Biden got it bluntly from McConnell Monday: “You do not want your unified Democratic government to sleepwalk toward an avoidable catastrophe [after] three months’ notice to do [its] job.” The President must have been desperate after getting punked by Congressional Democrats Friday, but it was all predictable. Told Build Back Better will increase taxes and the deficit, 71.5% of Americans don’t support the bill (source: Trafalgar Group). So much for the “uniter” president, right?
Nobody’s with Biden because he got no election mandate, especially for legislation akin to FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Morning Consult’s exit polls found 44% of Biden voters were primarily voting against Trump, meaning there were 35.7 million anti-Trump, 45.5 million pro-Biden, and 74.2 million pro-Trump voters. Quinnipiac now reports only 34% of independent voters support Biden. Everyone in Congress knows America’s just not that into you, Joe. And it gets worse.
Biden entered office unloved by 99 hard-left House Democrats (95 in Progressive Caucus and 4 Democratic Socialists), liked by 112 centrists (93 New Democrats and 19 Blue Dogs), and opposed by 212 Republicans. The politics are impossible. The GOP wants Biden to fail before the mid-terms, the leftists have “safe seats” in deep-blue precincts and don’t have to compromise, and the centrists are afraid their vote will help either a Republican or progressive unseat them. Mr. Biden’s feeling mighty alone.
Mitch McConnell, a political realist, said “no thanks” to Joe Biden. He sees progressives dissing centrists; thereby alienating independent voters and helping GOP mid-term prospects. He’s tuned into Main Street and knows the modern history of the House, where the trend is fewer Democrats (see chart below).
Democrats averaged 257 House seats in the 80s, but lost seats every decade until the Obama era invited the first GOP “majority decade” since Prohibition. Yes, Trump “extremism” gifted the House back to Democrats, but the smart money’s on the GOP in 2022.
The view here is grass roots America is trending away from liberal elitism (Green New Deal) and anarcho-globalism (open borders). This movement began in 1992 with Ross Perot, created the Tea Party in 2010, coalesced into MAGA in 2016, and sky-rocketed in 2020 (despite Trump’s odd-ball presidency).
1992 – 19.7 million votes to “upstart outsider” Ross Perot.
2010 – 44.5 million GOP mid-term votes in the Tea Party election
2016 – 62.9 million votes to “upstart outsider” Trump
2020 – 74.2 million votes to “orange man bad” Trump
The rising numbers are compelling, but the point here is that Democrats see and fear this Great America trend. Biden lacks confidence because he has no mandate. Centrists lack faith because they fear the mid-terms. Pelosi lacks muscle because her caucus expects her to lose the gavel. The hard-left sees this one shot to transform America into an entitlement state.
This Democrat panic moved two senators, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Susan Collins (R-ME), to inject some emotional patience into the political scrum. Manchin said hit the “pause” button until after the mid-terms. Collins said drop the Build Back Better bill in exchange for Republican support for raising the debt ceiling. Oops! I almost forgot. That would be the calm, bipartisan approach to governing America.