Midterm Review pt. 3: Political Establishment Staggered Voters Don’t Care About So-Called “Threat to Democracy”

According to the left, Trump and his army of adoring fans are a threat to democracy. In fact, since the day he left office, everything remotely associated with the former president–or remotely opposed to his successor–has been called a threat to our democracy by someone in the political establishment.

The Washington Post blasted Democrats for not doing enough to make the midterms about the purported threat to democracy. Senior political reporter Aaron Blake wrote that the Jan. 6 “insurrection” should have been “an overarching focus of Democrats’ 2022 campaign messaging.”

Others would beg to differ, however. A hullabaloo about the threat to democracy Republicans allegedly pose has been the overarching focus of Democrats’ 2022 campaign messaging.

The New York Times warned of the twin threats to American Democracy. Both are, apparently, the GOP’s fault. 

According to The Guardian, “whiteness poses the greatest threat to US democracy,” and “championing whiteness is what makes Trump powerful.”

Apparently, even the recent attack on Paul Pelosi was an “assault on democracy.”

And who can forget President Biden’s “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” speech in which he exclaimed that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Whatever The Washington Post may say, the Democrats have had a lot to say about the Trump-led threat to democracy. Their closing argument to the American people is that the future of democracy is on the ballot. A vote for Democrats, they say, is a vote to save democracy. A vote for Republicans, a vote to end it.

Much to their chagrin, however, voters quite simply don’t care.

And the political establishment is utterly flabbergasted.

Don’t voters know what’s at stake? Don’t they care about democracy?

SEE ALSO: Midterm Review: The Left is Intentionally Stuck on Trump

In a last-minute scramble, the establishment has taken to chiding voters for not caring enough about “saving democracy.” This “threat” is a big deal to the folks at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN. They can’t possibly conceive why the rest of us might not be equally as concerned.

Today, eight days before election day, political analyst Juan Williams lectured readers of The Hill–and voters more generally–for worrying more about inflation than the notorious threat to democracy.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“Turn on the TV news, open a paper, and the stories are all about the midterm polls, debates and the political horse race between Republicans and Democrats.

Am I missing something?

How is it possible for any reporter to pretend this is just another election when 71 percent of voters in a recent New York Times poll said democracy is at risk?

Here is another mystery to me.

Voters say inflation, not the threat to democracy, is their first concern.

How can anyone close their eyes to the big picture — a threat to our nation’s political stability, the cornerstone of American democracy?”

A bewildered Williams goes on to blame all of the country’s problems on MAGA Republicans. “There is a threat to America from Republicans loyal to Trump and his lies. . . . That is the real story of the 2022 midterms,” he concludes, at a loss as to why voters aren’t up in arms in outrage.

SEE ALSO: Midterm Review pt. 2: A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week for Democrats

In similar fashion, Blake Hounshell chided voters on the pages of The New York Times. “[D]emocracy is not shaping up to be the driver of votes that many on the left hoped it would be,” he reported. He cites voters’ disinterest in a “threat to democracy” as yet more evidence of a “threat to democracy.”

What the political establishment can’t seem to understand is that while everyday American voters do love America’s system of governance, they don’t put a whole lot of stock into what the media says.

The political establishment can scream as loudly as it wants. But if what they say goes against Americans’ lived experiences, voters won’t listen. In this particular case, voters have more pressing issues top of mind. And that’s OK.

The media also fails to calculate its own pretentiousness and the effect that has on voters. The American people noticed that when 2020 BLM rioters caused $2 billion in property damage, the media largely fell silent.

Or made excuses for the rioters.

Those attacks were up close and personal to everyday Americans. Our businesses were senselessly looted, torched, and vandalized. Our cities sustained serious desecration.

Yet the media said next to nothing.

But when the political establishment was attacked on January 6, 2021, the media suddenly had a lot to say… and it expected us to care.

None of this should undermine our response to an actual threat to America’s system of governance. But what elites like Williams and Hounshell still don’t understand is that–to the American people–they are the actual threat.

The far-left political establishment is responsible for destroying the America voters know and love.

And We the People, quite frankly, don’t care what they have to say.

Jakob Fay is a staff writer for the Convention of States Project, a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.