If there has been a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House combination weaker than what we’re seeing now, it’s hard to spot.
President Joe Biden has effectively signaled the end of his legislative agenda by promising executive actions and increasing the might of the regulatory state. The Democrats in Congress are issuing ultimatums to each other over spending issues, and they don’t seem to be afraid to issue them to Biden, either.
The Democrats have a few votes to spare in the House, pending special elections. They have no votes to spare in the Senate. Nancy Pelosi is powerless over her caucus at this point. The Progressive Caucus has taken such firm control over the narrative and the Democratic agenda that Pelosi is just along for the ride at this point.
Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, is probably the most powerless Majority Leader in history. No one talks about Schumer. It’s always about Minority Leader Mitch McConnell or centrist-acting Joe Machin and Kyrsten Sinema. Schumer appears to be completely out of the loop as to what’s going on in his party, and like Pelosi, he does not seem to be fighting to really retake control.
And then there is Biden himself. His polling continues to get worse. RealClearPolitics has him averaging just over 50 percent disapproval. His approval rating is 46 percent. He is on vacation more frequently than Barack Obama and Donald Trump ever were, especially by this point in their presidencies, and they were hammered constantly over golfing trips and vacations.
The President is entirely invisible and his administration is seen as incompetent. This is extraordinarily bad news for the Democrats ahead of 2022. It is very early in that campaign season, but if these numbers we’re seeing hold even remotely consistent, then the midterms will be an absolute bloodbath and a very quick changing of the guard in Congress.
And it’s all thanks to the Progressive Caucus.
As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of the issues we cover concerning Democratic governance by themselves don’t really move any electoral needles. The Democrats aren’t going to face harsh blowback for stripping Iron Dome funding from the budget. But, when you couple the issue of not financially assisting such a close ally with the withdrawal from Afghanistan and the spat with France, voters start to see a pattern of really bad foreign policy, and that does move the needle.
Likewise, the COVID-19 crisis is certainly bad enough to make voters wary, but an economy recovering too slowly and an overreach in regulating private businesses will absolutely make independent voters flee the Democratic Party and vote in the midterms to limit their power.
This is where we start to see the percentages really move, to the point that there are very noticeable polling trends among black voters that should absolutely panic Democrats.
The social issue focus that the Democrats seem to be taking isn’t working. The immigration crisis is not playing out favorably for them and people aren’t buying the lies coming from the Biden administration. The Democrats attacking Border Patrol agents isn’t helping either, as it has a lot of shades of the attacks on law enforcement from politicians. Even the fight to protect abortion is going so badly Susan Collins is out saying she won’t support the Democrats’ current plan to codify Roe v. Wade.
Do you know how badly you have to mess up to lose Collins on that issue?
The Democrats have absolutely no power. They can’t take control in Congress, the White House has no respect, and the people don’t want to give them any more power. The Democrats continue to risk it all and win… nothing.