It’s starting to look that way. Let’s start with a bit of theater of the absurd.
The day began with a disastrous miss on the September jobs report. While Zhou tried to talk it up—reading from a teleprompter—reliable regime apologists were stunned. Per TGP:
Biden’s disastrous jobs report was so bad that it shocked the CNBC panel as the numbers rolled in during a live broadcast
CNN said it’s the worst jobs report of the year.
Zhou went on to regale the nation with one of his trademark “national addresses”. I’m betting few in the nation bothered to even find out that he was yammering—I think that’s the mot juste—about … 'restoring protections for national monuments'. Apparently Zhou’s genius handlers think that’s the ticket to digging his way out of their hole to China. They’re shoveling as fast as they can in an effort to catch up with his poll numbers and turn them around.
Meanwhile, in the Legislative Branch—and in the 50/50 Senate in particular—things are going from bad to worse. It seems Kyrsten Sinema took Zhou’s unfathomably stupid remark about her badly—when Zhou suggested that having loons chase Sinema into a publish bathroom while filming her was “part of the process”. Sinema was so unamused that she is reportedly not returning Zhou’s phone calls:
The normal course in Washington is that if the president calls, you answer the phone or return the call immediately. Making Biden possibly wait days is a big-time power move that reasserts the dynamics at play. If the president felt he had leverage, he’s being reminded that he doesn’t.
And did you hear the one about how Joe Manchin, speaking to reporters, savaged Chuck Schumer’s attack on the GOP, then doubled down by telling Schumer to face that Schumer’s speech was “f*cking stupid.” People say Manchin didn’t like Schumer before that incident.
Nor are things looking up in the House. The antics of the Dems have not gone unnoticed, and the far Left looks to drag the not-as-far-Left down with them in public estimation. Red State quotes from the recent Quinnipiac generic vote poll:
Quoting from the Quinnipiac top line on voter preference to control Congress:
Americans were asked, if the election were held today, would they rather see the Republican Party or the Democratic Party win control of the United States House of Representatives. Forty-six percent say they would rather see the Republican Party win control, while 43 percent say the Democratic Party, with 11 percent not offering an opinion. In September, 42 percent said the Republican Party, 45 percent said the Democratic Party, and 14 percent did not offer an opinion.
Among registered voters, 47 percent say they would rather see the Republican Party win control, while 44 percent say the Democratic Party, with 9 percent not offering an opinion. In September, 43 percent of registered voters said the Republican Party, 47 percent said the Democratic Party, and 11 percent did not offer an opinion.
“Though the numbers are not overwhelming, they signal a potentially ominous trend for Democrats as a plurality of voters recommend tossing out the party that controls the House,” adds Malloy.
To fully appreciate this, at this point in 2020, the Democrats had a six-point RCP Average lead in the generic ballot. On election day, that lead was 6.8 points (again RCP Average). Despite this, the GOP gained 11 seats in the 2020 election.
Again quoting Red State, to sum things up:
Biden overplayed his hand [with Sinema], just as Nancy Pelosi did on the congressional side of things. You cannot dictate to people that you have no leverage over. ...
As for Republicans, I know some were upset with McConnell’s move to offer a short-term debt ceiling deal, but what that did is take the one piece of leverage Democrats had, i.e. playing chicken over a default, off the table. Now, with the reality in play that nothing is going to get done in 2022 because it’s an election year, the Democrats are left to civil war with each other. Any possible pressure on Manchin and Sinema to make a filibuster exception was relieved. Lastly, Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi are left at the tender mercies of an Arizona senator who is not into playing games.
Naturally there are Dems out there who see all this happening, who read the polls and can also read tea leaves. That’s what Ezra Klein’s humongously long article in the NYT is all about—the debate among the Dems:
What Klein does is contrast the views of Dem analyst David Shor with those of most other Dem analysts. In other words, he presents the state of the internal Dem debate. What I’ve done is excerpt the essence of Shor’s argument—please be aware that, to provide a continuous read these are edited excerpts:
President Biden’s agenda is in peril. Democrats hold a bare 50 seats in the Senate, which gives any member of their caucus the power to block anything he or she chooses, at least in the absence of Republican support. And Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are wielding that leverage ruthlessly.
But here’s the truly frightening thought for frustrated Democrats: This might be the high-water mark of power they’ll have for the next decade.
Democrats are on the precipice of an era without any hope of a governing majority.
...
At the heart of Shor’s frenzied work is the fear that Democrats are sleepwalking into catastrophe. Since 2019, he’s been building something he calls “the power simulator.” It’s a model that predicts every House and Senate and presidential race between now and 2032 to try to map out the likeliest future for American politics. He’s been obsessively running and refining these simulations over the past two years. And they keep telling him the same thing.
We’re screwed in the Senate, he said. Only he didn’t say “screwed.”
...
But it’s 2024 when Shor’s projected Senate Götterdämmerung really strikes. ... If 2024 is simply a normal year, in which Democrats win 51 percent of the two-party vote, Shor’s model projects a seven-seat loss, compared with where they are now.
...
First, educational polarization has risen sharply in recent years, particularly among white voters. ... Then, in 2020, Democrats lost ground among Black and Latino voters, with the sharpest drops coming among non-college voters.
... educational polarization is serving here as a crude measure of class polarization.
...
[That] puts Democrats at a particular disadvantage in the Senate, ... This is why Shor believes Trump was good for the Republican Party, ... “Sure, maybe he underperforms the generic Republican by whatever,” Shor said. “But he’s engineered a real and perhaps persistent bias in the Electoral College, and then when you get to the Senate, it’s so much worse.”
...
The second problem Democrats face is the sharp decline in ticket splitting — ...
The days when, say, North Dakota’s Republicans would cheerfully vote for a Democrat for the Senate are long past.
...
Democrats are on the edge of an electoral abyss. To avoid it, they need to win states that lean Republican. To do that, they need to internalize that they are not like and do not understand the voters they need to win over. Swing voters in these states are not liberals, are not woke and do not see the world in the way that the people who staff and donate to Democratic campaigns do.
...
“If you look inside the Democratic Party, there are three times more moderate or conservative nonwhite people than very liberal white people, but very liberal white people are infinitely more represented. ... eventually they [conservative non-whites] will leave.”
The rest of this very long article presents other Dem analysts trying to talk their way out of this scenario. Whistling through the graveyard is probably the way Shor would describe that.
While I’m cautious of optimism regarding America coming to its senses, every day this regime does more and more to alienate normal people. The question is, what percent of Americans fall within my definition of normal, even in a broad sense?
As an example of just how bad the regime’s efforts at top down authoritarianism has gotten, I recommend this letter that the America First Legal Foundation wrote to IG Horowitz. It provides chapter and verse to show that the coordinated Zhou regime attack on parents was a calculated strategic move that was planned at the highest levels. The heavyhandedness and potential for blowback should be obvious. That the regime went ahead with it anyway is remarkable.
Speaking of the Democrats, holy %@#!, has everyone seen this Biden clip?
https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1446208099853942784?
The funniest part is watching hack Neil Cavuto, or maybe hack Fox producers, pull away from Biden as soon as they realize what an absolute train wreck it is - and then not comment on what an absolute train wreck they just witnessed.
Imagine if this had been Trump (or Reagan or any other R President) during his presidency and not Biden - ya think the media would’ve ignored it?
"Though the numbers are not overwhelming, they signal a potentially ominous trend for Democrats."
That the numbers are close to the margin of error is a searing indictment of McConnell's and the GOPe's complicity. Ineptitude could not possibly account for the Senate's failure to bedevil Biden the way that Schumer's minority hamstrung Trump. While the country falls apart the GOPe approves Biden's radical cabinet choices. While Biden buries the country in debt the GOPe gives Biden breathing room by keeping the government open via a debt ceiling patch. Etc., etc., etc.,
The GOP is without a rudder. As appalling as Biden has been, it is instructive to see that the people of this country barely favor the GOP over the Biden Clown Car. At this point if we have a nuclear exchange with China that destroys half the country, the GOP might pick up 1-2 points in favorability. The country is in an existential battle with a hugely powerful entrenched interests within. As we slip inexorably into leftist tyranny and a Weimar Republic-style debt disaster, the GOP is worried about being blamed for shutting down the government. Heck, even if "we" win in 2022 why should we expect things to improve? As Strother Martin said it Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Morons. I've got morons on my team."