What are voters worried about? Inflation. No, seriously, Democrats say: That’s just a right-wing talking point. We’re not right-wingers. Tell us, what are you actually worried about? “Inflation,” say the voters. “Oh, okay, so you want us to pass another gigantic spending bill that will almost certainly fuel more inflation. Right?”
Politico Playbook, which unintentionally amounts to a daily letter from Mars that rehashes the bizarre thinking of the Democratic political class in D.C., informs us that a focus group brought together voters to ask them what’s really on their minds. They said high inflation and high crime. Since both of those indicators are indeed going very sharply in the wrong direction, the concerns are valid. Politico dismisses them as “a preoccupation.” It adds that
a cottage industry of White House officials and left-wing media critics who talk to each other on Twitter has convinced themselves that the media is responsible for the public’s overwhelming focus on the bad news of inflation rather than the good news of low unemployment and rising wages. The focus groups exploded that bit of Democratic self-deception.
Good news? The Democrats want to talk about “good news”? Only 27 percent of Americans feel the country is heading in the right direction, and that figure has collapsed in the last six months. The Democratic voters in the focus group were in an extremely fearful and depressed frame of mind. There was “ambiguity” about the Democrats’ strategy to focus endlessly on the six-hour Capitol riots that took place 15 months ago. And Politico notes that “it was impossible to ignore” how much the issue of rising crime came up:
A Black man from New York complained about bail reform laws in that state leading to “repeat offenders” who get arrested and released and are “re-arrested in less than 24 hours.” A Black woman in the Philadelphia area wanted something done about gun violence and carjackings in the city by “repeat offenders.”
The Democrats should acknowledge the bad news and convince voters they are the party best equipped to deal with it. Instead they are trying to tell the voters they’re wrong. The problem with that reasoning is that the voters get to . . . vote.