Salon writer Brian Karem cannot comprehend why, given the Jan. 6 hearings, which he sees as “a bright spot for Democrats,” and the “unconstitutional” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, the party is still losing the battle for hearts and minds. As he sees it, Democrats should be able to increase their majority in the Senate and even maintain control of the House on these two issues alone.
Add climate change to the mix, and the November midterms should be a layup, he said. After all, “We are dealing with a world literally on fire due to climate change.”
As delusional as this may sound, Karem’s thinking is representative of how the rest of the Democratic Party is approaching November. House Democrats have spent months hyping the Jan. 6 committee hearings with the hope that they will grab voters’ attention. Democratic leadership is also pouring tens of thousands of dollars into abortion-related campaign ads, especially in swing states, where they think abortion will save them at the polls.
But neither Jan. 6 nor abortion rank anywhere near the top of voters’ concerns. Democrats are, per usual, utterly out of touch with the electorate. When likely voters are asked to prioritize the issues that are most important to them, inflation, rising gas prices, and crime top the list. Abortion and the Jan. 6 hearings consistently rank near the bottom. And climate change ranked dead last in a YouGov/Economist poll released earlier this month.
Ironically, Karem seems to think these concerns are the Republican Party’s fault.
“Only the Republicans have a handle on how to energize their base, through fear and nostalgia for a time that never really existed,” he claimed. “The Republicans are just really good at scaring the s*** out of a large number of American voters, while placing eternal blame on the Democrats.”
Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for the public’s discontent. Perhaps more of the public would be interested in the Jan. 6 committee hearings if both sides of the aisle were fairly represented. But there is no genuine Republican representation among its members. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) vetoed House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) choices and chose the two Republicans who have dedicated their political careers to seeing who can hate former President Donald Trump the most.
The committee has also made it so that witness statements cannot be challenged. Cross-examination, an essential part of any trial and the fundamental right of every U.S. citizen, is not allowed. Add in the fact that every single person on the committee is a rabid anti-Trumper and it’s obvious that the committee’s findings and recommendations will be neither independent nor impartial. Is it any wonder, then, that the public stopped paying attention before the hearings even began? They can recognize a partisan sham when they see one.
On abortion, Democrats think they can win voters by lying to them. They’ve claimed that abortion is a constitutional right when even liberal legal scholars agree that it never was and that Roe v. Wade was wrong to try to make it one. They’ve also deliberately confused the public about what the overturning of Roe means for the states. Democrats would have Americans believe that, rather than simply returning authority over abortion to the states, it will be outlawed in America altogether. This is disinformation, the purpose of which is to drum up hysteria among voters they wouldn’t be able to win otherwise.
But unfortunately for the Left, the Democratic Party is still hemorrhaging independent and swing voters, the group that decides elections. One report found that thousands of suburban voters who once voted Democratic are becoming Republicans. In fact, across 31 states, two-thirds of the voters who have switched their official party registrations in the past year have switched to the GOP, the report found. Hispanic voters, especially, are leaving the Democratic Party for the GOP in droves. It’s no surprise, then, that Republicans top Democrats in nearly all generic congressional polls. The RealClearPolitics average gives the GOP a 2.5% advantage, which could be enough for Republicans to take back the House and Senate.
Democrats haven’t just misjudged the issues that are important to voters. In many cases, they’ve decided to ignore voters’ concerns altogether, deliberately putting their own agenda ahead of the best interests of the people they were elected to serve. And, come November, they’ll figure out what happens when Americans have decided they’ve had enough.
Elizabeth Stauffer is a contract writer at the Western Journal. Her articles have appeared on many conservative websites, including RedState, Newsmax, the Federalist, Bongino.com, HotAir, MSN, and RealClearPolitics. Follow Elizabeth on Twitter or LinkedIn.
