And so it begins
Once upon a time, we were all hep on G. Elliott Morris. "God, he's not fucking Nate Silver! Praise Iblis!" His takes on the numbers were reasoned and circumspect.
But ever since Joe Biden won, and especially ever since the January 6th Insurrection (not "riot") Mr. Morris has gone off the deep end. The US is teetering on chaos, there's no hope for the future, we're a failed state and we just don't know it or want to accept it.
Yesterday, he posted the above graphic. I assume it was his reaction to the new Census data.
We're not even one hundred days into the Biden-Harris Administration, and the locusts are already seeking to devour the next carcass. Or to create a carcass. Or something.
Can we just get something out of the way? The idea that Pennsylvania and Michigan, after going rather handily for Pres. Biden, will go Republican before Wisconsin, which Democrats barely won, is just ludicrous. Could they? Sure. Anything is possible. But when you stick to the mantra of "anything's possible", you lock yourself into a sinkhole where you consider only the worst possible scenarios. I guess we should be thankful that Mr. Morris didn't simply declare 2024 a lock for Republicans. This is more fitting to his theme of imminent civil war.
Rather than "anything's possible, who knows??", we should stick to probabilities.
It's probable that Pennsylvania and Michigan will reassert their "Blue Wall" roles. It's probable that Wisconsin and North Carolina will be true battlegrounds. It's probable that Georgia and Arizona will continue to trend Democratic.
But, really: it's fucking 2021. This administration has barely gotten started, and has shown no sign of scuppering its work. It's already done more in its first century of days than any other administration in recent memory. These are not stumbling bumblers. Its policies might be anathema to the congressional GOP, but are proving to be rather popular among Americans, including Republicans.
What this map represents is a return to normal elite political discourse, where Democrats are forever falling flat on their faces, with cunning, ruthless Republicans waiting in the wings to swoop in and resume their rightful places at the pinnacles of power.
It's incomprehensible to the political press and their attendants that what we've suffered through for the past four years, but especially since the pandemic's onset, is an inflection point. If former president Barack Obama had tried to push through packages as ambitious as that of the current administration, he would have faced a huge backlash. He suffered one anyway in 2010 due to the Affordable Care Act. And it's not enough to say "Well, Joe Biden is white". Yes, his skin color is an advantage. But he also has a political ruthlessness couched in bonhomie which, so far, is producing results and approval. This would not be possible if something hadn't fundamentally changed in the makeup of this country, as one of the two major parties has devolved into outright fascism. The country wasn't ready for Pres. Obama's policies, because it had a different conception of itself. (And because he's Black.) Four years of a would-be autocrat, and a year of plague, tend to concentrate the mind.
The newest iteration of no-drama Democrats is robbing a media grown fat on four years of outrage. So it will try everything to gin up controversy and clicks. Don't let it. Don't retweet it—or, if you do, use screencaps rather than the actual tweet. Don't read their clickbait articles. Mock them mercilessly. Let them know we're tired of their fealty to dollars, rather than to the truth or the nation. It's the only thing legacy media will understand as it keeps spiraling down into irrelevancy.
And remember: it's only 2021. 2024 is not only another country; it hasn't even been conceived yet.