Following up on my post from June 15, 2021

In many ways, it seems as if we are stuck in a circle of Democratic anxiety and Media predictions of doom in November for the Democratic Party. This comes from the conventional wisdom that the party in the White House (and in power) generally suffers at its mid-term election. Usually true, but I am not sure this year will follow conventional wisdom. Events keep happening that do not (as I see it) seem to be harbingers of doom for Democrats. (1) We recently had the leak of a draft US Supreme Court opinion, which overtuned Roe v. Wade and deeply questioned whether the US Constitution truly has a an embedded right to privacy. The reaction to the leak was fury on the part of much of the populaiton (at least middle of the road to liberal) due to the reactionary attempt to drag the Constitution back to its pre-1973 state of interpretation. So far, the conservative attempt to turn it into a scandal that the draft was leaked has not gained general traction. (2) There was an epic tragedy in Texas - on May 24, 2022, an 18-year old shot and killed 19 students and two teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. He had over an hour to trap these students and teachers in their classroom and methodically shoot them - since the polic dithered outside doing nothing (except handcuffing, tazing, and pepper-spraying parents) for over an hour. The polic response was so shockingly inept that the usual suspects couldn't get traction on their normal pro-gun talking points after the massacre. (3) There is both high inflation and low unemployment right now - both of which seem to be a combination of both Covid after-effects and Baby Boomers finally deciding it was time to quit the job market, perhaps due to both their age and to Covid fatigue. (4) The primaries are unfolding with (generally) united Democratic elections and Republican free-for-all battles royale. I asked Josh Marshall the quesiton whether a party that is engaged in an internal civil war has ever won back Congress in a mid-term when its opposition was united. No answer from him yet. (5) Talking to an attorney from the Colorado Secretary of State's office, he is worried about elections in small rural counties, since many county clerks have resigned over death threats in the small counties. What does this all mean? . . . I don't know. But I still am not not seeing any signs that this environment will automatically lead to a Democratic rout in November (which is the conventional wisdom's predicted outcome). I remain cautiously optomistic. . . . This is because both the Roe issue and the Gun issue are not likely to be forgotten by November (too monumental and horrifying), and because while inflation is high, jobs are plentiful, so not really a bad economy. I am writing this to remember how I feel at the end of May, 2022. Will check again once November is here, and the actual election is past.