Is the GOP catching up?

Certainly feels like polling is tightening as Democrats embrace socialism!

This is a list of the polling done since the beginning of July. Keeping in mind that at the end of May, Democrats had an 8 point polling margin.

So what happened?

Democratic socialism and Graham Platner. That is what happened. The Democrats got stuck defending a known rapist who sported a Nazi tattoo, all because he was the best "socialist" in the Maine crowd. Now that he has stepped away, they will replace him with another ethically suspect socialist with a myriad of potential scandals in the closet. Why, because he is another socialist. Perhaps he isn't a rapist and perhaps he doesn't want to exterminate jews, but he is still going to likely be a problem for them.

Over the past few days you have had Van Jones attacking his own Party for extremism. You have had Bill Maher saying he may vote for J.D. Vance in 2028 if the Democrats push a Democratic socialist as their candidate. You even had Senator Fetterman suggest that if the Party goes any further down the antisemitic and socialist road that he would consider leaving the Party. This is just the people who are open to saying anything. For every Van Jones and Bill Maher, there are probably millions of other liberals who are thinking the same thing.

The problem with pushing the envelope with political extremism is that you loose that mushy middle. Yes, everyone gets upset when some moderate blocks something that true believers want, but sometimes politicians believe that having those issues as political arguments is better than fixing them. The extremes have no other place to go. Is the Democratic Socialist or the antisemitic going to vote Republican because the mainstream Democrats are not liberal enough? No, but the moderate Democrat might switch votes if they truly have issues with the stances of some of these extremists.

The most obvious issue at the moment seems to be the antisemitism and push towards socialism. But there are also underlying currents of anti-constitutionalist and people who literally want to fundamentally change our country based on economic and social illiteracy. These are the people trying to convince others that "real socialism" has never been tried, or confusing Nordic capitalism with socialism. It also doesn't help that many of these same people are openly pushing things like packing the USSC and adding DC and Puerto Rico as states simply for a power grab. These are also things that push the moderates (and even some more traditional liberals) away.

In case you are wondering, all of the Nordic nations are listed in the top 10-12 free market economies in the world. Moreover, their high profile social programs are funded with consumption taxes, and an income tax where everyone (not just the top half of the country) pay taxes. They do not require the rich to pay for everything and there is comparatively little corporate taxes. We are fundamentally more progressive in our taxation and arguably "soak" or rich and corporations in a manner that doesn't exist in those countries. They are also reversing open border policies and going back to an immigration system that requires someone provide a benefit and even pay a token to become a citizen. In other words, these pro-socialist advocates do not actually want us to be more like the Nordic countries as they exist, but they want us to be like the Nordic countries as they would like to pretend they exist. Perhaps they are stupid (likely) or perhaps they know better and are lying (less likely) but either way they are wrong.

I have no idea if these numbers are just a arbitrary place in time or if this is a very real movement back towards sanity and the GOP. I believe that if our armed forces take care of business over in the middle east and gas prices stabilize or even come back down, that Democrats are going to be in trouble. Affordability only works to a degree and we may end up with bigger issues driving the election:

• Do we want to erase 250 years of American exceptionalism for a Gen Z socialist pipedream

• You we want to become an openly antisemitic nation that lends itself to more radical Islamic influence

• Do we really want to allow for more fraud and corruption at the hands of illegal or suspect immigrants.

I know where I stand, and I am sure I am not in the minority. The only thing is whether or not the majority votes the way that they should.