Is Democracy Doomed?

 One the one hand, we have brave people in Ukraine and Iran laying their literal lives on the line for the right to rule themselves.

On the other hand, in this country, we have one of two political parties basically give up on the idea of governing. We've seen this over time, but the 2020 GOP decision to not have a platform beyond "Trump iz gud" was a turning point. We see this carry over into the midterm strategy from the GOP. Taking a cue from Trump himself, the GOP platform is basically a lazy series of trolling spasms. That the video extolling their plan consisted of images from Russia is...I mean Jeebus. 

But the reality is that they have no plan anyway. You can not get a single specific plan out of the GOP that does not involve the following:

- A nationwide abortion ban
- Putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block
- Cutting taxes on the rich

That's it. That's not what they are running on, because that shit is toxic. Instead they are running on, more often than not, a series of blatant lies and substance-free attacks.

Our immigration system is, indeed, broken. The use of asylum claims has overwhelmed the immigration system - though the people claiming asylum might have a pretty good claim. The GOP has no plan to fix it, they just want you to be afraid of some carpenter named Jesus.

Crime is a bit up from before the pandemic, but it's down since last year. Doesn't matter. The GOP is going to run on crime being out of control. American Carnage 2.0.

Inflation is still a thing, but with gas prices coming down, consumer confidence is picking up. It is not, however, where Biden and Democrats would like it to be.

So, there are real issues on the table. We need to fix our immigration system; we need to reduce crime; the economy needs a soft landing. The GOP has advanced exactly zero plans for dealing with this. Why should they? Fear-based politicking has worked for them before and it will work for them again.

Also, while I think Biden's political instincts are routinely underrated, he is not a great spokesman for the party, because he's just not a great speaker. There really isn't a "Holy Shit" orator out there like Obama or Bill Clinton...except those guys are still around.

Democrats - when they are in power - are inevitably cleaning up the mess made by GOP misgovernance. Since it takes years to clean that up, the midterms usually strip them of at least one house of Congress, making it harder to truly reform things. The GOP doesn't need an agenda, it just needs people angry and afraid.

My hope is that Dobbs is enough of a jolt when combined with January 6th to buck this trend and allow the Democrats to have a good midterm, hold the House and build enough of a majority in the Senate to codify Roe. Like Josh Marshall, I'm a little concerned that we don't have a clear message on this yet.

October is coming. There's no time to lose or else a party that has no positive governing agenda will be able to further erode this country's ability to rule itself.