There's a flip-side to the news media's biased support for the political left.  Yep — politicians depend on popularity for their survival, and, since they have long relied on the lapdog media to prop them up, they've gotten into a lot of bad habits.

A recent example: when the National Association of School Boards kvetched to Attorney General Merrick Garland about the drastic increase in angry parents attending their meetings, he announced that he was going to sic the FBI on what he considered excessively concerned moms and dads.

It's really hard to imagine a worse P.R. bungle.  The lapdogs are pretty much leaving this story alone.  But...so what?  The concerned parents of America are now even more steamed.  Perhaps there's also a fatal conceit among the media drones — they may still think they have a monopoly on information.  Now, that's pretty conceited.

Needless to say, there are other examples — but there are also polls, and as a former economic adviser to our previous president, Lawrence Kudlow, repeatedly said about financial dynamics: "The trend is your friend."  Biden and many of the other Democrats are in free fall.  Since they are my political antagonists, I welcome the news.  But what about the damage being done to my country?  The economic damage can be fixed...but when, and at what actual cost?  Then there's the damage being done to a developing generation by the collapse of an already failing public school system.  It's uncertain how deep this damage is and what can be done about it. 

At this point, I'm compelled to warn against hubris on the right.  The lapdog media have not been neutered; they've just stumbled into a competitive environment.  Nonetheless, as of this writing, ten congressional Democrats have announced their retirement — just about enough to send Nancy to the glue factory.

Looming as a bellwether is the gubernatorial contest in the (alleged) birthplace of American democracy, Virginia.  We've got less than three weeks to find out what's going to happen.  Had California's Gavin Newsom been recalled, or even just survived by a whisker, the message would have been sent a little earlier.

It's pretty obvious that the COVID pandemic helped destabilize our political structure by provoking many in the ruling establishment to reveal both their dictatorial nature and their incompetence.  The general public has seen through the camouflage.  Regardless of all that, we are still condemned to suffer through all of this, not knowing how, when, or even if it's going to end.  Kind of brings to mind Al Gore's memorable words from his run for vice president in 1992: "Everything that should be up is down — and everything that should be down is up."

Another tried and true tactic used to protect our rulers is changing the subject.  It's a target-rich environment, but the current options are all pretty nasty: inflation, the southern border, China, Afghanistan, Biden's feeble-mindedness, Harris's complete lack of ability, Hunter's laptop, supply chain–induced shortages, etc.  By comparison, the COVID pandemic is a godsend.  Fear, mixed with a plethora of questionable statistics, has proven useful when it comes to instilling voter discipline — but only up to a point.  Excess can often lead to burnout.  There's also a particular poly-sci factoid: during good times, voter turnout is often rather poor.  After all, why bother?  The opposite can be the case in times of stress.  Guess where we are now.

Image via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

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