The Democrats’ November Debacle
David Finkel
November 5, 2021
It’s usual, of course, for the U.S. political party in power to take losses in off-year and midterm elections, blamed for whatever goes wrong and getting little credit for anything positive. That normal ebb and flow of the two capitalist parties is only exacerbated when that party is in office, but not really in power.
That’s the position the national Democratic Party finds itself in now, facing the paralytic effects of its own inability to deliver on its campaign promises, popular frustration with the pandemic and growing fear of inflation, and a highly aggressive and more-or-less coordinated rightwing drive toward “state capture” by all means fair, foul and fouler. Here we’ll only touch on the key themes.
What happened in the much-watched Virginia governor election is symptomatic: In every county, the Trump-lite Republican Glenn Youngkin came out well ahead of the Trump vote in the 2020 election, including among Black, Latinx and those proverbial “white suburban women” who were all repelled by Trump in 2020. And this is before extreme voter suppression and intimidation laws sweeping Republican-controlled state legislatures take full effect.
Conventional wisdom now is that the Democrats are in some deep crap heading toward the 2022 midterm elections, when their thin Congressional majorities are on the line — and this time that conventional wisdom is probably on target. A lot can happen in the year before the midterms, but the developments of recent months indicate a Democratic presidency and Congress slowly sinking in the mud.
The infrastructure bill and the Democrats’ “Build Back Better” legislation became impaled on the twin horns of the Republican filibuster and the obstruction of the Senator from Big Oil and Coal, Joe Manchin. Even if something gets passed in the end, which I’m guessing it probably will be, much of the political boost the Democrats would get from enacting “the President’s agenda” is already lost…
REBECCA KEMBLE IS a community activist and former member of the Madison, Wisconsin Common Council. This past summer she attended the blockade by Anishinaabe land protectors and allies against the construction of the new Enbridge Line 3 that cuts through their territory and threatens their treaty rights. Since then Enbridge has announced they have completed construction and are transporting tar sands oil. Meanwhile Indigenous protesters are still facing charges, and it was revealed that Enbridge has...
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Lee este artículo en español aquí .
“AI is neither artificial nor intelligent.” —Kate Crawford
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Luke: describe KC tenants for us.
Mak: KC Tenants is an organization led by a multi-generational, multi-racial, anti-racist base of poor and working-class tenants in Kansas City. We organize to ensure that everyone in Kansas City has a safe, accessible, and truly affordable home. We believe people...
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In my nearly fifty years of picketing and protesting for one cause or another, I’ve learned that brushes with police officers, much less their bosses, may not end well. So my first encounter, three years ago, with one of America’s most successful police chiefs was a novel experience. Then fifty-one-year-old Chris Magnus, a fair-haired...
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