“NeverTrump” has long been too broad a term, but there are several erstwhile Republicans who’ve left the party since 2016, abdicated prior conservative views, and thus embody it.
Max Boot, a historian who now solely writes columns for the Washington Post, is one of them. And he’s nervous, mostly about the disasters ahead for his newfound Democrat allies.
After noting that a GOP landslide is on the horizon, mainly due to President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and voters’ sudden preference for Republicans over Democrats in congressional races, Boot listed his concerns this week.
While “most worrisome” is inflation rising to 6.2% in October — the biggest annual month-to-month increase in over 30 years — the second “big threat” is the Democrats’ obsession with prolonging COVID-19, per Boot.
He explains that there is no exit from the now-endemic pandemic and approvingly quotes the University of California’s Department of Medicine chair, who predicts that “this is it — today’s Covid situation is a version of the one we’ll live with for at least the next 1-2 years.”
That’s bad news for Biden because many naïve liberals expected the 79-year-old to actually end the pandemic.
“At some point, Biden will need to risk telling the truth: We have to learn to live with a virus that for the vaccinated is less threatening than the flu,” Boot explains. “So return to normal life now (e.g., to in-person meetings and maskless classrooms).”
Boot then mentions a third threat, that of left-wing overreach, specifically the “unwillingness of many progressives to confront crime and homelessness, and, above all, all the damage done by Zoom classes and mask requirements for young children.”
“Democrats are living in a dreamland if they continue to dismiss such worries as phony Republican attacks. Similar concerns could haunt them again next year,” he claims. “Biden needs to attack the far-left activists who want to defund the police, boycott Israel and divide Americans by race… Biden should champion liberalism, not leftism.”
Boot said “now is the time to hit the panic button” and admits that he is “terrified that Democrats will lose in 2022 and 2024 — and that as a result we could lose our democracy.”
Ah yes, writing in the newspaper that adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” four years ago, yet has fallen for hoaxes and ignored unconstitutional executive actions all year.
“Biden needs to make some dramatic changes if Democrats are to have any hope of holding onto even one house of Congress and the White House,” Boot concludes.
Related: Inflation and Critical Race Theory Have Similar Failings — Both Hurt Democrats
I don’t expect the obstinate president to move toward the middle, but maybe he can finally put the country over politics and stop demonizing Republican governors and non-vaccinated Americans as a start?
Biden could also call out the public health apparatus — he’s their boss, after all — since no one has been held accountable for 22 months of policy failures. But that would require sensible leadership.
Ten long months into the 46th president’s term, the unifying leadership he promised is still lacking.
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