On Wednesday morning CNN released a poll showing respondents disapproving of the job performance of Joe Biden.
They deemed him and Democrats insufficiently attentive to the real problem of the economy. They described themselves as burned out on American politics.
Indeed, all these insurrections, investigations and hammer attacks to skulls can be wearying.
On Wednesday evening Biden gave a speech not about the economy, but to cry out that democracy is at stake in the midterm election Tuesday.
Existing somewhere between a major presidential warning and blatant partisan appeal, the speech deplored super-MAGA Republicans. Those would be Trumpsters who profess that our last election amounted to fraudulent theft, promise to dispute this new election if they lose, and otherwise foment anti-American distrust, resentment and violence.
David Axelrod, a political analyst who was part of Barack Obama's savvy political team, put on Twitter: "I doubt many [Democrats] in marginal races are eager for [Biden] to be on TV tonight."
I found the speech sad--flailing and desperate, not to mention tin-eared and off-point. I said so on social media and, for that, got attacked by liberal Democrats as complicit in the insurrection apathy by which this country could sit idly waiting for death from within for our democracy.
But I'm merely trying to make the point that one way to save our democracy is to win elections by solid margins based on appeals to the swing voters that target matters on their minds.
Don't berate them for being so burned out on the mad drama of contemporary American politics that they are not thinking first and foremost for the moment about the frightful events of January 2021 but about the rising grocery prices of November 2022.
Here is what the CNN poll specifically showed, and every bit rings true: 61 percent believe Biden and Democratic congressional majorities, such as they are, have not paid enough attention to the most important problems; 58 percent believe the economy is the most important problem, and none--zero--are said to cite the pressing peril to American democracy as the most important current problem. That's unless they're in the 37 percent citing general domestic issues or "other" matters.
Then, given the choice to try to beat these deplorables on the issues that people care about or exalt them as towering threats, Biden went the exalt route.
I know I will be assailed for making a college-football analogy. But getting assailed is what I do.
Polls show people care about college football around here, especially the Razorbacks. So the subject offers the opportunity for vivid analogy.
Biden's speech Wednesday evening was as if Sam Pittman came out at a news conference and said Hog fans need to turn out and get loud Saturday in resistance to this new reality of lavishing money on student athletes for use of their names, images and likenesses that poses an existential threat to the game as we have known it.
I'd have to admit in such a case that the coach was right about the need to regulate this invitation to abuse and the peril it poses. But I'd have to acknowledge that fans would react by saying, uh, coach, you're probably right about that, but shouldn't you maybe keep that in the back of your mind for the moment because we'd really like to beat 23rd-ranked Liberty on the field Saturday and get our sixth win to become bowl-eligible?
I will tell Democrats one more time: You didn't win diddly in 2020. Your weak presidential nominee was the default choice for a nation rising up to disapprove of the behavior of Donald Trump. At the same time, you were losing seats in the more direct democratic test of the House of Representatives.
You got to 50-50 in the Senate only because Georgia had strange senatorial runoffs that coincided with a rare selection of both senators in one cycle, and, during that runoff, Trump fomented an insurrection that scared the hell out of swing voters who are now burned out and panicked over the economy. And you only have 50-50 in the Senate because two independents caucus with you and one of the Democrats is an exceptional politician who can get elected in West Virginia, which forces his occasional conservatism.
So, yes, this anti-Americanism and violence on the right--indeed, the mere existence of a monster like Trump--is deeply serious. But it will come more into essential focus only if Democrats connect with voters, govern with political savvy and accomplish decisive victories for the insurrectionists actually to threaten.
How about you show us first that you can beat Herschel Walker?
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.