In his first State of the Union address, President Biden said, “Americans can remove their masks.” And while it may appear that this evidences a change of heart — or of mind — it seems to be based more on a downward trend in polling numbers for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Biden’s pivot concerning masks is part of a greater pivot on COVID-19 in general. It is worth noting that Biden delivered his permission to remove masks while he himself was maskless. The timing is also noteworthy: Biden’s permission came exactly one year after he said that Republican-led states lifting mask mandates was “Neanderthal thinking.”
But more importantly, the about-face follows a steady trend of ever-downward polling for Biden and his fellow Democrats. In early February, this writer reported that the vast majority of Americans disagree with Biden on a range of issues and policies. And as a result of Biden’s tanking numbers, it appeared that Team Biden was ready to sacrifice White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain as an offering to the Poll Gods. While that has not yet come to fruition, it appears to still be an option. And then, later in February, this writer reported that research conducted by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) found that voters in battleground states find Democrats “preachy,” “judgmental” and “focused on culture wars.”
And while Democrats — including and especially Biden — have been digging their heels in on the very issues voters find so disturbing, the bleeding in the polls has only increased. One issue over which Democrats have taken such a beating is their handling — or continual mishandling — of COVID-19. The Biden administration and Democratic governors have driven prices out of control by shutting down the economy and attempting to bolster it with vast sums of printed-on-demand money.
And again, polling showed that Americans are tired of it. In late January, a poll by Monmouth University found that 70 percent of Americans say, “it’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives.” That poll also found that more than half (53 percent) of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of COVID-19.
Weeks after that poll, Biden’s own polling firm, Impact Research, reportedly issued Democrats their own memo saying the party should shift gears and “take credit for ending the COVID crisis phase of the COVID war.” The memo is also reported to advise Biden and Company to “stop talking about restrictions.”
Enter the pivot. “Americans can remove their masks, return to work, stay in the classroom and move forward safely,” Biden said during Tuesday’s address. And Biden and other democrats claim this about face is is based purely on science. If so, it is based purely on political science. Because the only “scientific” document that Democrats seem to reading to convince them to lighten up on all COVID, all the time is the poll by Impact Research that warns of a Democrat decimation in the midterms if they don’t take another tack.
And the tack suggested by Impact Research? Back off and call it a win. In the February 24 memo — first published by Punchbowl News — Impact Research’s Molly Murphy and Brian Stryker wrote, “If we focus on how bad things still are and how much worse they could get, we set Democrats up as failures unable to navigate us through this.”
And,
When 99% of Americans can get vaccinated, we cause more harm than we prevent with voters by going into our third year talking about restrictions. And, if Democrats continue to hold a posture that prioritizes COVID precautions over learning how to live in a world where COVID exists, but does not dominate, they risk paying dearly for it in November.
While the dire prediction by Impact Research appears to be news to Biden and the national team, Democrats in swing states have been facing this news for months. Michigan, Colorado, and Pennsylvania led the field among Democrat-controlled states when it came to relaxing COVID restrictions last year.
In the past few months, other Blue states have followed, switching from mandating masks, restricting travel, and prohibiting large gathering to pushing vaccines as the sure cure. But even vaccines appear to be becoming an albatross around the necks of Democrats, since they have had to admit that the vaccines do not actually prevent one from contracting COVID, do not prevent one from getting sick from COVID, do not prevent hospitalization from COVID, and do not actually prevent death from COVID.
While Democrats may hope that with eight months to go before the midterms, this pivot will be enough, it may be too little, too late. COVID may just claim another victim come Fall of 2022: the Democrat majority in Congress. And what COVID doesn’t decimate, voters’ hard feelings over the economy likely will. And then there’s the yet-to-be-seen results of Biden’s disastrous foreign policy.
The midterms may be shaping up to be an open-season slaughter of Democrats at the polls.
