Not watching the same movie

A CNN political analyst betrays a strange way of thinking about the decisions voters will face in 2022:

[Voters will] look to Virginia to assess the importance of key issues and talking points. Republicans will gauge how effective their culture war agenda is faring. Should they continue railing against vaccine and mask mandates and criticize the way race is taught in schools? Or should they focus on other concerns like inflation and supply chain disruptions to undercut the President and win elections in 2022?

Democrats on the other hand, will assess their core arguments -- namely that the President is normalizing governance and putting forth effective policies to contain the spread of the pandemic. Will this be enough to win the support of voters in swing districts who are crucial to maintaining control of the House in 2022?

This fellow looks at a Republican philosophy of autonomy and personal responsibility and mostly sees a culture war combined with a weird "wailing" about what all right-thinking people obviously acknowledge to be core principles of citizenship: forcing vaccinations and masks on the unwilling while shutting down debate about their efficacy and risks. He apparently believes inflation and supply chain disruptions are more like real issues, but in the hands of Republicans, they become mere tools to "undercut" our rightful leader. On the other hand, when Democrats have ideas, they are "core arguments," even if they consist of patent lunacy, like the notion that the President is doing something we could call "normalizing governance" or pursuing "effective policies," or that responsible parents should keep shoveling their tax dollars into a race-baiting public school curriculum, while letting their daughters be raped in bathrooms by boys in skirts, then jailed for complaining about it.

I suspect the power to manipulate even the squishiest of "I just want everyone to act nice" moderates with the argument that President Biden is normalizing government or pursuing effective policies has sputtered out over the last six months. It may sound like a culture war to CNN, and not the good kind, like keyboard-headbutting acronyms for social justice revolution, but voters in 2022 may have let the current powers that be get on their last nerve.

In the meantime, I hope CNN has its finger on the pulse of the Democrat leadership's preferred path to win voters' hearts and minds, and that the path leads to a flame-out you can see from space.

Speaking of space: