Journalists and other left-wing activists are freaking out over a New York Times poll that shows Republicans leading Democrats by 4 percentage points among likely voters ahead of next month's midterm elections. They were particularly aggrieved by the poll's finding that Republicans were tied with Democrats at 47 percent among female voters and were supported by 34 percent of Hispanic voters and 18 percent of black voters. Those are terrible numbers for Democrats.
We don't know how the election is going to play out, but at least one thing is guaranteed: If Democrats lose, they are going to blame everyone but themselves for the outcome. Here are the top 10 scapegoats Democrats are likely to blame for the party's poor performance at the ballot box in November.
10) Vladimir Putin
The Russian dictator's ill-advised invasion of Ukraine caused a surge in oil prices, which forced voters to support Republicans. (Never mind that President Joe Biden responded by depleting the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve while blocking efforts to expand domestic oil production.) If Democrats lose, there's a good chance that some politicians and media pundits will suggest (without evidence) that Russian hacking played a role in their defeat.
9) The Saudis
Pundits are already accusing the Saudis of conspiring to damage Democrats in the midterms after OPEC+ member states announced a steep cut in oil production earlier this month. It's just not fair, especially since Biden debased himself by bumping fists with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after promising to make the Saudi leader a "pariah."
8) The Federal Reserve
Ryan Cooper, managing editor of the left-wing American Prospect, responded to the Times poll by lashing out at the Federal Reserve for raising interest rates and "failing to contain inflation." Fed chairman Jerome Powell, he wrote on Twitter, was "going to hand Congress to the GOP" and lay the ground for Republicans to "abolish democracy" and "do a bunch of heinous gestapo shit" because "normie swing voters" were concerned about inflation.
7) The Lincoln Project
This would be giving the Lincoln Project too much credit, but a poor showing in the midterms might finally make Democrats angry enough to denounce these shameless grifters for raking in millions from liberal donors that might otherwise have gone to organizations that care about winning elections.
6) President Joe Biden
If Democrats get wiped out in November, expect more calls for Biden to leave office after one term. The president will turn 80 on Nov. 20, and a poor showing in the midterms will increase the likelihood that some ambitious young Democrats will start gunning for the party's nomination in 2024. That doesn't mean nominating someone like Pete Buttigieg, Gavin Newsom, or Kamala Harris would give them a better chance of winning, but Biden is too old and forcing him to run again would be a cruel form of elder abuse.
5) White women
Democrats losing control of Congress will inspire at least a dozen think pieces about how white women are complicit in the "dismantling of democracy" because they don't agree with Elizabeth Warren, a white woman who advanced her career by pretending to be Native American. The vast majority of these vacuous screeds will be written by white women pretending to be journalists.
4) The media
Democrats hate it when journalists report the facts without adding additional "context" about why Democrats are good and Republicans are bad. Last week, for example, they denounced an NBC News journalist for reporting that John Fetterman, a stroke victim and Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, had trouble understanding her while conversing without the aid of a captioning device. Some critics accused NBC News of promoting "violence towards disabled people." Democrats will inevitably complain that mainstream outlets should have spent less time covering inflation, crime, and immigration—issues voters actually care about—as opposed to the January 6 hearings.
3) "Hispanic white supremacists"
If the Republican Party's share of the Hispanic vote continues to grow in 2022, journalists and other partisan Democrats will lose their minds. Expect to see an explosion of hot takes about how Hispanics who don't vote for Democrats are betraying their own community and imperiling democracy by embracing white supremacy.
2) "Jim Crow 2.0"
Stacey Abrams repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of her defeat in the Georgia gubernatorial election in 2018 and faced zero consequences from our media gatekeepers. She is almost certain to lose again this year, and hers probably won't be the only race in which pundits suggest Republicans won due to so-called voter suppression, or "Jim Eagle," in the words of our eloquent commander in chief.
1) The voters
The most predictable scapegoat. Some will suggest American voters were "duped" by so-called misinformation, which is just a polite way of saying their fellow Americans who don't have a fancy college degree are too stupid to think for themselves, or as one lib Twitter user responded to the Times poll showing a Republicans lead, "We are honestly just a dumb fucking species." Look out for hot takes about how Americans just voted to reinstitute slavery and create a real-life version of The Handmaid's Tale because they wanted cheaper gas and groceries.
UPDATE: Joy-Ann Reid, the "pro-democracy" journalist who hosts a low-rated show on MSNBC, never fails to deliver the goods:
It’s terrifying how many Americans will choose literal fascism, female serfdom, climate collapse and the reversal of everything from Social Security & Medicare to student loan relief bc they think giving Republicans the power to investigate Hunter Biden will bring down gas prices.