Haven’t we seen this movie before?
asserted
we → see → movie
Voters, weary of a Republican president whose foreign or domestic policies don’t seem to be delivering as promised, seem on the verge of a massive rejection of his party.
asserted
policies → seem → party
Polls show Democrats surging.
asserted
Democrats → show → ?
The generic ballot — which party’s candidates would you favor for the House of Representatives? —shows Democrats far ahead of Republicans.
asserted
you → favor → Republicans
Statewide polls show Democrats ahead in large states that had voted Republican for president and threatening incumbents in historically Republican states such as Kansas and Nebraska.
asserted
that → show → Kansas
That’s pretty much the picture today.
asserted
That → ’ → ?
Donald Trump’s job approval has slipped below 40%, below his numbers at the end of September 2018 and similar to George W. Bush’s in September 2006.
asserted
approval → slip → September
Republicans trail in the generic vote by about as much as in 2018 and by wider margins in 2006.
asserted
Republicans → trail → 2006
All of which provides a strong basis for the professional prognosticators’ predictions that Democrats will overturn the Republicans’ current narrow majority in the House and some justification for those who say they have a majority chance of gaining the four seats that would give them a majority in the Senate.
asserted
that → provide → Senate
Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini points out that polls in the last four congressional elections have understated Republicans’ actual election performance by wide margins in the summer, then narrowed in the fall.
asserted
polls → point → fall
But perhaps the polls are consistently understating Republican support, as analyst Nate Silver says they have in the last three presidential elections.
asserted
they → understate → elections
Many pollsters report it’s much harder to reach Republican respondents, who tend to mistrust media pollsters.
asserted
who → report → pollsters
And this year, many Republicans seem unhappy with the president and his party.
asserted
Republicans → seem → president
Does that mean they’re just unwilling to be polled or that they will skip voting as well?
asserted
they → mean → voting
No one knows the answer.
asserted
one → know → answer
And no one knows the answer to the question posed by Robert Redford’s character in the movie The Candidate when he wins the election: “What do we do now?”
asserted
we → know → What
No one seems to know for sure what Democrats will do if they win majorities in both houses.
asserted
they → seem → houses
A Democratic Senate is unlikely to confirm any Trump appointee to the Supreme Court and probably to any federal court, and would likely extract concessions from any nominee to a high policy position — unless Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman denies Democrats their 51st vote.
Democratic majorities might try to cabin in Donald Trump’s power to set tariffs, but they won’t be able to change underlying trade statutes and must depend on the courts to decide, as they have already in some cases, that those laws don’t justify Trump’s actions.
uncertain
laws → confirm → actions
Democrats may also try to end U.S. military operations against Iran, which, in any case, have been erratic.
uncertain
which → try → case
George W. Bush was able to execute his successful surge strategy in Iraq, despite majority opposition in both houses after Democrats’ victories in the off-year elections in 2006.
asserted
Bush → execute → 2006
One gets little sense from the campaign dialogue what Democratic majorities would aim to do on other policies.
asserted
majorities → get → policies
Their candidates decry high gas prices and inflation generally.
asserted
candidates → decry → prices
But they’re unlikely to revert to the Biden administration’s policy, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, of vastly expanding federal spending, which resulted in 9% inflation in 2022 and remained a continuing liability for Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024.
asserted
which → ’re → 2024
That’s the lesson Democrats take from Franklin Roosevelt and the rich literature inspired by his New Deal.
asserted
Democrats → ’ → Deal
The white college graduate voters who now dominate Democratic primaries and fundraising may indulge the Marxist and progressive presumption that the working class is especially morally worthy, but can hardly help observing that blue-collar workers have been voting increasingly Republican even before Trump rode down his escalator.
uncertain
Trump → dominate → escalator
Indeed, as economist and former Sen. Phil Gramm has shown, the United States already has economic redistribution policies locked into place, so that the bottom 60% of income earners are eligible for government transfer payments, raising them to average income levels.
asserted
% → show → levels
In those circumstances, Joe Biden’s major push toward redistribution was his frequent proposals (sometimes overruled, like Trump’s tariffs, by the courts) for forgiveness of college and graduate student loans.
asserted
push → overrule → loans
The beneficiaries of those loans were not only the gender studies majors looking for adjunct work but also the gaggles of college and university administrators subsidized by those programs.
asserted
beneficiaries → look → programs
It’s interesting that the Biden administration, staffed not only at the top but throughout with Obama administration veterans, did not seek a highly visible overhaul of healthcare financing.
asserted
administration → ’ → financing
They surely remember the political price they paid for Obamacare.
asserted
they → remember → Obamacare
Passed only by parliamentary legerdemain in the face of adverse polling, it saw Republicans gain 64 House seats in the 2010 off-year election.
asserted
Republicans → pass → election
That was the biggest off-year gain for either party since Bill Clinton broke Republicans’ lock on the presidency in 1992 and Newt Gingrich broke Democrats’ lock on the House in 1994.
asserted
Gingrich → break → 1994
Defenders of Obamacare may respond that Republicans’ attempts to repeal it were unpopular and were defeated by John McCain’s vote in 2018.
uncertain
attempts → respond → 2018
But tying together the broad opposition to Obamacare during Barack Obama’s tenure with the broad opposition to Obamacare repeal during Donald Trump’s is the fact that large majorities of the public, for all their grumblings, are content with their current healthcare financing and oppose any attempts to take it away.
asserted
majorities → tie → it
That’s something Democrats may want to consider when they see young Democratic Socialists of America support Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All proposal.
uncertain
Socialists → ’ → proposal
By definition, it would eliminate the arrangements most Americans have made and are content with.
asserted
Americans → eliminate → arrangements
Lots of voters are not going to like that.
asserted
Lots → go → that
American voters generally, and Democratic politicians in particular, tend to look to government to cure various ills.
asserted
voters → tend → ills
In that perspective, you can argue — and certainly public opinion polls would suggest most people would — that the nation’s performance in this first quarter of the 21st century has been suboptimal.
asserted
performance → argue → century
But the mostly unanticipated performance of the private sector has been better, in technological devices and communication and in fracking technology, which has made the U.S. once again the world’s greatest oil producer as it was at the outset of World War II.
asserted
it → make → II
…and 3 more, not listed.
The Aporia
