Democrats Will Have To Make Some Changes, And Fast

You can’t blame the Democrats for spinning the fact that their losses fell short of worst-case scenarios. But elections are arithmetic, not calculus. A loss is a loss. Democrats lost the midterms.

Why They Lost

History: In a two-party system, voters express anger and annoyance by lashing out at the party in power. They elect a president, get pissed at crimes of commission and omission, and punish the incumbents by voting for the other party two to four years later. This tendency worked against them.

Weak Leadership: We live during an era of unprecedented connectivity. You can place a phone call to Mongolia for free. You can see a picture of what someone in Botswana had for dinner a minute ago. Voters want to hear from their president more than ever before—yet Biden, no doubt due to his advanced age and fading mental acuity, followed the longstanding trend of chief executives who give fewer primetime presidential addresses and press conferences than their predecessors. No wonder the number of voters who think Biden cares about people like them keeps plummeting. They feel disconnected from him.

Denying Voters’ Reality: Who are you going to believe, us or your lying eyes? Voters’ top issue this year was the economy, specially inflation. Biden dismissed rising prices as a temporary blip while—political malpractice alert!—failing to emphasize a far more important economic indicator, low unemployment. Citizens worried about rising violent crime; Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) dismissed their concerns as “people’s feelings” while accusing Republicans of being “dishonest” about the issue, and almost lost a race that should have been a cakewalk. Even if you don’t have a solution for their problems, voters want to be “seen.” Donald Trump didn’t do anything about deindustrialization but Rust Belters loved him for being the first president to call out NAFTA.