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BLUE VIEW
Kevin McCarthy is a doofus, whose endless, meandering overnight speech on the House floor shows Republicans have nothing real to say. The main planks of the Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi-Schumer-Rice agenda is going to pass by the State of the Union, which will be a huge victory lap night, framing the accomplishments and the stakes for the 2022 midterms. Joe Biden will come into that speech rested and ready, and blow the nation away with the strongest, funniest, most optimistic address of his presidency, in which he will tout the passage of the COVID relief, infrastructure, and BBB laws, along with a raft of strong economic stats, pandemic stats, and portraits of “comeback America” stars.
The Mexican border facts will get better; the Fed chair situation will be revealed (only Bloomberg reporters will care about the delay); some foreign policy wins will clear away the memory of the Afghanistan withdrawal; inflation will settle down; the Biden and Harris poll numbers will go up; Mitch McConnell will cave on the debt ceiling and on a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown, restoring President Biden’s image as a consensus maker bringing normalcy back.
In addition, Republican extremism – from Capitol Hill to Mar-a-Lago to Red State governors to Red Media – will again/finally produce a huge backlash among suburban voters and a surge of support from the coalition of the ascendent. Team Biden will successfully sell its legislative triumphs, while Republicans will nominate Senate candidates in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Georgia who can’t win in November.
As the Associated Press says:
House Democrats are working to revamp their message, move on from the infighting and emphasize the bill’s marquee programs. Among them: Billions of dollars to pay for child care, reduce pollution, expand health care access and curb prescription drug costs for older Americans.
They are also trying to get the word out about the separate, $1 trillion infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law this week. House Democrats said they planned to hold 1,000 public events in the coming weeks — five for every member of their caucus — to tout the upgrades that will be coming to roads, bridges, public transit, internet and more.
As David Brooks says:
Presidents are judged by history, not the distraction and exhaustion of the moment. Did the person in the Oval Office address the core problem of the moment? The Biden administration passes that test. Sure, there have been failures — the shameful Afghanistan withdrawal, failing to renounce the excesses of the cultural left. But this administration will be judged by whether it reduced inequality, spread opportunity, created the material basis for greater national unity.
It is doing that.
The press has been too cynical and (per usual) inclined to cover every Washington development like Team Biden is doomed.
Larry Summers is finally on our team.
In short: The big-ticket items on the Ron Klain to-do list are being checked off + Republicans are extreme = the real lives of real Americans are improved —> the midterms (a year away) are not such a disaster for Team Blue after all
RED VIEW
Kevin McCarthy nails it, calling BBB “anti-worker, anti-family, anti-jobs, anti-energy, and anti-American.” The only thing more true than saying Kamala Harris is the gift that keeps on giving is that Joe Biden is completely out of it. Glenn Youngkin’s win was both a canary in the coal mine and a blueprint. No amount of future spending promises by Team Blue will matter more to voters than inflation and liberal overreach on education and pandemic mandates. Upcoming developments at home and abroad are going to make Joe Biden look even weaker – weak, weak, weak.
The history of midterms for the out party, redistricting, and Biden’s approval numbers are all iron laws stronger than Nancy Pelosi’s fever dreams of a comeback. Even Democrat private polls will tell you what the public ones and our private ones do – there’s a tsunami hitting American shores in November, 2022.
As the Associated Press says:
But the political difficulties for Democrats could be especially severe in next year’s elections. Republicans are poised to gain seats through redistricting. Biden’s poll numbers have slumped. And recovery from the coronavirus crisis has been robust but rocky amid soaring inflation. Democrats have spent months squabbling over the details of the legislation, obscuring the benefits they hope to deliver to the country….
“The problem Democrats had in their last rough midterm election, in 2010, was that we were passing a blizzard of legislation but people didn’t feel the benefits until after 2012,” says former Democratic Rep. Steve Israel, who led the party’s House campaign arm at the time. “So the strategic imperative for Democrats isn’t just getting stuff done, it’s getting stuff done that has demonstrable positive impact for voters.”
Larry Summers is finally on our team.
Democrats think passing the Biden-Harris-Klain-Pelosi agenda will save them, but it will further doom them. Check out the Wall Street Journal’s essential reading piece on the internal divisions within the administration on immigration – add to Team Biden’s ultra liberalism and incompetence the fact that they are now divided and at war with themselves, with the far lefties inside the White House worried that their far, far left colleagues are pursuing policies on the border that will destroy the Democrat Party’s political prospects.
In short: The wind is at our back + the passage of the most liberal agenda in U.S. history + wrong track = Republican victories from coast to coast in the midterms —> the effective end of the Biden presidency
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