It appears that we Americans have a couple of ugly years to look forward to.
There will be a recession.
If you’re an old fart like me, you’ve been through a few of these. The economy will cool down, people will lose jobs, and families will have to focus on the basics. Fancy cars, vacations, etc. will have to be forgone in lieu of rent and food on the table. Wages could decrease, as employers will be interviewing lots of desperate folks for limited jobs. Business owners will raid retirement plans. Unions will go into hibernation.
The inflation that is alarming us right now will probably ameliorate a bit as the Fed funds rate increases put a halt to the “easy money” that has driven the stock market, bidding wars for housing, and profligate credit card spending. We will be hearing about business and personal bankruptcies a lot, as folks who got way ahead of themselves will now have to pay the piper. Gas prices will remain high, though: I think $5.00 per gallon will be the new normal.
Lots of sad human interest stories will fill the newspapers daily.
Joe Biden is, essentially, a lame duck President right now. This recession was overdue and, unfortunately for him, it landed during his watch, just like Covid-19 impacted Donald Trump’s last year in office. Shit happens and citizens must find scapegoats.
The mid-term elections that are happening this year will likely give Republicans majorities in both houses of Congress, as G.O.P. candidates will gleefully use the Biden Administration as a punching bag while riding on a wave of populist anger toward things that they cannot control.
When the mid-term dust settles (and, trust me, no victorious G.O.P. candidate will claim that the election was tainted in any way), the new Republican Congressional and Senatorial majorities will be stuck with the same problem: Joe Biden will still be President for another two years. And, so, there will be two more years of gridlock in Washington D.C. Anything that the Democrats want to accomplish will be squashed, and President Biden will veto as many G.O.P. initiatives that he can.
We will be back to the usual D.C. stalemate.
Or so it will seem.
There is something new in the air in America that may change the “normalcy” that infects our Federal government. It is the general public’s feeling that maybe democracy itself doesn’t work, cannot work, and shouldn’t work.
Public polls now indicate that a majority of Democrats and Republicans don’t feel that democracy will last and that maybe something else should be tried. It is a feeling of disgust, dismay, hopelessness, and anger with the business as usual in Washington D.C. while important problems remain unaddressed or even undiscussed. Angry Republicans feel this way regarding their hot-button issues as do Democrats about theirs.
Democracy only works when elected officials talk about problems instead of talking at each other. Communication involves listening, and there is none of that anymore in U.S. politics. Just a bunch of grown-up juveniles publicly shooting spitwads at each other. Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind back in the day.
We currently have some televised hearings going on relative to the January 6, 2020 Capitol Riot. Everyone who was alive at the time knows what happened, why it happened, who caused it, and so forth. It was an amateurish, slow-mo coup d’etat engineered by President Trump and his band of misfits in the White House and Congress. The rationale for the insurrection, led by the President of the United States, was the “stolen election” that had no basis in fact.
Everyone knows this in their hearts, but this knife strike to the gut of democracy has been conveniently overlooked by G.O.P. partisans… because they continue to be frustrated that they cannot get their way in Washington D.C. with the Democrats clinging to power.
This same hard-core base of the Republican Party continues to be unhappy, stoked by the ghost of Donald Trump, who is determined to avenge his ouster in 2020 and wreak havoc on the Democrats and Republicans who he feels sabotaged his imperial Presidency.
On his way out the door, claiming a “rigged” election and his determination to legally fight the allegedly fraudulent voting (for President only; the Republicans who won re-election in 2020 were elected fair and square, of course), Donald Trump and his team of con artists engineered one of the most spectacular grifts in the history of the United States, bilking $250 million from loyal Trumpists under the guise of legal costs to challenge his “stolen” Presidency.
That grift is ongoing and it is fueling Trump’s several P.A.C.s that are designed to benefit Republican candidates who swear fealty to the ex-President. In other words, candidates for public office who oppose democracy.
Trump the would-be Kingmaker is enjoying modest success thus far in weeding out Republican candidates and current officeholders who have defied him, did not publicly support the “stolen election” lie, or said some things about him and his Presidency that annoy him. I suspect that the army of loyal Trump supporters will elect a number of bomb-throwers in November who will spend the next two years making everyone’s life in Washington D.C. a living hell.
Maybe that’s what it needs; it certainly deserves it.
In the end, however, after the next couple of ugly years, it is highly unlikely that these would-be patriots are going to see Mr. Trump returned to the White House. If the Republicans are stupid enough to nominate the ex-President in 2024, then they will have squandered the opportunity of a lifetime. Trump is not popular except with his rabid base; he’s lost both Presidential popular elections that he’s run in. He would lose again if he ran again. Besides, he will be a 78-year-old narcissist in 2024, one who proved his incompetence while a younger man.
As I’ve said before, I think the G.O.P. will run Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. He’s a Conservative, he’s a smart guy, and he’s running his State as a populist, gaining support by attacking things considered to be near and dear to Democrats.
What happens before DeSantis is elected?
It could get ugly, my friends. Once the momentum shifts to the Republican Party after the mid-terms, the rabid base of the G.O.P. (the same crew who felt empowered to attack the U.S. Capitol) will feel entitled to scuttle the last two years of the Biden Presidency. There will be endless Congressional hearings on all manner of dubious conspiracy theories. This will inflame more violence, more right-wing militias strong-arming State governments, and more individual acts of terrorism under the banner of The Army of Jesus Christ or something similar.
No kidding.
Heaven help us if we experience another national emergency like the Covid-19 pandemic.
I foresee anarchy in the next two years followed by four years of extremely strong Executive Branch governing by the Republicans under DeSantis. It may appear to be autocratic government, quasi dictatorial in fashion; it won’t be the democracy that the Founders had in mind back in 1883.
Everything has its time, and democracy has squandered its opportunity.