From all current indications, the American people will cede control of the next Congress to the Republicans in November’s midterm elections. This is suggested by both the surveys and the futures markets.
However, here are several factors – currently visible – that could potentially change the dynamics of the election.
1) The 1/6 Committee’s presentation of its findings regarding the insurrection
In June, the House Special Committee will present the American people with a dramatic picture of what led to the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The broad outline of this picture is familiar: A Republican president, backed by the majority of the party he continues to dominate, attempted to overthrow the American constitutional order, culminating in an attempted coup.
Americans are being shown crimes far more threatening to American democracy than those of Nixon uncovered in the Watergate hearings, which had a major impact on public opinion.
However, there are differences that may make these hearings less effective.
The Watergate hearings exposed a crime that President Nixon had successfully hidden from most Americans. Thus revealing the previously unknown changed opinions.
In contrast, the 1/6 Committee will be an integrated, expanded, and dramatic rendition of what should already be obvious to anyone paying attention to honest news sources.
How many American minds are open enough—and caring enough about democracy—to be moved by the dangerous reality the committee will reveal?
2) President Biden is trying to be the Churchill of this battle
While anyone who has sworn an oath to “defend the Constitution” is bound to denounce the ongoing lawlessness of the “Trump Party,” none is better placed to sound the needed alarm than the President. Only the resident – with his “Bully Pulpit” – can attract national attention at will.
However, it’s unclear how effective Biden can be in this type of fight in this role.
• Biden was most impressive behind the scenes (putting together his ‘Build Back Better’ package, unifying NATO when Putin threatened Ukraine). This role needs to be the focus.
• He is at his weakest as a public speaker. He lacks charisma. (And he never quite got over his stutter.) Perhaps his basic decency and honesty allow him to be believable (obviously to anyone whose mind hasn’t been poisoned by right-wing propagandists).
• And Biden is far better at making friends than fighting battles.
• How capable is he of transforming himself into a Churchill who inspires people to fight the menace of fascism?
3) The fall of Roe v. calf
Republicans are on the verge of success in their half-century effort to abolish abortion rights conferred by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Given that about two-thirds of the American public oppose Roe’s ouster, this “success” could come at a political cost.
It’s always the people who defy the status quo who get the most activation, and that will likely mean a shift in political passion from the anti-abortion to the pro-choice sides.
The power of this issue to provoke a political backlash will be amplified if the final court decision follows the Alito draft. (Less than 10% of Americans support the position outlined in Alito’s draft — no exceptions for rape, incest, or mother’s life.)
It is not the American way for the minority to impose its will on the majority. In particular, on a fundamentally religious issue – which anti-abortion signs are showing – the Constitution says that not even a majority should impose its views on society (the “establishment clause”).
But it remains to be seen how many voters will be politically agitated – by November – by this seismic shift in the use of government power to force women to carry every pregnancy.
4) The mass murder plague in America
The recent mass murder of children in a Texas elementary school has led to what may be just another play on a recurring pattern in which a horrific mass murder prompts a widespread outcry (preferred by large American majorities) for “proper gun control” to follow change from nothing.
But there are reasons that this time may be different.
For one thing, Republicans’ NRA rhetoric now seems to ring hollow: “Don’t politicize this” makes no sense when it’s so obvious that the reason America has so many more mass killings than other free countries is because our laws are die Politics makes it so easy for would-be mass murderers to acquire weapons capable of killing large numbers of people in a short period of time.
Furthermore, this episode of national outrage coincides with the approaching Midterms, and the Republican blockade of even gun control, advocated by a large majority of Americans, can be linked to a broader issue: that Republicans are getting in the way of the American people what they want from their government. (Like having Medicare negotiate lower prescription prices, among other popular components of Build Back Better.)
Whether the Democrats — who have been so unsuccessful in getting Republicans to pay a political price for unjustifiable political behavior — can use these key issues to reverse the current course toward a midterm Republican victory remains to be seen.
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