An Unforced Error

Rule #1 of Momentum Is You Don’t Do Anything That Can Slow or Stop Your Momentum.

Originally, I was going to write about something else I had planned, but instead, I have to comment on one of this past week’s biggest stories.

Everyone knows the Democrats have had a tough year. Thanks mainly to inflation and high gas prices, which Democrats didn’t cause but which they took far too long to acknowledge were real problems while they squabbled amongst themselves about a spending bill no one outside their base really knew or cared much about, President Biden’s polling numbers plummeted, and all predictions had them getting absolutely wiped out in the November midterms. And that has had those of us who see the Republican Party for what it really is completely dismayed and terrified.

But over this summer, especially during the past several weeks, you might have noticed that things were changing. In fact, you could almost say Democrats have been on a roll. Consider:

• They’ve passed a number of bills, some with bipartisan support, that will lower prescription drug prices, help veterans, improve gun control, take meaningful steps to address climate change, bring back some American manufacturing jobs, and more. Those are things President Biden has signed into law. There are others that may get there yet.

• Some of the nutcases Republicans nominated for Senate races are floundering, some of them badly. It now looks like about even money that Democrats hold the Senate or maybe even expand their majority by a seat.

• The Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which, despite the smug and non-credible reassurances from Justice Alito to the contrary, not only ended women’s 50-year-old Constitutional right to make their own pregnancy decisions but also laid the basis for overturning rights such as those about same-sex marriage, contraception, and interracial marriage, has galvanized Democratic turnout.

• Horror stories about teenage rape victims being denied abortions and a mother and her daughter facing an abortion-related criminal probe after authorities obtained their Facebook Messenger conversations have also helped harden views against the Republican Party.

• Democrats have won some special elections and have outperformed their prior performance in some they haven’t.

• President Biden’s favorability rating has gone back up to the low 40s, still dismal but a welcome improvement.

• Democrats now lead Republicans in the generic ballot that asks people which party they’d support for their Congressional district if the election were held that day. It’s not proof that Democrats will hold the House, but it’s an encouraging development.

• Job creation remains high and unemployment remains low.

• Inflation and gas prices, while still high, have been subsiding.

So yes, things have been looking up for the Democrats. I’ve felt a cautious optimism that I haven’t felt since November 2020 when I believed, wrongly as it turned out, that voters would not just fire Donald Trump but would also vote out Republicans up and down the ballot.

What, then, given their momentum, do the Democrats decide to do to keep it rolling into November?

They decide it would be a good idea to cancel up to $10,000, and up to $20,000 in some cases, of student-loan debt for a relatively small slice of the population.

Now, before you get mad at me, please let me say that I know college costs have become outrageous and that a lot of people feel crushed by their college debt. Also, as a father of 3 teens, one of whom is a high-school senior this year, I very much do not look forward to paying for their college tuition, nor do I like knowing that they will graduate with some of that debt hanging over them.

It’s a sad sign of our times that on two issues where just about everyone agrees– that college tuition has gotten out of control and the airlines really, really need to (metaphorically) be brought back down to Earth– you would think that we could come together to fix these things but, not surprisingly, we can’t.

If you’re one of the people who stands to benefit from this cancellation, you probably are very happy. I don’t blame you; I would be, too.

And it’s good that they decided to make an income cutoff (which I would argue is still far too high) so that surgeons, investment bankers, and corporate lawyers aren’t getting a handout at the expense of people who in their lifetimes won’t earn what some of them earn in a year.

But it’s still bad politics, and bad timing.

I’ve read thoughtful, well-explained analyses by people who know more than I do about these things that this is good policy, and I’ve read thoughtful, well-explained analyses by people who know more about these things than I do that this is bad policy.

On the whole, I’m more convinced that it’s bad policy, but reasonable, good-faith people can disagree, and I may turn out to be wrong about this being bad policy.

Nevertheless, it’s bad politics, maybe terrible politics.

• Most Americans do not go to college. For some, that’s a choice, but for others, it’s because of limited opportunities, the inability to pay even if loans are available, or poor school systems that do not leave them ready for college. However you spin it, people who didn’t go to college will see this as a handout to the “elites.” To be fair, I see their point.

• Over their lifetimes, most college graduates, even those who graduate with high levels of debt, will earn well more than most non-college graduates will.

• Many other Americans who are college graduates and have already paid off their loans are experiencing a WTF moment when it comes to this.

I’ve been trying to figure out what the thinking behind this was. So far, I can come up with 3 ideas:

• Realizing that the left-wing element of his party is frustrated that America is mostly a centrist nation, Biden agreed to the least-bad compromise to give them something to be happy about (spoiler alert: they won’t be).

• They think that this gesture, which will disproportionately benefit younger voters, who tend to vote D, will inspire them to show their gratitude in November. I rather doubt that, but I hope to be proven wrong.

• Biden, who, despite what you may hear on Fox News, is neither a senile or stupid man or politician even if he has, over his career, said and done a lot of stupid things, is gambling that our activist, radical Supreme Court majority will not be able to resist its proclivity to abuse its power while it still has it and will strike the whole thing down, which will be a political win for Biden because he’ll be able to say that he tried but that once again, the radicals on the Supreme Court have blocked progress.

While I hope #3 is the thinking, I have trouble thinking that, given all the other tone-deaf politics the last couple of years, the Democrats are actually that strategically thinking. But hey, maybe James Carville or his political heir has stepped up. One can only hope.

Even though people are saying the executive order will be hard to challenge because it will be difficult to establish standing to sue, I have no doubt that right-wing judges from the federal level to the SC will “find” reasons to let a suit proceed and then strike it all down.

That’s what I hope happens, that the SC, in its blind far-right ideology, will save the Democrats from themselves because they just hate the Democrats too much to see the better play.

If that happens, I’m sorry to those of you who will again be on the hook for your debts, but you’ll get past this even if it takes years. You’ll get there.

With all the mean-spiritedness, bad faith, authoritarianism, and democracy subversion that the Republicans are putting front and center every single day, you would think that the messaging for Democrats would be clear:

• We know gas prices and inflation are hurting you, and we’re trying to bring them down. The Republicans have offered no plan other than voting against us.

• Republicans are doing all they can to make it harder for people to vote because they know low turnout benefits them. We want every eligible American voter to be able to participate in our democracy, with effective and reasonable safeguards against fraud.

• While the party of law and order and “Back the Blue” now screams to “Defund the FBI” because the FBI executed a warrant approved by a Trump-appointed judge, we support fully funding and equipping our police while also seeking reasonable reforms.

• In state after state, Republicans are running candidates who, if elected, will be in positions to nullify their states’ electoral votes in 2024 if they don’t like the results. This will throw our entire system into chaos and perhaps worse.

• We Democrats know we have our share of loons, but we as a party do not nominate, embrace, and fund candidates who espouse conspiracy theories, fetishize weapons of war, and encourage political violence.

Why is this so hard to do? Why are Democrats so bad at messaging? Why did they decide to interrupt their momentum with a move that may alienate swing voters at a time when they really need to get them on board and seemed to be getting them on board?

None of this is to suggest voting R or 3rd party in November. Please don’t.

But if you have a persuadable friend who is thinking of voting R because of inflation or something else, please share this or do your best to persuade him or her that voting R will only help set us on a dark trajectory that may culminate in the end of our representative democracy.