There are specific issues that are key to the very existence of the Democrat Party and most liberal/progressive advocacy groups.

The Democrat Party trades in multicategory victimhood and creating taxpayer-funded Government programs in order to “cure” the problems they’ve identified and hyped for each group of victims. Often, these so-called “problems” don’t actually exist -- they’ve just been fabricated by the Democrats and trumpeted by the eagerly complicit liberal media -- but absent these so-called problems and cures, the Democrat Party would have no rationale for existing.

Every special-interest and so-called minority group has its Democratically sponsored taxpayer programs.

• Blacks
• Hispanics, including illegal immigrants
• Women
• LGBTQ
• Teachers and other unions
• Environmentalists/Warmists

These are the main ones, but there are other groups as well. The relevant, instructive factor is this: The Democrat Party exists primarily to separate the American population into specific subgroups; identify (or create out of thin air) a life-altering, crushing problem faced by the group in question; create a taxpayer-funded Government program that addresses and fixes the problem -- even if the so-called problem is imaginary or none of the government’s business -- for the explicit purpose of buying that group’s voting loyalty.

In contrast, Republicans tend to focus on the bigger-picture issues, the ones that affect the country as a whole -- taxes and the economy. national security, law enforcement and civil order, energy production, and the like. Republicans operate under the theory of “a rising tide lifts all boats,” the notion that a better employment environment, more net take-home pay for an individual worker or family (no matter where they are on the income spectrum), and a country with safer borders results in a country whose standard of living is better for all who live there, regardless of their arbitrary demographic categorization. The problem with this approach, of course, is that it doesn’t sell as well to aggrieved individual factions, and it gives the liberal media the opportunity to say that Republicans don’t care about this or that specific group.

This brings us to COVID. The advent of the COVID pandemic has been a political windfall for the Democrats beyond any possible measure. Unlike traditional Democrat-created “problems” that only targeted a small slice of the population, COVID gave the Democrats the opportunity to exploit the entire country at once. It has provided them with a perfect excuse to impose draconian governmental authority over virtually every aspect of the American economy and society in a way that no traditional legislation ever could. Using COVID as justification, the Democrats have implemented government control over business, transportation, and education to such a frighteningly micro degree that vast swaths of the public are now conditioned to ask, “Are we allowed to do this?” This is the Democrats’ utopia: They want to control all facets of people’s daily lives, to have them totally dependent on a Democrat-run government so they can stay in power and extract the funding they need via unrestricted taxation to maintain their rule over the population.

No area illustrates this better or is more critical to the Democrats’ ultimate aim than their desire to fix elections and engineer the vote in order to ensure their victories at the polls. Under the risible guise of, “It’s too dangerous for the COVID-vulnerable to vote in person,” many states and localities expanded mail-in/absentee voting, vote harvesting, and unverifiable, last-minute voter registration in order to maximize the Democratic vote.

It’s not necessary here to rehash the innumerable examples of outright voter fraud that occurred in November 2020. From mysterious boxes of ballots being somehow “discovered” at 2:00 AM that went to Biden by 90%, to untraceable trucks being sent on after-midnight interstate missions to deliver huge quantities of Biden votes, to voting jurisdictions having 90-100% voter turnout (or more) when the normal presidential voter turnout is around 60-70%,  to President Trump having won 19 of the 20 historically rock-solid bellwether counties and somehow not winning the election. All this combined is irrefutable proof of the fraud that took place. And to reiterate the obvious: Simply because the liberal mainstream media refuses to acknowledge this doesn’t mean it’s not true. Every instance cited above is a verifiable fact.

COVID gave the Democrats the cover they needed to build their House of Fraud. The very worst thing, politically, that could happen to the Democrats in 2022 is for COVID to no longer be an emergency occupying the front of everyone’s minds. Biden’s tenure has been such a total disaster that the mid-term elections if they are on the level, will be a complete repudiation of the woke, inflationary, anti-national security policies put in place by this inept, clueless administration. If the mid-terms are honest elections, they could well be historic in their total rejection of the party sitting in the White House.

That’s why the estimable Anthony Fauci has been trotted out once again, following his brief disappearance from the spotlight. He will tout the next COVID variant, timed to hit at the point of greatest political advantage for the Democrats, no doubt. The Democrats’ plan is likely something along these lines: Let COVID wane for the time being. Give the populace the spring and summer off, a time that they can return to normal. Let them like it. Remind them unceasingly that they (the Democrats) are the ones whose policies brought about this welcome return to normalcy.

Rev up the fear over the newest COVID variant around Labor Day. Reimpose severe societal restrictions. Eliminate in-person voting completely, “for your own safety.” With the ability to totally control the handling and vote-counting procedures, the Democrats hope to once again fraudulently manipulate the outcome and retain control of the House and Senate, against all logical and historical odds.

Two questions present themselves:

• Will the American electorate let themselves have their voting rights stripped away?
• Will Republicans once again let the Democrats use them as punching bags as the Democrats run roughshod over the voting process?

Two good questions, with no convincing, clear-cut answers at this point.

Image: Alan Tennyson