<Life Could Be Worse.../The Reckoner>
I've never bought the narrative that the Democrats' midterm doom is done and dusted. Even before the Roe bombshell dropped, and splattered in the Republicans' laps, I had the sneaking feeling that the guys striving so hard to retool themselves into an authoritarian party, as their Hungarian and Polish cohorts have done, might do something to overreach.
<We Feel Your Pain.../The Reckoner>
We've seen this midterm movie before, notably in 1998, when Bill Clinton overcame the last serious impeachment challenge mounted against a sitting President. Thanks to special prosecutor Kenneth Starr's $50 million pursuit of his sex life, Clinton led the Democrats to a seemingly improbable comeback that fall. As much as I loathed Clinton's chronic shapeshifting, I silently thanked him for helping to usher Newt Gringrich off the national stage, where he's largely remained, ever since. Good on you, BIll. Job well done, and all that.
<We Sure Do Suck.../The Reckoner>
These days, it's a different ball game, one largely powered by the blistering anger that greeted the fallout of losing Roe. Gas prices are finally falling, which removes a major plank of Republican antagonism if the trend continues. As if that weren't enough, the constant bombshells dropped by the January 6th Special Committee have chipped away at the force field surrounding one Donald Trump.
Undeterred, he apparently plans to announce a third Presidential bid this fall, something that Republicans apparently welcome as much as they relish the chance to defend the spectacle of 10-year-old mothers, which represents the logical conclusion of a brutalist party that only sees women as walking incubators.
With all those factors falling into place, surely, the Democrats should have a field day, right? You know something funny's going on when the latest GOP phenom, Senate candidate JD Vance, is polling nine points behind his Democratic opponent, Tim Ryan, whose natural charisma falls somewhere between watching paint dry -- and listening to paint dry.
<Hey, Give Us Another Chance.../The Reckoner>
And yet -- and yet -- we've been caught in other midterm movies, notably 2020, where the Democrats fell into their famous groove of beating themselves, like the Buffalo Bills or Cleveland Browns of old. That's what inspired me to create these images. Yes, they're satire, but not so far off the mark.
Don't forget, there's a reason we see the "lesser evil" type of campaign, over and over, as Biden demonstrated in 2020 ("I'm not running against the Almighty. Consider the alternative"). It's the kind of campaign that the corporate consulting class -- who really runs the Democratic Party -- feels most comfortable running.
What do you do, when you haven't learned a new trick in decades? You slip on the old shoe, metaphorically speaking. It's comfortable, it's familiar, it fits. Case closed. What else do you need?
<I'm H.P. Lovecraft,
And I Approved This Message...
The Reckoner>
Of course, the old shoe fits well -- until it doesn't, and suddenly, it feels awkward and inconvenient and irrelevant. Only then does it hit the wearer that they haven't made the best choice. Will that metaphor fit the Democratic Party, as it girds up for battle, and fend off what so many talking heads claim is all too inevitable? Or will they, against all odds, get some measure of their mojo back?
Well, here's one way they could do it, if they bothered. Next time, give those of us who supported them some sort of return on the investment. But don't mind me, it's just a passing fancy.
In that spirit, I'll end this post with a slight update of my last graphic. If you've read this blog at all closely, you'll remember seeing it during the 2020 campaign, when it felt like all the wheels were tumbling off the American democratic experiment, as they call it. Time will tell on that score, too, but for H.P. Lovecraft fans, enjoy this image once more. After all, there's a reason why they say you only get one true love, right? There you go, then. -- The Reckoner
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