Illustration: Chen Xia/GT

As Democrats seek new wars of empire, there's good reason to believe that the US' ruling party could soon suffer losses at the polls. The Democratic Party currently controls the executive branch of our federal government as well as its legislature, just as it did at the start of Barack Obama's presidency.

Just as they did in 2008, Democrats swept into federal offices over the course of 2018-2021, promising a host of reforms and benefits for the American people, only to immediately abandon those goals and pledges once in office. When Obama took office, and even with a congressional supermajority, he quickly gave up on the goal of providing public healthcare for all Americans. After carrying on the billionaire-backing, war-mongering policies of their Republican predecessors, Democrats lost control of Congress in the 2010 mid-term elections.

Now, Democrats seem poised to do the same once again in the coming 2022 mid-term elections, despite having in recent years won legislative and executive races after bashing Donald Trump's policies, promising to protect marriage equality, abortion rights, expand healthcare, end some of our many wars, and to provide a coherent and effective public health plan along with financial relief during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Since taking back power Democrats have instead mostly either continued or expanded on Trump's own policies. In under two years of Democratic control, they have lost women the right to abortion, ended free COVID testing and vaccination as the death toll continues to rise, refused to give us healthcare, overseen our highest gas prices, ever, and ushered in an economic recession along with artificial inflation due to our own corporate capture and the sanctions we're unilaterally imposing on other nations.

Oh, and more war.

The Democrats have started a proxy war with Russia and are now willfully and needlessly inflaming tensions with China, with provocative military exercises and our third most powerful elected official Nancy Pelosi visiting with Taiwan regional separatist leaders, in contradiction to officially stated US policy and agreement with China. 

Liberal outlets printed critiques of Pelosi's visit while dozens of leading Republican conservatives praised her aggression. Average Americans have been left witnessing this confusing mess from afar, in between working our multiple jobs for increasingly devalued dollars, wondering what this all has to do with our unmet needs, and why we are being told to cheerlead our government risking World War III on multiple fronts as our own domestic situation grows more dire by the day.

As our government continues with its particularly cruel version of capitalist policies, an increasing number of Americans report having favorable opinions of socialism (65 percent of Democrats in particular have a positive image of socialism according to polls while their leaders like Biden and Pelosi insult it) and increasing dissatisfaction with capitalism. Over 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the Democratic-controlled Congress' performance.

President Joe Biden's approval rating has hit an all-time low of just 38 percent, with 45 percent of Americans strongly disapproving of his job performance. Another recent poll of registered voters shows that 68.8 percent of Americans don't even want Biden to run for re-election in 2024, with a mere 21.8 percent of us wanting him to run.

The Democratic Party's insistence on inflaming tensions with other nations like Russia and China instead of focusing on rebuilding America has resulted in embarrassing unpopularity among voters. That, combined with the phenomenon of voters from the out of power party typically being more motivated to turn out to vote during mid-term elections throughout our history would seem to spell electoral trouble for Democrats over the next two years.

The author is a Chicago-based columnist covering US politics & culture. He is also a university English & critical journalism instructor. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn