EDITORIAL: Biden remains tone deaf on the concerns of voters

President Joe Biden took to the airwaves Wednesday evening and delivered a 20-minute screed that highlighted precisely why Democrats are poised for a shellacking in Tuesday’s midterm election.

Regurgitating the theme of his September speech in which he painted “MAGA Republicans” as a danger to the very existence of the nation, Mr. Biden, his gaze planted firmly in the rear-view mirror, again railed against 2020 election “deniers” and urged voters to support Democratic candidates.

“This is no ordinary year,” he said. “So I ask you to think long and hard about the moment we are in. In a typical year, we’re often not faced with the question of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year we are.”

Yet most Americans aren’t buying his deflection game. They aren’t looking to relive the 2020 election, and Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot. The courts have discredited election conspiracy theories, and Mr. Biden sits in the Oval Office, the duly elected leader of the United States. Those who were involved in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots have been arrested, charged and, in many cases, sent to jail. All this is a tribute to the constitutional guardrails that support our democratic republic, not a serious threat to the future of the country.

But shrill hyperbole is Mr. Biden’s lone weapon as Democrats watch their poll numbers sag just days before the election. It is highly telling that the president ignored the sputtering economy, soaring inflation, high gasoline prices and increased crime during his desperate rant. These are the issues that resonate with voters, but Mr. Biden offered no blueprint for how his administration plans to address such problems. Instead, he promotes the same far-left policies that led us here in the first place. But just keep your eyes on the dastardly “MAGA Republicans.”

Mr. Biden wants democracy, and he’ll get his wish. The party that enjoys the most success on Tuesday will be the party whose candidates attract the most voter support in the most highly contested races. That’s democracy in the truest sense — even if the president and his fellow Democrats don’t like the results.

H.L. Mencken satirically wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

Come next week, Mr. Biden and his party may know the feeling.