Maybe Not So Worried About The Dems After All

 

Maybe We'll Get There After All


So like most of us, I’m terrified of what’s going to happen in the mid-terms and in the election of 2024. Like most of us, I’m afraid the Democrats will lose their majority in Congress, and then the White House, and then that the United States will cease to be a democracy. 


So I was particularly frightened when I saw the headline of a new op-ed piece in the Washington Post, “Democrats remain clueless on how to prepare for the midterms,” by Henry Olsen. His first few lines are downright chilling, “House Democrats’ campaign arm released a memo on Monday detailing how they think they can retain control after next year’s midterms. If this is the best they can come up with, Republicans will win in a landslide.”


But then I went and read the rest of the article. Now, while I’m still frightened, I’m not so sure that Olsen has the story right. Simply put, as near as I can tell, he faults the Democrats for not thinking more like Reagan Republicans. The Democrats’ “Build Back Better” plan and public spending are just not going to resonate with real Americans, he says.


Well, maybe. But, personally, I can’t help thinking that it was the Reagan era policies that got us into this mess — with an ever growing gap between the rich and everyone else, endless wars everywhere, a decaying social contract, and, ultimately, people voting for Trump out of sheer desperation. If that is the real America, well, then God save us, and I don’t think it is worth trying to save.


And, besides…I am not sure it is the real America. I have seen and heard an awful lot of Americans, particularly young Americans, who are faulting the Democratic Party not for its radicalism but for its caution. They are a more radical, more interventionist, more socially democratic Democratic Party.


So…so…while I admit that Mr. Olsen may have it right, and I confess to be very much afraid of what is to come…maybe, just maybe, I’ll hold on to the hope that he has it wrong. And that America is not what he thinks it is. And that American voters…


Have more courage and conviction than he believes.


~mjt




Source: “Democrats remain clueless on how to prepare for the midterms,” Henry Olsen, Washington Post, Nov 15, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/15/democrats-remain-clueless-how-prepare-midterms/



Copyright©2021 Michael Jay Tucker

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