Democrats are screwed

 So, today, left wing anti establishment media seems ablaze with stories about how the democrats are screwed. Biden's approval is dropping like crazy, down to 38%, and republicans are ahead in the generic ballot by 10 points. Biden is slipping up big time, admitting his stimulus is contributing to raging inflation that is happening, and let's be honest, I still don't think people are over the dumpster fire that was his bring back better bill.

Faith in democrats is faltering hard. And while I would love to JUST treat this as a see I told you so moment, I do think I need to do some things to set the record straight.

If you've been following this blog, you will know that I am not a democrat. I've become increasingly discontent with the democrats, not only this year, but since I started this blog in 2016, and I've honestly reached a breaking point here. With me, the issue is simple. The democrats keep pushing milquetoast centrism down my throat, combined with an obnoxious identity politics oriented message, and I honestly do not believe that the party cares about improving things, and I'm starting to think it's not structurally impossible to take over the party and turn it into a party for the people. Between Hillary 2016, Biden in 2020, and watching various primaries and Biden governance in 2021, it seems clear that the democratic party cannot effectively govern. And they will not step up and defend the right thing for the American people. I'm not even necessarily just discussing UBI here. As you guys know despite being a progressive yang ganger, I'm perfectly willing to settle for normal lefties like Bernie Sanders, despite there being some philosophical disagreements there. Just do something. 

But they don't. And they won't. And I knew all long, quite frankly, that the democratic party, if they won in this state, would lead to this. Quite frankly, THIS is why I was so happy to vote third party in 2016. And THIS is why I was so happy to do it again in 2020. I figured, if a neoliberal democrat took over the white house, the left is screwed for 12 years or more. The public would turn on the democrats post election, and even if they won election again, they would eventually lose to a republican. And then we would need to wait for the pendulum to swing back just to have another shot. I'd rather watch the GOP become increasingly unpopular as the country falls apart around them, than to watch it happen to the left.

But, the democratic party isn't really interested in abiding by the will of the people, and being the change agent we want. They triangulate. They run to the center, they play it safe. They think by being republican lite they can make everyone like them, but in reality everyone hates them. The GOP will hate the Biden administration no matter what he does, and then the left will sour on him too. At the end of the day, you'll end up with just that core base of 30-35% of voters who will vote for a literal piece of crap as long as there is a D after their name. To be fair the GOP has a roughly equally large portion of the voter share who will stand by Trump no matter what. Around 40-45% of people stood by trump no matter what he did, while the rest of the country hated him. 

Elections are ultimately won by independents, and in enthusing your voter base to turn out for you. And democrats have suffered a morale problem for a while. There was a similar drop in approval in 2010 during the Obama era, and I remember being on the republican side back then. Democrats stopped caring after they won, and as i learned later they were demoralized, while republicans were fired up against him. The same environment is happening again.

But this time, I think it's worse. With inflation raging, and with biden buying into right wing talking points, and with the democrats divided, this is looking like the 1970s again. You know, I always wondered, if Carter didnt win in 1976, how would things be different today? I mean, Carter ended up coming to power during crises during an already existing party realignment, where the democrats were losing voters to the GOP via the southern strategy. But the corruption of the nixon administration, oil shocks, and inflation halted their progress and allowed Jimmy Carter to win. Carter ended up dealing with massive supply shortages, and gas lines, and the economy being a general dumpster fire. In addition he faced foreign crises abroad like the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iranian hostage crises during his term. Congress bickered with the president for various reasons, and Carter never got things done. In some ways he was unfairly blamed for everything wrong in the world, and then Reagan came in, the federal reserve shocked the economy with a recession, inflation was over, and the republicans got to come in looking like the good guys, and boom, the parties realigned. Reagan was idolized by the boomers. he was their FDR. And he shifted the country into the right wing dumpster fire it is today.

I hate to say it but because of democratic incompetence, we're back there. The republicans idolize trump. He fires them up. Even if he was an awful president, people LIKED him. They dont like Biden. Biden was just about getting Trump out, no matter what, and as we enter a post trump era (or are we?, remember, 2024 around the corner), the democrats are imploding. The progressive wing, the long time whipping boy of the party, is pushing back, and this is causing the democrats to go further center to seemingly punish them. Meanwhile those moderates they courted are shifting back to the republicans. And people are turning against the democrats in general.

I wouldn't mind if it was just them turning against the democrats, but I fear that simply because biden won at the worst time, much like carter did, it might kill the left in general, including my ideas.

Biden is arguing that stimulus is leading to inflation. Now, inflation is complicated. We just shut down the economy with COVID. The republicans will argue that they were always against that, but screw them, we did it to save lives. But they wanted to keep it open, even if the virus tore through us like butter and millions died. More blood for the blood guide. Sacrifice your elderly on the altar of the economy. But anyway, shutting it down, it did cause issues. Unemployment skyrocketed, and for me, we got a taste of what a post work world could be like. Quite frankly, I loved the cultural changes COVID brought. More introversion, fewer societal expectations, etc. I wish we provided for people better, but alas, with republicans, we didn't. But then, when we started vaccinating people, we opened up the economy. And suddenly, everyone had to open all at once, and because the supply chain was strained, we couldnt get the goods and services out there. And sadly, the fact that the amount of employers looking for help outnumbered the number of workers, it led to inflation. 

Now, I dont think this is a bad thing. I believe workers deserve a fair shake and what am I for? literally giving people money so that people are free to not work. Now, I do recognize it can be overdone and under NORMAL conditions, I would say this is the worst case scenario that would happen with UBI, where the excessive reduction in people willing to work would lead to inflation, especially as people spend tons of UBI money. But, that's not the problem. While the republicans tried to spin it that way, Biden's package ran out literally like 2 months ago. And yet, people aren't running to work. We could argue covid is making people workshy, and it is. And the lack of childcare options for parents is, and they're right on that. But in reality, it's just everything happening at once. The economy doesnt always respond well to being turned off and on again. And that's what we did. 

Now if we wanna look at inflation a bit, i feel like this is a very short summary of the situation. I feel like its worth getting it out there. We face very real material shortages right now. And supply and demand are wonky. And there are supply chain issues. And droughts. And oil refineries being hacked by Russians. I mean, the economy is a crapshow right now. 

It isn't stimulus. Stimulus barely factors into it at all. And while people should be free to be skeptical of me as I AM the UBI guy, I stand by that opinion. There's a lot of pent up demand, and supply of things is just messed up. So shortages are happening. 

Why do I need to focus on this? Because this is what the republican message is gonna be. That we can't have UBI or stimulus or leftism in general, because look what happened with Biden. Bruh, Biden doesnt speak for me. His administration is a joke. BUT, that doesn't mean his policies are responsible for these crises. COVID is ultimately responsible. And that happened before Biden got in. Biden just got handed the recovery and this is what happened.

Sometimes it's better not to win at a time like this. It's like Van Buren. Andrew Jackson screwed up the economy so hard, but then right after he left office and Van Buren took over, the panic of 1837 hit and Van Buren was considered among the worst presidents ever. He didn't do anything wrong. He just failed to do anything right. And the same thing happened with Carter. Even Hoover got unfairly blamed for the great depression. Biden is becoming one of those guys. THe guy who happened to win at the wrong time, and is left holding the bag.

Yeah, democrats are screwed, and I'm worried. But not because I fear democrats losing. I kinda hope they do lose and understand for better things to happen, they might have to. But because I fear that republicans winning might shift the overton window to the right for a generation.

If things arent better by 2024, where will we be? The republicans are gonna run trump again, or some popular governor like desantis. And the democrats? Well, they basically killed the left. Bernie's too old. Turner isn't gonna get anywhere if her primary was any indication. Yang left the party. And the insiders that remain are just more Biden's. Kamala Harris? Black female Biden! Pete Buttigieg? Gay Biden! And that's who they're gonna run, and no one who isnt part of the establishment will be able to stop it. I mean they already ensured we can't. So in the general, what happens? The republicans will be fired up, and ready to blame the democrats for any problem, and the democrats will probably half agree and move right, or at best do nothing at all. And the left, the ones with the ideas, who understand the issues, will be sidelined yet again. We're ALWAYS sidelined. Because the democrats dont listen to us. And we dont have enough clout or organized voting blocs to stop them. So this is a train wreck waiting to happen. 

I'm not gonna ask what if Hillary won in 2016, it would be the same crap. Can you imagine covid happening under her watch? There would be bloody murder to pay, and the republicans wouldve won in a landslide. And the left would be discredited all the same. But I will ask, what if Bernie won? Idk, I think he would've at least took care of people and handled the crisis well enough where he would be popular. The thing is, clinton wouldnt have done much being a centrist, and we'd be in the same situation. But a progressive? Well, things couldve gone differently.

That's the messed up thing about politics. I feel like the democrats robbed the left of a chance to govern, and now they're ruining it for us all, sealing our fates where the once dying GOP regains all its strength simply because the perfect mouthpiece landed in their lap, and because the democrats are just so bad at governing. 

Of course, being an independent, and being outside of the two party system, maybe things arent all lost. Maybe more people think like me than I realize. i dont think so, but I think a lot of vote blue no matter who progressive lefties in the past few months are finally waking up like "wait, Biden is terrible, wait, the party has no future post trump, wait, why is biden so ineffective at doing anything?", and that could play a role too. So idk. We'll have to see. But yeah. I'm concerned for the future, and don't think it looks very good.