Democratic political demoralization in advance of the 2022
national midterm elections continues with the retirement
announcement of U.S. House Budget Chairman John Yarmuth
of Kentucky, This follows retirements of other senior U.S.
house Democrats in Texas, Wisconsin, Illinois and Arizona
who might have been defeated in a potential “red wave”
election next year.
Three senior Republicans have also announced their
retirements, but they represent safe GOP districts.
In 2017-18, this phenomenon was reversed as many
endangered senior Republicans retired in advance of the
“blue wave” 2018 national mid-term elections which gave
Democrats control of the U.S. house.
The political pessimism of the Democrats is apparently
being fueled by voter response to President Joe Biden and
many of the unpopular policies and proposals of his
administration. The disastrous way the U.S. withdrew from
Afghanistan and the ongoing Mexican border crisis have
evidently fueled the president’s precipitous personal drop
in the polls, but inflation worries and (according to polls)
unpopular proposals (such as defunding the police and
packing the U.S. supreme court) are reinforcing a mood of
vulnerability among many incumbent Democrats.
The border crisis, particularly, is creating prospects of
increasing negative reactions from voters in coming
months as tens of thousands of would-be undocumented
immigrants are reportedly making their way in caravans
to the Mexican-U.S. border where already record numbers
of emigrants have massed in trying to enter the U.S. This
“pandemigration” has been encouraged by some voices
on the U.S. political left, following a controversial
pandemigration in western Europe, (and its rejection in
parts of eastern Europe).
Less immediate,, but looming in coming months, is a
serious supply chain crisis — brought on, critics say, by
Biden administration economic policies.
The Democratic political demoralization is beginning to
spill over into the key battle for control of the U.S. senate
in 2022 —- where Democrats are seeing their initial
advantage to attain a majority fade as independent and
suburban voters, according to recent polls, increasingly
are seemingly turning to GOP candidates.
Not all the news is bad for the Democrats. The post-
pandemic economy is slowly recovering, the stock market
remains high, interest rates remain low, and the natural
optimism of most Americans still prevails. The election is
still slightly more than a year away. The Afghan debacle
will fade in voter memory.
But new and ongoing crises, especially economic ones,
are provoking veteran elected officials now to evaluate
their re-election prospects — and so far, the decisions
have been ominous, particularly in U.S. house races, for
the Democrats.
——————————————————————————
Copyright (c) 2021 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment