Every election, the same voices loudly proclaim it the “most important election of our lifetime.” They can’t all be the “most important,” but we are heading into a unique election that will decide the direction of our country for a long time through more than just candidates’ individual policies.
It’s not as sexy as “most important,” but in a few days we’ll participate in an “ideas” election in a way we haven’t for a while: Who do we want to be as a country and where do we want to go?
Unlike so many presidential elections, this race will not be driven by personality. America has had our share of those over the last 15 years. Whether President Barack Obama or President Donald Trump, people were signing up for the man far more than his actual ideas.
But the personalities of the candidates in this midterm election, some good and some bad, are far less relevant than the direction the winners will take us.
The theme is a “return to normal.” This is the first midterm election since the COVID lockdowns changed the country’s trajectory. Our economy was booming, kids consistently went to schools where parents didn’t have to be on constant high alert for indoctrination, crime was manageable. When our country went into lockdown, normal went out the window.
Americans are hungry for normalcy, and they’re not going to get it from Democrats.
Many voted for President Joe Biden hoping for this return to normal. But much of Biden’s presidency, and his Democratic Party’s direction, is a rejection of all rationality and embrace of fringe figures and ideas.
Biden’s $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” has been a driving factor of inflation that continues to climb upward. As American families are hurting, instead of reversing course, Biden is trying to push through cash handouts for his constituents in the form of student-loan forgiveness, which would mean wealth redistribution from plumbers and electricians to lawyers and doctors.
On schools, no one blocked access to in-person education more than Randi Weingarten, American Federation of Teachers president, and the results have been a full-on disaster. Yet she continues to be a top campaigner for Democrats.
Over the weekend, she campaigned with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who flat-out lied during last week’s televised debate with her opponent, Tudor Dixon, that she closed schools for only three months. Weingarten is busing around the country to campaign with Democrats like Gov. Tony Evers in Wisconsin, US Senate candidate Tim Ryan in Ohio and gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams in Georgia.
That someone who caused so much damage to children is still taking the stage with Democrats shows the direction they want to continue in.
In the closing weeks before the midterms, meanwhile, Biden held a roundtable with far-left site NowThis News. Among the people getting access to the president, who rarely speaks to the media or gives interviews, was transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney, who asked whether states should be allowed to deny “gender-affirming” care.
States only deny this “care,” which actually means prescribing hormones or performing surgery to remove the breasts or genitals, to children. The president answered that no one should have the right to stop this.
Democrats often describe arguments like this as “culture war.” But culture is important, and this election will take a firm stance on whether our culture is OK with children getting life-altering hormones or surgery to try to change their gender.
And finally, crime. It has been a tough road to get Democrats to admit crime is even an important issue. During the debate between Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Lee Zeldin, Hochul wondered why the crime issue is so important to Zeldin.
We can’t go on like this anymore. We can’t start from debating whether crime matters or whether it even exists. We need to move on and elect people dedicated to fighting it. There are two distinct roads here, and we have to choose one.
We’ve been in the upside-down, where lax crime policies, insane school programs and so much more have been winning the day. A red wave will mean Americans demand a different direction. It will mean we tried the leftist ideas, declared them failures and want to try something else.
It will mean a return to something better, back to the normal we have longed for and deserve.
Twitter: @Karol
