It’s bedwetting time.

That’s a term political pros and pundits use to describe the moment when people start fearing impending electoral doom. It might be premature. Then again, it might not. This week, a series of polls was released that looked disastrous for the Democrats. Thomas Edsall, a veteran reporter and analyst, summed up conventional sentiment in a New York Times piece headlined “Democrats Shouldn’t Panic. They Should Go Into Shock.” He quoted Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News:

As things stand, if the midterm elections were today, 51 percent of registered voters say they’d support the Republican candidate in their congressional district, 41 percent say the Democrat. That’s the biggest lead for Republicans in the 110 ABC/Post polls that have asked this question since November 1981.

In 40 years, the GOP has never had a larger lead over the Democrats in this generic poll for congressional elections. After the Trump years—in which Republicans enabled a president whose mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic led to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths and economic calamity for tens of millions and whose Big Lie about the 2020 election yielded a violent attack on the US Capitol—the Rs have a historic edge? After President Joe Biden passed the American Rescue Act stimulus and the $1 trillion infrastructure bill (with no GOP votes for the former and minimal Republican backing for the latter) and oversaw a nationwide COVID vaccination campaign that has made shots available for free to just about anyone who wants a jab, the Republicans are better positioned for the 2022 mid-term elections? This ought to be quite upsetting for Democrats.

Yes, there’s inflation, supply-chain headaches, and labor shortages, and the COVID threat has not been eliminated. Add to that the tragically chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and the troubles at the US-Mexico border. And the Republicans have pumped up assorted phony crises, such as the critical race theory controversy. (Don’t forget Big Bird, Mr. Potato Head, and Dr. Seuss!) But aren’t many, if not most, Americans better off today than a year ago? Schools are open. COVID deaths and hospitalizations do continue—mainly among the unvaccinated—but at a much lower rate than the fall of 2020.

Life is not yet back to normal, but it’s closer. Yet the Republicans, according to the polls, are now seen as better equipped to handle the nation’s problems. Meanwhile, Republican efforts to skew the vote are succeeding. As the Times notes, “Republicans are already poised to flip at least five seats in the closely divided House thanks to redrawn district maps that are more distorted, more disjointed and more gerrymandered than any since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.”

So should the sheets be soaked?

Given the media’s love affair with the Democrats-in-disarray narrative, it might be easy to dismiss this current bout of alarm and dread. After all, it seems that Biden and the Ds could be close to enacting the Build Back Better package, which contains a host of popular programs. (The House passed the measure without a single GOP vote on Friday. Now the world waits on Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.) Can the Dems regain ground by nailing this legislation and messaging the hell out of their historic accomplishments?

It may not be that easy. I wonder if sending Biden to the hinterlands to stand in front of one bridge after another to claim credit (legitimately) for a revival of the nation’s transportation and cyber infrastructure will do the trick. He might need to do something else: Slam the Republicans.

Generals, they say, are always fighting the last war. Especially if they won that war. Biden ran for president vowing to try to unify the nation after the traumatic and divisive Trump years. (And that was before 1/6!) With this strategy—healing the soul of America—Biden attained the White House, a result that a year previously seemed improbable. Naturally, he and his team might have a bias for tactics that resulted in that tremendous success. But evolving situations compel reconsideration.

The 2020 presidential election was a referendum on Trump. Many of the issues the Rs raised about Biden fell flat. Now, Biden and, by extension, the Dems are in the dock to be judged. And a public in a sour mood, rightly or wrongly, tends not to look fondly upon the folks in charge. At this moment, Biden is the No. 1 political piñata in the country. If external circumstances don’t change dramatically in the next 11 and a half months—and they could—a referendum election probably won’t be good for the Democrats. They need it to be a choice election: between them and the Republicans.

That means Biden needs to tell voters the story—over and over—that the GOP is not on their side. That the Republicans opposed assistance for child care and elder care, lower prescription drug costs, free community college, paid family leave, universal pre-K, and child tax credits. That they blocked voting rights bills. That they have no response to the increasing weather crises caused by climate change. In the recent Virginia gubernatorial election, Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe directed much ire at Trump. It didn’t work. The target must shift.

In 2010, the first midterm election for President Barack Obama, the Democrats were shellacked. They lost control of the House and dropped six seats in the Senate, barely holding on to the majority. For my book Showdown: The Inside Story of How Obama Battled the GOP to Set Up the 2012 Election, several top Obama aides told me that they had blown it by failing to effectively promote Obama’s first-year accomplishment: a major stimulus bill that created or protected millions of jobs, a rescue of the automobile industry, the Affordable Care Act, troop reductions in Iraq, Wall Street reform, and more. “Emergencies got in the way of coherent messaging,” David Axelrod, Obama’s top strategist, said to me.

With Obama at the top of the ticket in 2012, the Democrats picked up two seats in the Senate and eight in the House, but that was not enough to win back the lower chamber. And in 2014, the Ds were again clobbered and lost control of the Senate. Obama and the Democrats had failed to figure out how to sell a Democratic message (and motivate a high turnout of Democratic voters) when Obama was not on the ballot. One possible reason: Obama did not sufficiently bash the Republicans. Like Biden, he wanted to be seen as a uniter, not a divider. When his initiatives were blocked by GOP lawmakers, he often decried Congress, not Republicans. This frustrated Democratic legislators. (After all, they were not part of this problem.) He occasionally ripped into Republicans, but the keyword here is occasionally. Only a constant assault on the obstructionist Rs had a chance of becoming a defining theme of these two midterms, and Obama eschewed such a tactic.

External events may dramatically tilt the playing field for 2022. If there is a new COVID surge and persistent inflation, there won’t be much Biden can do to save the Democrats. But beyond holding photo ops at bridges, transportation hubs, child care facilities, and automobile factories, he will have to tell a political tale of high stakes, of heroes and villains. Specific villains, who can be expected to gin up one phony panic after another.

Biden must clearly delineate the choice at hand. Name names. The 2022 election is not about healing. It is about division. He and the Democrats can’t coast on their accomplishments. (See 2010.) They must fiercely define the enemy and attack—of course, with grace, wit, and integrity. After all, that’s what the Republicans will be doing, but without grace, wit, and integrity.

Got a comment on this item? Anything else to say? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

This week the award goes not just to one person and a single remark but to a book tour. Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and onetime failed GOP presidential candidate, has chutzpah. He has written a book called Republican Rescue: Saving the Party From Truth Deniers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Dangerous Policies of Joe Biden. This is a patently absurd project, and Simon & Schuster, the publisher, ought to be ashamed of itself. Christie was one of Donald Trump’s chief endorsers and enablers. His complete surrender to Trump in 2016—after having insisted Trump was not “suited” to be president—has even been immortalized in a GIF:

Yet now Christie has the nerve to be moaning about truth-mugging and conspiracy-mongering within the Republican Party? Trump became the party’s leader by lying and pushing conspiracy theories—and Christie didn’t give a damn. (It was Trump’s racist birtherism that initially made him a right-wing heartthrob.) With this book, Christie is like a John Gotti lieutenant complaining about loansharking, extortion, prostitution, and drug dealing in the Mafia. He’s shocked-shocked to find dishonesty and nuttery in the GOP casino.

Of course, as Christie peddles his book and whines about extremism threatening the GOP, he is not taking full aim at Trump or Fox News. On Fox, Christie hailed Trump’s “ideas” and declared that Trump “can be” part of the GOP’s future, if the former guy moves past his baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

In an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox show, Christie said, “Overall, I give the president an A. The fact of the matter is that there were some things that happened specifically at the end of the presidency that I think had some things that clouded his accomplishments.” That is, Trump does not lose many points for mismanaging a pandemic or inciting the January 6 riot. (As the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol was underway, Christie said that Trump “caused this protest to occur.”)

And in an interview with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, Christie refused to acknowledge Fox’s role in spreading false information about the 2020 election. Wallace asked, “The book is about conspiracy and lies and you really don’t take on Fox News. Why not? Have you seen the Tucker Carlson show?” Christie replied, “No I don’t watch it.” She responded, “Are you aware of what he does?” His answer: “Not really.”

Later in that interview, Christie let loose a whopper: “The Republican Party must once again be the party of truth.” Huh? Christie campaigned for a man who, according to the Washington Post, made at least 30,573 false statements and misleading claims while he was president. And now—without disavowing Trump—Christie is braying about the GOP being “the party of truth”. This much stupid makes my head hurt.

And a dishonorable mention this week to Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) for a moment of profound disgrace. You probably saw what happened at the confirmation hearing for Saule Omarova, a Cornell University law professor nominated by President Biden to head the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. She is a US citizen but was born in what is now Kazakhstan. Conservative and Republican critics don’t fancy her progressive-minded policy stances on banking regulation, and at the hearing, Kennedy said to her, “I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade.”

Joe McCarthy would be pleased. Here’s the kicker: Kennedy was one of the GOP senators who celebrated July 4, 2018, with a trip to Russia. They had hoped to land a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the man who had launched information warfare against the United States two years earlier. He was, the Kremlin said, too busy to see them.

The Mailbag

By now, you might know I often lead this section of the newsletter with emails that are critical of my work. But sometimes there’s just not much in the way of complaints. The mail this week was full of positive comments about my article wondering if blue-state Americans care more about red-state Americans than vice versa. Diane Wagner emailed:

The comparison of what red states offer their constituents (culture war) vs. what blue states offer infrastructure in both social and physical forms) needs to be explained as “imaginary” vs. “real” or “feelings” vs. “substance.” Emotions are powerful and basic. They can easily overcome reasoning which explains why red-state constituents consistently make choices that hurt themselves financially and practically but offer emotional rewards…Red state culture wars are a religion and have the emotional power as other religions…Politicians promoting culture wars have the same advantage as clergy. Their product is imaginary and so they never have to produce anything of substance. I don’t know how to change this choice of imaginary over real which is leading us to disaster. I just think it would help to explain it whenever discussing red vs. blue political choices.

Joseph Stein observed:

As always, David nails it in precise and easy to understand prose the distinction between Democrats policies and Republican ideologies. But PLEASE don't allow us to continue to make the mistake that there are enough changeable independent and Republican minds out there. There ain't. As Michael Moore reminds us, there are more of us than there are of them. The lesson being that our money, efforts, and media communication should be spent on getting more of us to the polls to win.

Okay, there was one complaint. It came from Sally Ringo:

David, I love your perspective and writing. But, frankly, the articles are WAY too long. I can't get through them. There is so much to read to keep up with the horrors befalling our county, I need them to be shorter.

Sally, a few people have shared similar criticism. I try only to say what needs to be said. But sometimes it may be a lot. But, please, if a newsletter is too long, just read a portion. A little is better than none.

Paul Raetsch sent us a note from a friend regarding the most recent MoxieCam™ feature.

Dear Moxie: My guy showed me you were at the vet’s. I’m very happy you are well, and I agree you look very pretty without that haircut business our folks think we need. Stay well.

Sarafina

Speaking of which….

Got anything for the Mailbag? Questions, comments, recipes? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

MoxieCam™

“There’s not much better than chewing a stick in the leaves on a beautiful, 70-degree autumn afternoon, right, Moxie?” I asked.

“Won’t it be like this forever?” she replied.

“Yes, it will. Always.”

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November 13, 2021: Does blue-state America care more about red-state America than vice versa?; Dumbass Comment of the Week; how to get back issues of This Land; the Mailbag, MoxieCam™; and more.

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