Joe Biden had a smile on his face the morning after the midterms. That’s the look of someone who just escaped total disaster. At least for now.
The lesson they were all supposed to get with one decisive red wave never arrived. That is bad news for them. Or maybe it’s bad news for all of us who are much more worried about America at the hands of the Democrats.
For weeks, they parroted the mantra, again and again, politicians and media pundits, not to mention the blue-check army on Twitter, “Election Deniers,” were coming for your Democracy. We would never have a fair election again. President Obama heralded a new Gestapo who would kill people on the streets, jail journalists, and turn America into an authoritarian state.
All I could think was, we’re already halfway there, pal. It isn’t the Republicans we have to fear. They are traditionalists. It’s the Democrats who have amassed such an extraordinary amount of power by now and want to tear the country down to the studs and reimagine it as a woke utopia; even “Election Deniers” sounds like a better plan than keeping them in office.
“Election Denier” was cleverly tied to “The Big Lie” to make Trump supporters seem like a Nazi army. They’d been making that case for six long years. But the fascism we were promised never arrived. Even January 6th was not evidence of fascism, although try telling that to people who seem not to understand what the word even means. It’s useful, that’s all.
Writes Barton Swaim:
The term “denier” is an allusion to Holocaust denial. In the 1990s, activists and pundits exercised about global warming, or what is now called climate change, began calling their adversaries “deniers.” Those “deniers” included many people who accepted the reality of global temperature change but rejected the proposed remedies. Nonetheless, in an effort to delegitimize their views, their “denialism” was tacitly associated with a form of demented bigotry.
January 6th gave them what they needed to keep dehumanizing and demonizing half the country. Never let a crisis go to waste.
But even that wouldn’t have scared voters toward a historically failing president. They got their Deus ex machina in the form of an attack on Paul Pelosi delivered days before the midterms. It was a sketchy story involving a mentally ill nudist hippie transformed miraculously into a January 6th monster. Now, they had violence to attach to January 6th, “Election Deniers,” The Big Lie, and Trump.
“Vote for the side that won’t hit you with a hammer,” said Bill Maher.
The polls weren’t wrong, as it turns out. They reflected on what the election would have looked like if everyone had voted on Election Day. But there isn’t an Election Day anymore. There is an Election Season, at least for the Democrats.
Gone were the problems with enthusiasm and turnout. They didn’t even need candidates. They just needed to convince the hive mind to vote early, vote often, and vote blue.
The Dobbs decision was enough to push out those early votes, handing the win to Fetterman long before Election Day, just like they handed the win to Biden in Pennsylvania long before Election Day. Those five rallies a day Trump was doing meant he could only inspire some voters, but how could he ever catch up, especially if he was encouraging his supporters to wait until November 3rd?
They hid Fetterman like they hid Biden, all to bank those early votes. No doubt they had a lot of money to play with, operatives to drive around collecting ballots. We’ll have to wait and see just how much of 2020 informed 2022 when it came to voting. They have built for themselves a well-oiled machine, and if or until those laws change, the GOP will have to play along.
Florida did better because they did vote early. They banked the votes. The red wave began and ended there. Now, it isn’t the Democrats who learned the hard lesson. It’s the Republicans. Now they know.
The Democrats have another advantage coming out of 2020 – a compliant, obedient propaganda delivery device in the mainstream media. Fox News beats them in cable news ratings, but their narrative is everywhere. It’s on the wire services and local news outlets. They push the “official story.” It’s so ubiquitous it’s like elevator music. You barely notice.
Tucker Carlson is one of the few who noticed their outsize share of voice since consolidating their power in 2020.
