In November, Americans will go to the polls to determine who controls the Congress in Washington and many state legislatures and governors’ offices across the country.
What is starting to shape up in many of the swing, or purple districts, across the nation that will determine which political party takes control are contests between moderate Democrats and Republicans beholden to Donald Trump, who remains fixated on the false notion that he won the last presidential election.
I think the moderate or centrist Democrats will beat the Republicans still running on Donald Trump’s coattails. This is a good thing for the nation because the loyalty to the former president by many Republicans is a mistake. I say this primarily because their fidelity to Trump is overshadowing their commitment to the well-being of the nation founded on the principle that no person is above the law or entitled to unlimited power — as Trump demands. Indeed, some of our ancestors fled countries because they were tired of living in nations controlled by men, not laws.
This obsession with the former president — and the millions of voters across the nation upset that the conservatives on the Supreme Court eliminated at the federal level a woman’s right to an abortion — is going to hurt their chances at the polls in November.
Of course, on the Democratic side, economic woes and high inflation are dragging down President Joe Biden’s party. Democrats control the White House and Congress — and in politics, if you are in charge you get credit for the good and blame for the bad. It’s my view that inflation is not because of the president. After all, there is rampant inflation across the globe due to the pandemic. From Germany to South Africa to Turkey, inflation is a serious problem, and that can’t possibly be Joe Biden’s fault.
That being said, I am hopeful that Democrats will do well in the fall because Biden and Democrats in Congress have moved toward the political center. This is a stark contrast from the first 18 months of the Biden presidency, where the White House seemed to embrace every far-left policy.
Perhaps there is no better example of this case than Build Back Better and how it passed as the Inflation Reduction Act.
The original Build Back Better was a grab bag of progressive priorities like implementing parts of the Green New Deal, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. While this legislation is a well-meaning policy to slow the pace of climate change, it would raise the cost of living for most Americans, putting additional financial burdens on families who can barely make ends meet.
Backing the Green New Deal would have been a massive mistake, and moderate Democrats in Congress refused to support it. It would have spent billions of dollars on policies like building charging stations for electric vehicles, which would have done nothing to help working-class Americans and only exacerbated inflation.
But the Inflation Reduction Act, led by the centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin, included price caps on EV tax breaks for wealthy purchasers and expensive luxury EVs. It also included provisions to ensure EVs are built in America and that we sourced batteries from minerals produced domestically, not sourced from Chinese companies.
At the end of the day, I hope that Democrats will do well in the midterms and Republicans will take away the lesson that the future of their party is conservative values, not loyalty to the former president. That is why I believe this election is for the soul of America — because it will reward Democrats for embracing centrist policies and incentivize Republicans to move on from Donald Trump.
