Quick Take: Lazy, Desperate, Doomed

“Uninformed voters” are blocking the path to the Radiant Future…

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Last week, you may recall, The Greatest President Who Absolutely Ever Was, Barack H. Obama, descended from Mount Olympus for a White House visit to commemorate the twelfth anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. While there, the former president was graciously pleased to offer some advice to the political party he did so much to undermine, and which now finds itself facing catastrophe come November, when voters render their verdict on two years of full Democratic governance. The Democrats, Obama explained, just need to be more effective communicators! They have to get out the great story of their many shining achievements! They have to work hard to penetrate the fog of ignorance that envelops the dim-bulb American people!

Whenever you hear this line, you can be certain that the political party concerned is wallowing in some deep, deep excrement. But In this case, of course, it’s not the party’s fault! Unemployment is down! Wages are rising! A female of color has been placed on the Supreme Court! There’s an infrastructure bill! And the pandemic is over…well, kinda sorta. So why are Americans so down on Biden and the Dems?

This may be why. This week’s inflation report was not just bad, it was positively horrific—showing that inflation is roaring along at an annual rate of 8.5%. It breaks down like this: Compared to a year ago, Americans are paying 48% more for gasoline; 22% more for natural gas; 11% percent more for electricity; 12% more for a new car; 35% more for a used car; 14% more for meat, fish and eggs; 8% percent more for transportation; 7% more for dining out; 7% more for clothing; and 5% more for shelter. So more Americans may have jobs, and they may have gotten raises, but their rising salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation. Not even close. And they’re kind of mad about that.

Then there’s the epidemic of violent crime, the border crisis, discontent with public education and the handling of the pandemic, a phalanx of culture-war issues, and the nasty, lingering aftertaste of Biden’s chaotic and humiliating Afghanistan skedaddle—that last marking the beginning of his slide in the polls. Oh, and let us not forget the little matter of Hunter Biden’s business dealings. In short, public faith in both the competence and the probity of the President and his administration has collapsed, and the rot has spread to the whole Democratic Party.

In the circumstances it seems counterproductive for the Biden Administration, the Democratic Party and various progressive pundits to wave away the American people’s distemper. But it’s a rare day when some such statement or op-ed, tut-tuting over their cluelessness, fails to appear. Many examples could be cited, but here I will highlight one close to home: this recent piece on Substack by Heather Cox Richardson in “Letters from an American.” Professor Richardson laments what she sees as the media’s obsessive focus on inflation and other issues injurious to the Democratic brand, and its failure to tout the Administration’s many accomplishments. This, she believes, is why so many “misguided voters” are abandoning the Democratic Party. They just don’t get it!

Be it noted: “misguided voters.” The implication is that the issues about which people really care are fake issues, and that they ought to be caring about the issues that Democrats and progressives prefer them to care about. So when they refuse to go along with the program, “our democracy” is in danger.

At a time when a pound of ground chuck is worth nearly its weight in platinum this, to put it no more pointedly, is not a winning political message. For one thing it’s lazy, playing into the self-image of Democratic progressivism as the party of enlightenment, virtue and all good things. But there’s also an element of exasperation, mounting toward desperation, as Democrats and progressives come gradually to the realization that a critical mass of voters have simply tuned them out. And finally, it’s doomed to make a bad situation even worse. A party that believes the American people are too dumb to understand what’s good for them is not a party that truly believes in “our democracy.” Details like that do get noticed.

There’s a reason why Democrats and progressives experienced a thrill up the leg when Barack Obama appeared at the White House last week. He, not democracy, is their beau ideal: the all-wise, all-knowing philosopher-king, the apotheosis, so to speak, of the cult of expertise. But what they’ve got right now is—Joe Biden.