I honestly don’t know what world Stephen Moore is living in. In his piece at The Hill he says that “Democrats will pay a price for hurting the economy”:
Come fall, it is highly probable that the economy and the stock market will still be greatly hobbled by the aftermath of the lockdowns. There will be a massive amount of human suffering that results from what our politicians have done to our lives and our jobs. Americans are also likely to observe an economy that gets much better in red states than in blue states.
Voters will see the chaos in cities led by Democrats, particularly New York and Los Angeles. They will see people fleeing from blue states in the north to red states in the south, where businesses are treated like assets instead of criminals. They will realize that Democrats are the party of welfare, high taxes, and more government restrictions on the private economy.
The real world is practically the opposite of the one which he imagines. The major media outlets control the message and the message is that Democrats have saved millions from death while Trump’s response to the crisis was and continues to be incompetent and Republicans are indifferent to all of those deaths.
Nearly 80% of House seats are “safe”. That won’t change until after reapportionment in 2021 and probably not even then.
There’s also this. Ineffectual and incompetent government action makes a case for more government action in a way that good and effective government action does not. How else can you remedy the unwanted effects produced by previous bad action? Most people aren’t willing to leave that to markets or the good will of the rich and powerful.
Sweden will be used as the counter-factual to beat over the heads of those who would have done a lot less and as of this writing it looks very unlikely that Sweden’s situation will improve enough to counter that argument. It’s outbreak is worse than ours and its worse than its neighbors that implemented more stringent lockdowns.
I don’t even read these anymore and there are so many of them on all sides. These are usually just partisans engaged in wishful thinking.
Sweden’s COVID-19 case and death count may be worse than its neighbors. Is its overall death rate less or more? That’s a number that’s not mentioned. How many cancers, cardiac problems and other deadly diseases aren’t being diagnosed in time during the lockdown? How many more people are dying of opiod overdoses from lack of access to care or Narcan? How many more suicides has there been more than normal? Not being reported.
That’s been the problem. The MSM is acting as if COVID-19 is the ONLY disease that kills people, therefore justifying any and all actions to reduce that number and ONLY that number. And screw the rest of the gamut of fatal diseases, as well as the economic hardship that’s been imposed through no fault of the populace. The false dichotomy of huddle in place or you want to kill granny is evil.
The difference in the economies and attitudes between the more lockdown states and less lockdown states is becoming more and more clear. More and more people are giving the mini-tyrants the finger and getting on with their lives. And that attitude and the overreaching authoritarianism is eroding the rule of law. Never, NEVER issue an order that you don’t expect to be obeyed. Inslee and Whitmer and Cuomo and Wolf & Co. are doing that and having tantrums as a result.
And we STILL have almost six months to go before the election. What’s the next existential panic going to be and when will it hit? How many of them will we have before the election? How many impeachments are we going to have before the election as well? Stay tuned. It’s every day’s a new catastrophe any more.
Agree with Andy. I have no idea what happens between now and the election. People will mostly find justifications to support the tribe to which they belong. The few who arent committed to a specific tribe are more likely to be influenced by something happening closer to the election. If you are a pundit and dont have anything useful to write you can always do one of these columns.
Steve
Heh. Or we could deal with documents and common sense. John Solomon and Sara Carter had this nailed two years ago, on background.
https://www.redstate.com/bonchie/2020/05/19/breaking-infamous-susan-rice-email-finally-declassified-deals-directly-with-michael-flynn/
Deny, deny, deny if you want. Credibility is fleeting…………..
It is not fleeting Drew, you never had it.
Steve
I divide the country into 3 groups: lean left; lean right; flexible. Those firmly entrenched in left to right spectrums use confirmation bias, if nothing else, to rationalize voting in the same partisan rut, time after time. Those, more rooted in how policies of a given candidate effects them and their families, tend to be up for grabs during election cycles. This last group, “independents,†have also evolved into the largest voting block.
Even though indies do have left/right proclivities, their loyalties are greatly determined by what they see is best for them and their hopes for the future. When life circumstances and/or government tenets change, this is the group who is susceptible to forgo party labels, choosing leadership
most likely to fulfill what they want out of life.
Because of the responses to this pandemic life has undergone some drastic changes. IMO, people not beholden to any political party, will vote in ways that reflect how they feel about these changes. I personally think the lockdown is undergoing the law of diminishing returns, in that public sentiment is veering away from pandemic concerns to shelter in place fatigue and anger, especially noted in blue state governorships. And, even though the MSM seems to control the messaging, fewer people are listening or believing them. So, IMO, the upcoming election may surprise a lot of political junkies, in that it will be inscrutable to predict until it’s over.
I know, steve. I know. Remain mired in your dogma.
Its all coming out.
Not that you care one whit, steve. But this pretty much says it.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/17/the-left-is-what-it-once-loathed/
The shorter version is: the ends justify the means, and we’ve got the media voice to grease the wheels.
The irony of a conservative saying that is beyond ridiculous.
Steve