2022 will pit a Democratic economic pitch against GOP culture wars

[DonViejo]

April 9, 2021, 9:06 AM EDT

By Chuck Todd, Mark Murray and Carrie Dann

WASHINGTON — We are still 578 days away from Election Day 2022, but we already have a good idea of what the battle lines will be.

Democrats are concentrating on the economy and recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, while Republicans are fixated on the culture wars. And the midterms will be a fascinating political experiment to see what message resonates more with American voters.

Democrats are already betting the house — and continued control of the U.S. House — on the $1,400 checks to voters, the number of vaccinated Americans, the state of the unemployment rate (now down to 6.0 percent) and the expectation that American society, the economy and schools will all be humming by next year after the pandemic.

Republicans, meanwhile, have gone all-in on culture — whether it’s criticizing the “canceling” of Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head; opposing vaccine passports; suing the CDC to allow cruise ships to resume business in the pandemic; concentrating on immigration and borders; and leaning more into President Biden’s executive orders on guns than they ever did his Covid-19 relief package.

more
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/2022-will-pit-democratic-economic-pitch-against-gop-culture-wars-n1263613

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Voters will see who is looking out for them

In ways of improvement in their lives socially, financially, and economically. They will also see and know whose message does resonate.

Voters want the truth on policy points, not rhetoric. If Culture War is all the Republicans have, they will lose.

[Buckeyeblue]

2. Culture wars go both ways...

I think 2022 needs to be a continued referendum on hate with a big helping of it's the economy, stupid.

Keep America Growing!

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

3. 2022 will be a battle between Manchin and the Democratic Party.

He has absolutely no intention of working to make the issues the vast number of citizens -- including Republicans -- want to happen. The U.S. economy will slow and the infrastructure will remain in a shambles because of the ego of this small man, who thinks only of himself and his imaginary "bipartisanship." "I alone can fix it," he touts smugly. Where have we heard those words before?

[mitch96]

6. I hope Dems in the senate get enough votes to stop being held hostage by

DINO Manchin... Oh and keep the house too.... Then we can really get things done...
m

[Martin68]

4. Not only a pitch against culture wars, but a pitch for competence, achievement, and decency.

[rkleinberger]

5. Democrats haven't learned

This won't work. A large portion of this country it seems is driven by racism and culture wars against progress and equal rights. This will drive many voters to vote against the Democrats. Democrats must start appealing emotionally to win!

[bucolic_frolic]

7. The Insurrectionist Party brings a decided lack of class to their vaunted culture wars

Cut me a F**n' break. Slime in suits is still slime.

[C Moon]

8. The GOP is also focusing on disenfranchising voters and slowing down the mail. nt

[Hotler]

9. We can add culture war to our play book also. Start replacing the word Republican with

fascist in every sentence. Hang that around their neck and then we can start comparing them to the Nazi.

[WarGamer]

15. High end progressive scholars think that's a mistake.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/02/donald-trump-fascist-nazi-right-wing/

"Avoiding careless use of the F-word does not normalize the far-right; what it resists is the normalization of thoughtless and demonizing political discourse."

Eliah Bures is a historian of modern Europe and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Right-Wing Studies. His forthcoming book is Friends and Enemies: Ernst Jünger and the Countercultural Survival of the German Far-Right.

[Kid Berwyn]

10. That is if we let Chuck Todd frame it.

He also can cram his both sides horse race where the sun doesn’t shine.

[Marthe48]

11. Wisdom from my Dad

I was about 20, married, 2 young children, about 1973. My republican Dad owned a grocery store, he was an alcoholic, and while he wasn't abusive to me in any way, the only emotion I saw from him was anger. He did like jokes, and laughed hard if he heard a good one. I was trying to patch up my relationship with my him. My Mom had left him, they were getting divorced and he was angry because we kids had seemed to take her side. I was at the store, getting ready to go home after a weekend visit. He had told me to get a cartful of groceries. We were talking, and I told him that he never gave me a pat on the back if I did something good. He gave me a clumsy pat on the back, and then pointed at the groceries. He said sharply, "There's a GD pat on the back and there's a cart load of groceries. Which is going to you more good?"

After that, it took me a long time to appreciate emotional support over goods. I have never forgotten this exchange with my Dad, and when I think of the emotional support of social equality, and practical support of economics, my Dad's comment always comes to mind. I want both, I need both and I think we all do, if we'd admit it. But many people won't admit the need of a pat on the back, and don't see the need for everyone to get a pat on the back. Dems will have to use the solid economics as a carrot for emotionally backward people to accept the pat on the back of social equality and other human needs.

I don't know if this makes any sense. I know that even if my Dad had a lot of anger, stereotyped every kind of person, on the other hand, he was generous, offered a helping hand to people in need, and maybe in another era, would have been able to reveal his kinder self.

[XanaDUer2]

12. Thank you for sharing that

did he live through the Depression? I once read thatfolks who lived through the Depression were so scarred by it they carried the emotional scars with it throughout their lives.

[Marthe48]

13. Yes, both of my parents came of age in the 1930's

Another comment from my dad. For an assignment, my 7th grade Ohio history teacher told us to interview our parents about their experience growing up in the Great Depression. My Dad always got home after 8 pm, (store hours) and I was asking him questions. I think I had recently read the phrase 'laid a good table', referring to the food available for meals. I asked several questions about my Dad's experience and then I asked him if he thought they had a good table. He said, "Yes, I think it was oak." And laughed. He knew what I meant and was just being a smart aleck.

His father was a very successful accountant, training for that career right at the time the U.S. Government was calling for public accounting of businesses. So my Dad's family weren't as badly affected as my Mom's and they weren't too bad off either. I think the economic effect on urban/suburban families was different from the effect on rural families. Comparing generations in my family to my husband's, urban vs. rural, incredible contrasts.

[WarGamer]

14. Expecting the surging economy to last through 2022 is silly.

We're WAAAAYYYYY overdue for another recession.

I think after the COVID-19 "money blast" wears off, we'll see a slow-down... probably next year.