This year’s political tea leaves

Much like a weather forecast, political polls become more accurate as you get closer to the target moment.  As of now, it looks as if the Democrats are in for a well deserved epic drubbing.  My freelance opinion is that, in spite of traditional party loyalties, folks are really upset with all of the stupid tyrannies being thrown at us.  It began with the authoritative BS that sprang from the recent pandemic (remember 20-second hand-washing and face masks?) — and continues unabated over weather, ethnic hypersensitivity, public fiscal policy, and even the mandated lifestyles of animals being raised just for the meat on their bones.

One of the pioneers of political polling, Burns W. Roper, got burned by predicting Harry Truman’s defeat at the hands of Thomas Dewey in 1948.  Some have suggested that the third-party Dixiecrat bid by Strom Thurmond was going to peel enough Democrat votes away from Truman to give the election to Dewey.  BTW, Mr. Roper was also the person who gave me my first drink of Scotch whiskey (but not the last).

Though he took great pleasure in exulting over the Chicago Tribune’s famously erroneous headline announcing Dewey’s victory, Truman was a reluctant candidate.  According to William Manchester, Truman had a meeting with Eisenhower where he got down on his knees and begged Ike to run in his place.  Having never registered to vote, no one knew what party Ike really preferred.  This raises the question: before he descended down the Trump Tower escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015, who knew, or cared to know, that Donald Trump was a Republican?

One thing Mr. Trump definitely is not…is a politician.  If he were, he’d choose his words more carefully, and he wouldn’t be nearly as popular.  Earth to the swamp: America is burned out on politics.  We are way beyond skeptical.  As Mr. Trump continues to be harassed by various prosecutors and other craven litigants, we only continue to distrust and dislike you and support him even more.  The office-holders of a democratic republic are mostly supposed to fix potholes; provide police, jails and courts; and defend the realm from foreign invaders.  You’re not needed to tell us what to eat, where to live or how to think.

Taxing potential profits (AKA unrealized capital gains); forbidding the use of gas cooking stoves; making our daughters share bathrooms with people who are not female — is not a pathway to popularity, other than with the screwballs from whom you take direction.  A fair amount of this anger is not yet reflected in polls.  November is a long way off, and many things can happen before then.

Being that there’s a political eternity between now and November’s election, what could possibly take place in the interim?  Currently, the global situation is disturbingly in turmoil.  Beyond military conflicts, there are still a lot of financial stability issues bouncing around.  Bidenomics is not the only dumb idea causing profound discontent.  The media are enhancing this problem — either through ignorance or complicity.  Yes, the stock market is at new highs — but the numbers are expressed in dollars, which have recently lost a lot of their value.  Retail sales statistics are also artificially bumped up by higher prices due to inflation.

Of particular importance, beyond the presidential contest, is the fact that only ten Republican senators are up for re-election this year — while 23 Democrats are.  Can you say “coattails”?  Should Trump continue to dominate Biden and Biden remain the Democrats’ only choice for nomination…many prognosticators may fall in line with me.

What particularly frightens professional Democrats about Trump is his appeal to ordinary blue-collar folks.  This vast component of the electorate has been traditionally held captive by the Dems — until Trump came along, speaking their language.  All the while, the professional Republicans have ceded these folks to the Dems…even though the Democrat agenda has been exceedingly harmful to their standard of living.  Trump’s abbreviated first presidency made these people significantly more prosperous.  This transcends the usual leftist nonsense burping out of the mouths of Dem-dogmatics.

Current polling data show a serious defection.  The descendants of former slaves are finally escaping from the Democrat plantation.  Trying to buy them back by offering reparations just isn’t doing the job.  This tactic could possibly work were it not so ridiculously generous and unconnected to anything like a realistic funding source.  These folks have largely been kept in line via the enforced ignorance resulting from the national shame of corrupt inner-city public schools.  But the scam is so obvious that even the victims of that process are catching on…in droves.

Harkening back to the election campaign of 1960, the Good Humor ice cream trucks offered two kinds of popsicle: the Kennedy and the Nixon.  The results were inconclusive, and the election was an epic squeaker, but it was at least worth a try.  Meanwhile, as this is being scratched out, Biden’s renomination just fell under serious doubt.  A special prosecutor just announced that our current president was/is not mentally capable of intentionally mishandling confidential government documents — years back, when he was vice president.

Image: dragonflysky via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0.