but just a meh. To exacerbate the vindictiveness and cruelty in this relentless campaign the Indiana attorney general stated the doctor’s actions were illegal and he was investigating her. When his accusation proved patently false he like the apologists did not let up and the doctor has demanded a retraction or she will sue.
It is hard to believe that the suburban women who voted against Trump in 2020 and women in general are not going to go ballistic as this crisis crescendos each day. The polling figures show, depending how the question is put, up to eighty percent of voters want Roe to be retained. It has really helped the Democrats who were behind in the generic vote and have now caught up. Sadly as the days go by the situation will become chaotic and as sure as there are going to be mass shootings there are going to be maternal mortalities.
GUNS AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT.
Jay H. Ell has blogged on the unbelievable legalization of weapons of war available to eighteen year olds. The “Republicans” are so beholden to the morally and financially bankrupt National Rifle Association that they wouldn’t even limit purchase to those over twenty one years of age, On June 29, 2022 Jay H. Ell blogged, “Guns, Culture, Politics, Money, The Supreme Court and Tiny Coffins”. (To easily find it go to the opening page of the site and look at archives on the right. Click on June and then the click on the article). Since Uvalde there have been literally dozens of mass shootings including one that shook the nation in affluent Highland Park just North of Chicago. The sleepy hollow whose main street is out of a film set of the fifties was the scene of slaughter at the July 4 annual parade attended by the whole community. Seven people were killed and forty injured. Those who believe that “It could never happen here” were subject to the rude awakening that so many other communities have experienced. Highland Park last experienced a homicide in 1994.
As the Mayor of Highland Park testified that there were scores of good people with guns on the scene and they could do nothing, echoing the scenario at Uvalde where there were three hundred and seventy five such men. Yet this narrative is still the rationale of the protagonists. Like with abortion deniers there are “Conservative” NGO’s backing and supporting the Supreme Court’s embrace of creating a nation armed to the teeth.
Again at least two thirds of American voters polled want more gun restrictive laws. How this is not going to impact voters in 2022 is a mystery.
JANUARY 6 HEARINGS AND THEIR SEQUALAE
Jay H. Ell’s most recent blog covered this subject - “The Fairy Tale Story of Cassidy Hutchinson and the Wicked President”. (It is recoverable by clicking on the archives as outlined above). Cassidy's historic intervention was followed by the devastating expose of Trump’s behavior in the one hundred eighty seven minutes where he pored oil on the flames of a domestic terror insurrection. Needless to say Murdoch’s Fox News was the only news channel that did not cover the earth shattering hearing live. Then there is the recent revelations of the Secret Service with Trump’s handpicked head James Murray. The irrireristible inference is that Trump’s detail colluded in a cover up of criminal activity. In case it is forgotten Pence refused get into a car because it was being driven by a detail that was not his.
The Democrats believe that anyone who backs The Big Lie or has been endorsed by the former President is at an electoral disadvantage and they represent thirty - six percent of the “Republican” candidates for key State and Congressional elections.. So much does their internal polling figures reflect this they have backed these candidates in the “Republican” Primaries with adverts on the assumption that they will be easier to beat in the midterms.
.The “Republicans” also believe that Trump will be a liability. Frank Luntz the famed "Republican" focus group organizer claimed there was a frustration towards Trump by "Republicans" while Sarah Longwill claims that her focus hearings have resulted that everyone in her focus groups want another "GOP" candidate. These confirm polls that have noted diminishing support for Trump as the nominee.
Vice President Pence, who is almost certain to run, was a guest speaker at the influential GOP Congress Study group where most of those voted not to accept the 2020 election results reportedly encouraged Pence to run. Trump and Pence are hosting competing rallies in Arizona as they are backing different candidates in the “Republican” Primary for governor. Pence is hardly featured on the charts but he is what is left of the Conservative establishment's choice. Even if he became the candidate one wonders how he could win backing a national abortion. Rick DeSantis the Florida Governor has all but announced his candidature and in some states he is in a statistical tie with Trump.
So Trump will not frighten all off if he announces his candidacy early. And who knows whether he will escape indictment?
AT THE END OF THE DAY
There is a long way to go before the midterms. However there is every indication that Trump not Biden will be the central figure in the 2022 election and in 2024, whether he gets the nomination or not. Jay H. Ell projects that he would run as an Independent in the unlikely event that he is not the nominee.
As indicated the future is not what it used to be as far as the Democrats are concerned especially in the Senate. The House has to be a reach. Only two administrations holding the White House in the past sixty years have not lost seats in the midterms.
Bannon's guilty finding will bolster the January 6 credibility.
The leaking of Trump's America First plan, if re elected, which would not only gut the Environment Protection Agency and Internal Revenue departments but reach into the Secret Service, Pentagon and the State Departments is bound to become the next center of the news cycle. All part of Bannon's dream.
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