What MAY Help Democrats Salvage the 2022 Midterms

There are certain things which happen with such inexorable repetitiveness that you can simply count on them. A clock strikes 12 every hour on the hour. Unless of course it’s my crappy Fitbit, which has taken to losing six to eight minutes per hour, which I didn’t think was even possible since the damn watch is digital, and is supposed to be linked to some magical clock from God in Greenwich, England or some shit. Anyway, I digress. I apologize profoundly.

But seriously, the Fitbit isn’t being asked to run the electrical grid or monitor incoming Russian nukes. It has one flippin’ job, which is to tell me the correct time, and show me some purple feet doing a happy dance on the rare occasions when I drag my ass away from Steve Kornacki analyzing voting trends in Idaho long enough to walk 10,000 steps. Actually that’s two jobs, which I certainly didn’t figure out by looking at my Fitbit.

In any event, another thing that you can count on is that a political party which recaptures the White House will get wiped out in the next midterm elections. This has happened every such midterm for more than 60 years, the only exception being the 2002 midterm where the Republican Party benefited from the patriotic fervor and rally-around-the-president dynamics which followed 9/11. Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, have all seen their parties eviscerated the next time that voters had a chance to weigh in.

This isn’t because large numbers of the president’s supporters suddenly change their mind and defect to the other side. It’s really not about persuasion or changes in voter preferences at all. It’s about two things. Turnout! That’s actually one thing. Man, this Fitbit thing has me really discombobulated.

The president’s supporters are invariably disappointed. That’s because, during the campaign, every presidential candidate promises to fix every problem mankind has ever faced. But the reality of government involves compromises, setting priorities, and abandoning efforts that don’t gain traction. Thus, the incumbent has never accomplished all that he promised to, and the voters, in their wisdom, don’t chalk it up to the difficulties of running a country and getting things through congress. Instead, they just assume it’s because the guy whose yard sign they had on their…