Erick Erickson sketches out the 2022 Republican strategy, based on how far over his ski tips he’s getting in relation to the Afghanistan withdrawal:
That’s an NBC poll. NBC polling leans Democrat. Polls of “all voters” lean Democrat. And the GOP is only one point behind in a poll that alreadly [sic] leans Democrat with a margin of error greater than 1%. That means, in the real world, a majority of voters want the GOP in charge of Congress. That’s without redistricting, etc.
Biden and the Democrats are cratering everywhere, which is why you don’t see a cavalcade of Democrats rushing out to defend Biden. In fact, the Democrats are internally split even over infrastructure, which was supposed to be Biden’s big win. This not only suggests the GOP will take back the House, but will take the Senate too. That then undercuts pressure to end the filibuster.
To be sure, events can change things, but this Afghan situation will be exacerbated when the trapped Americans get home and start telling their stories and people head into Thanksgiving and Christmas paying way more for holiday meals and presents than they did last year.
This is shaping up to be terrible for the Democrats and will give the GOP an opportunity to learn no lessons from 2020.
And, as he says, there’s lots of time. What has Erickson forgotten?
- Patience. The electorate that still has its mind open will judge the Afghanistan withdrawal on final results, not the hurried, partisan reactions of folks like Erickson, as I said yesterday. Professor Richardson, in fact, observed that … on CNN this morning [Aug 22?], Matthew Dowd, who was the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, noted that more than 20,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan without a single loss of an American life … This may mark the beginning of the end of effective condemnations of President Biden: a Republican strategist noting the withdrawal has positive attributes.
- The pandemic. The tragically rising numbers of illness and death are not only reasons for mourning, they will be turned into weapons by the Democrats. While a few rogue members of the left have been against vaccination, it is the right that has been, for the most part, rabidly against it. The positions of several GOP governors with regard to mask mandates and vaccination mandates will be dead-weights on the Republicans, and names such as Abbott (TX), DeSantis (FL), McMaster (SC), and Noem (SD) may become quiet curse words in Republican strategists’ mouths.
Kevin Drum thinks the withdrawal is going well, and notes why Erickson might not:
But you’d never know this thanks to an immense firehose of crap coming from the very people we should least believe. This includes:
- The hawks who kept the war in Afghanistan going for years with lies and happy talk, and who are now desperate to defend themselves.
- Republicans who figure this is a great opportunity to sling partisan bullshit. Their favorite is that Biden has destroyed America’s standing in the world, an old chestnut for which there’s no evidence whatsoever.
- Trumpies trying to avoid blame for the execution of their own plan. It is gobsmacking to hear them complain about slow processing of Afghan allies when they were the ones who deliberately hobbled the visa process in the first place.
- Democrats who, as usual, are too damn cowardly to defend the withdrawal for fear of—something. It’s not always clear what.
- Reporters who are sympathetic to all this because they genuinely care about the danger that the withdrawal poses for people they knew in Afghanistan.
These are excellent points to keep in mind when evaluating the withdrawal, and are a good starting point for formulating standards and evaluations.
For my part, I remain patient. How many Americans and Afghan allies, awaiting evac, end up dead may be the best metric. But questions regarding equipment left behind will be important. Not that I expect the Afghans to use them against us, because high-powered weapons require high power training, but they can be sold. I hope they were rendered useless before or during the evac.
