Why 2020 was Unique

There's a fascinating question in a new Fox News poll that suggests the political dynamics at work in 2022 and 2024 will be far different from 2020. If that is the case, it is good news for Republicans.

Here is the question: "If you could send just one of the following two messages to the federal government right now, would it be 'lend me a hand,' or would it be 'leave me alone'?" Fox has asked the question in eight different polls since 2011, but 2020 stands out.

In most years, a majority of respondents told pollsters the message they would send to the federal government was "leave me alone." In 2014, for example, 59% said "leave me alone." In 2016, it was 54%. In 2012, it was 53%. At the same time, during those years, much smaller numbers of respondents -- 32%, 39% and 37%, respectively -- said the message they would send the government would be "lend me a hand."

In other words, majorities did not feel the need for an especially activist federal government. No, they were not saying they did not want existing government programs like Social Security or clean air standards. But they were saying they did not want broad new expansions of the government into everyday life.

That changed dramatically in August 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic. At that time, a solid majority, 57%, said their message to the government was "lend me a hand." Just 36% said "leave me alone."

The reasons were obvious. The public wanted a vaccine. Those who were unemployed through no fault of their own needed money. The same for small business owners trying to survive. Of course they wanted the government to lend a hand.

But by the time of the new poll, in early August 2021, with the nation -- even with the Delta variant -- pulling out of the worst effects of the pandemic, the "lend me a hand" number had fallen to 44%. That, by the way, is precisely what it was in 2011, when the nation was pulling out of the Great Recession. Barring some unexpected calamity, the "lend me a hand" number will likely fall further.

So what does that mean? In the 2020 Democratic presidential primary contest, all the candidates, including "centrist" Joe Biden, proposed far-reaching, hugely expensive expansions of the federal government. The campaign became a bidding war over who could come up with the biggest, costliest policies to address the pandemic, climate change, health care, the cost of college and more. It was a progressive's dream.

In that activist moment, Biden won the Democratic nomination and then the general election. His victory in the Electoral College was quite narrow, as was the Democrats' win to keep control of the House. The Senate ended up 50-50, with Democrats having to rely on Vice President Kamala Harris to break ties. But even with the slimmest margins of control, President Biden, under pressure from the progressive wing of his party, has pushed ahead with programs proposed during the worst days of the pandemic. After all, they were things that progressives had wanted all along and believed the virus crisis gave them an opportunity to enact.

They have succeeded. First, Biden signed a $1.9 trillion "COVID relief" bill, passed on a partisan basis, that spent far more money than was needed. Recently, the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion bipartisan "infrastructure" bill that also spends far more money than is needed. And now the Senate is taking up a $3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill that incorporates many of the Democrats' campaign promises for sky-high social spending.

I think you are right. I hear establishment Republicans saying just wait until 2022, the House and Senate will be theirs. They are not living in reality, the Democrats are not going to relinquish power. They won by cheating in 2020 and can win again. Even so, the Republicans may take a wide majority in Congress but they proved to always secure defeat out of the jaws of victory. But still, we have learned nothing changes since the administrative state holds the power.

Well, I’m not convinced the Democrats’ strategy for stealing the 2020 presidential election will work in the 2022 midterms.

The reason I say that is that the 2020 theft was tailored for a nationwide presidential election - to put Biden over the 269 electoral college threshold. It was accomplished by counterfeiting a massive amount of ballots in several large Democrat swing state urban strongholds. Namely, key counties in Atlanta, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc..

Even if they are allowed to get away with the same level of cheating in those strongholds in 2022, that will only assure Democrat incumbents get re-elected - it will not necessarily stop a “red wave” from sweeping the rest of the country.

I think a red wave is in the making, due to Biden’s dementia and profound weakness, due to the disastrous anti-American policy coming from the Marxists running his administration, due to the Democrats’ unforgivable theft of the 2020 election, and due to the fact that there was already a red wave in 2020, masked by the stolen election.

If there indeed is a red wave, as I believe there will be, the Democrats would have to mount the same level of cheating everywhere - not just in the super corrupt Democrat strongholds.

I think the Democrats will lose both the House and the Senate in 2022, and we will purge a lot if RINOs as well. Furthermore, if the Democrats are dumb enough to try the same brazen level of cheating in 2022, the new Republican majorities will finally hold them to account and tighten up the election rules.

There is a real possibility that the Democrat party is imploding and will suffer a fatal fall from grace with the American people. My only hope is that when the Democrat party gets flushed down the toilet, the turd known as “mainstream media” will go down with it.

Shades of what happened to FDR: the depression hit and the majority of the population in all areas of the country called for an activist government and the first New Deal was passed as an emergency measure. As a result, FDR grew more overly confident as a “savior” to the nation and started to push more controls and social legislation. Thankfully, Congress got a pair (and a new coalition of northern Republicans and southern Democrats) and stopped the “second New Deal” (much of which came 30 years later with the Great Society. I still find it amazing that the National Recovery Act (stopped thanks to a kosher butcher and the courts) was even able to get through in the first place.

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