Conventional wisdom has certainly joined this Berean’s opinion that the next election is going to find the Democrats deeply underwater. We warned that inflation is one of those most sticky issues that everyone feels, and those that tolerate it pay the political price.* It’s not that we’re that great at political prognostication–it’s just that we’re on the back half of life, and this isn’t our first rodeo with significant inflation. I clearly remember the pain that inflation (and the slow growth that accompanied it), and I remember the misery index. Jimmy Carter was a nice guy, but he was doomed. And Joe Biden is not a particularly nice guy…..

There is much time between now and the mid-terms, and it’s possible something could arise that totally changes the equation. I wrote confidently that Donald Trump was on his way to reelection in Jan 2020–and then we had Covid. Obviously things can and do change. But Democrats are now in much more danger than a mere shellacking in this election–if they don’t change course and quickly, they are going to ruin their brand with centrists for quite a spell. They are on the edge of going over the line from “you and your policies haven’t been able to solve this mess” to “you are causing all these problems.” Conservatives have argued this forever, as in Ronald Reagan’s cry that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. But the middle is both more forgiving and more forgetting, and also much less engaged–their mental state is the epitome of what economists and political scientists call rational ignorance.

Yet when the middle is awakened from their slumber, they are particularly unhappy at being woken, and the issues that wake them are deeply personal. We’ve written extensively how inflation is one of those issues: when mama bear goes shopping, and her budget no longer is able to buy what she formerly could to care for her family, she is most certainly engaged. Democrats defiantly argued that their policies of aggressive fiscal stimulus would not have any inflationary effects. When inflation started ticking up, Mr. Biden insisted that no serious economist believed inflation was going to be a problem, that it was transitory, etc. Yet rather than acknowledge the obvious, even with last month’s inflation of 7.5%, Mr. Biden continues to trumpet his Build Back Better plan as the solution to rising costs–child care, medical costs, etc. Yet it is food, energy and housing that is causing so much pain to consumers. He seems totally disconnected from the problems that are actually hitting people the hardest. Here is the risk of this continued denial and advocacy of more spending: Americans may come to the conclusion that you are not only incompetent to deal with the problem, you are stubbornly unwilling to solve the problem as all you want to do is spend money on areas that are not their primary concern.

The other major issue which is sweeping the world is the fact that people are done–I mean done–with treating Covid as a pandemic. Polls everywhere tell us the majority thinks it’s time to move on. And nowhere is the more poignant to Americans as the continued forced masking of their young children in schools, despite the evidence that there is very low risk to young children, that masks offer relatively little protection for that small risk, and there are developmental and other mental health issues for kids because of continuing to treat Covid as an existential crisis. And the rank hypocrisy does not help:

Even many Democrats are furious with their party over the prioritization of unions over their children. As this Democratic mother wrote in The Atlantic:

Until recently, I was a loyal, left-leaning Democrat, and I had been my entire adult life. I was the kind of partisan who registered voters before midterm elections and went to protests. I hated Donald Trump so much that I struggled to be civil to relatives on the other side of the aisle. But because of what my family has gone through during the pandemic, I can’t muster the same enthusiasm. I feel adrift from my tribe and, to a certain degree, disgusted with both parties. I can’t imagine that I would have arrived here—not a Republican, but questioning my place in the Democratic Party—had my son not been enrolled in public kindergarten in 2020……

I kept hoping that someone in our all-Democratic political leadership would take a stand on behalf of Cleveland’s 37,000 public-school children or seem to care about what was happening. Weren’t Democrats supposed to stick up for low-income kids? Instead, our veteran Democratic mayor avoided remarking on the crisis facing the city’s public-school families. Our all-Democratic city council was similarly disengaged. The same thing was happening in other blue cities and blue states across the country, as the needs of children were simply swept aside. Cleveland went so far as to close playgrounds for an entire year. That felt almost mean-spirited, given the research suggesting the negligible risk of outdoor transmission—an additional slap in the face.

There is just a short distance for those in power between you are being ineffective at solving my problems to you are the cause of my problems. Lower level Democrats are clearly aware of this danger on Covid masking and mandates–governors are quickly saying we are going back to normal within a few weeks. Yet Mr. Biden stubbornly again said on Thursday that eliminating indoor mask requirements is probably premature, making the leader of the Democratic Party as one that does not seemingly want to move on from Covid.**

Mr. Biden–a political veteran of almost 50 years–is seemingly tone deaf to what the country is concerned about. It may not be just his poll numbers that crater, if Americans come to believe that his party is not only impotent in the face of these problems, but actively causing them. And the longer these problems continue, the more Republican criticisms of Democrats will increasingly ring true. The only solace for Democrats? Justin Trudeau may be just more tone deaf than Mr. Biden.

* And not just us; even our erstwhile commenter Jeff Adams warned of inflation well over a year ago on this blog.

** I personally had a lot of sympathy for the argument of shut down for two weeks to avoid the spike in hospitalization. I was less in sympathy, but understood the rationale behind much more stringent living conditions (to include masking) and had little trouble following it when there was no vaccine. And even after the vaccine came out, but was not widely available I didn’t have much problem masking up for others. But from the point where everybody that wanted a vaccine could get one, I’ve had little patience for those that insist we must all continue living in an emergency state. Fortunately for me, it’s been pretty normal living for many months here in my part of Ohio (with the exception of one plane flight where masks were required). Of course I have no problems with people who believe they should be extra careful and continue to mask up–I fully support and respect their choices for themselves.