Tomorrow is Election Day, and by most accounts, it’s going to be an electoral disaster for the Democratic Party.  Yet in spite of poll after poll showing that “It’s the Economy Stupid!” to quote the ragin’ Cajun James Carville, Democrats seem to want to talk about everything but the economy. This is not surprising since inflation is at its worst in almost 50 years, with no signs of slowing anytime soon, and rising interest rates are once again putting purchasing a home out of the reach of a large segment of the middle class. 

So how did we get here?  Joe Biden was cast (or hidden in his basement and sold) as the President of normalcy, the sultan of calm and rational, and the safe bet to restore America to whatever it was before 2016. Unfortunately, then Joe opened his mouth and called half the country virtual fascists, passed a so-called “Inflation Reduction Act” that did nothing of the sort, and generally went around the country saying to voters concerned about the rising costs of gas, groceries, and just about everything else- “Who are you going to believe?  Me and my media minions, or your wallet? C’mon man…MAGA!”  What voters were expecting once the onerous and overdone COVID restrictions were lifted was a return to Donald Trump’s booming economy of 2019, and they were sorely disappointed.

More importantly, Democrats started going off the rails on the culture war as well.  It’s a truism that in good times, voters argue about the culture, and in bad times, voters are concerned about their wallets.  This election, the Democrats have managed to turn off voters on both topics.  Democrats completely missed the lessons of last year’s Virginia state elections.  Parents, concerned about the direction of local schools, were branded domestic terrorists for daring to question their children being exposed to drag queen shows and being recommended sexually explicit books by their increasingly partisan and woke teachers. As a result, a resurgent Republican party swept the highest statewide offices and regained control of the House of Delegates, and almost regained control of the State Senate. Suburban women made up the difference, and Democrats completely missed or ignored this fact. Now, these same suburban women, the often called “soccer moms,” are once again swinging to the Republican Party, concerned about the increasing sexual antics of their local school systems, libraries, and other liberal-dominated institutions. 

So what do the Democrats do?  Reverse course and tack to the middle in an attempt to fool the voters into thinking they’ve moderated their extreme positions on gender issues, radical environmentalism, or other topics?  Nope, they’ve doubled down, and now that their election prospects continue to sink, they’ve ratcheted up the rhetoric on calling Republicans, conservatives, or anyone else that questions their wore orthodoxy Nazis, child killers, and a danger to democracy.

So stay tuned tomorrow…it’s going to be a long night full of surprises and probably a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth by the Democratic Party that once again seemed ascendant just a short two years ago.