Neil Young: Codger Power

The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sometimes you wake up in the morning, make the coffee, check the news and feel all hope is lost, like Frodo Baggins near the end of The Two Towers in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

That’s kind of how I felt on Sunday morning, when I wrote this.

Joe Biden Says China Will Eat Our Lunch: Are Americans a ‘Silly People’ Devolving into Tribalism?

But then another day, you wake up after sleeping a bit late, sip the first cup of coffee and read something that gives you more hope, like Samwise Gamgee in the same video, who says, “… there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”

So there’s an op-ed in Monday’s New York Times from Bill McKibben and Akaya Windwood that makes the case for codger power, and I’m like “hell yeah. I’m all in!”

Then I open the email from the Politico Playbook, and see that there is still some long shot hope for Democrats to hold off the silly Trump Republicans in the midterm elections in November.

Of course the lede is still this.

“The most likely November election scenario is that Republicans win the House and Senate. On average since World War II, the president’s party loses 26 House seats and four Senate seats in a midterm election.”

And of course the traditional indicators still point toward a typical midterm for Biden. A low presidential approval rating, he’s still at 42 percent, along with a Republican advantage of 44 percent to 42 percent over Democrats on the generic ballot, make this a long shot. Then more than twice as many Democrats are retiring from the House, 29, as Republicans, 13.

But according to Politico, at least, Democrats are beginning to “whisper” about something that sounds laughable to many observers: “Maybe they can win the midterms.”

Some recent developments have started to pierce the conventional wisdom about a Republican red wave in 2022. (That would be like a deadly red tide in the ocean that could kill a lot of people).

Democrats fear that Republicans in control of legislatures in key battleground states will use redistricting to shore up House districts and ensure GOP victories.

Yet “catastrophic losses from partisan gerrymandering that many Democrats feared have not materialized,” Politico says. “Despite decrying the process and pushing reform in Congress, Democrats did not unilaterally disarm. The hyper-aggressive map recently released by New York Democrats made it clear that the party may come out ahead in the process nationally.

“There aren’t many breaks Dems ‘haven’t’ caught in redistricting so far,” says Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

Much will depend on what the economy looks like this summer and fall, and the status of the coronavirus pandemic.

Polling shows that inflation is still a top priority for voters, and perhaps the main obstacle to Biden receiving higher marks on his handling of the economy.

But as Politico points out, unemployment is very low, growth is strong, and the latest jobs report was “phenomenal.”

“If inflation data released this Thursday shows a dip, Biden might be able to argue that the peak has been reached and the decline many economists predict this year is beginning.”

It also appears the Omicron wave has crested and a return to relative normalcy could be in sight.

Doug Sosnic of Brunswick Group argues that “there would need to be a series of developments in order for the Democrats to defy history.”

* The virus needs to be contained with the country returning to a new normal.

* Inflation needs to start going down by summer.

* The economy and the stock market need to maintain steady growth, particularly as interest rates begin to rise.

* The supply chain needs to return to normal.

* We need to avoid another global crisis, like a war in Ukraine.

* Biden’s job approval rating needs to be in the high 40s by summer.

* And last but not least, Republicans need to nominate unelectable general-election candidates and run lousy campaigns.

“They are capable of this and have done this in recent past cycles,” Sosnic says, choosing far-right candidates such as Todd Akin or Christine O’Donnell, who ended up losing in the general election.

If Trump and the Republicans continue trying to spread the “big lie” about the 2020 election and promoting insurrection, then smart, moderate Democrats who run good campaigns might be able to carry the day, at the end of the day, on November 8.

Then there’s one more piece of the calculus that Politico failed to mention, and I’m not sure how to put together this bit of math. How many anti-vax, anti-mask Republicans died from Covid over the past two years in key battleground states, versus how many poor, minority people died who might have been voters?

Could that also be a factor here? I do not know.

But I do know this. Democrats better stop being depressed about Covid and the economy and get busy. There’s no time like the present.

All hope may in fact be lost. Yet Democrats showed in 2020 that they can work altruistically together, if the existential threat is “huge” enough.

The billion dollar elephant, Donald Trump, is not technically on the ballot in 2022. His skulking shadow will hover over every race, however.

Smart candidates should be able to use that to their advantage. Will they get enough help from volunteers and raise the money they need to win?

What’s going on in your state?

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