It’s been something of an article of faith on the Right for the last eight months that America is finished, that the battle was lost, that we are now under the permanent thumb of the Hard Left wing of the Democrat Party and that full communism is imminent.

We certainly aren’t Pollyannas here at The Hayride, and we will hardly minimize the damage this abysmal, dubiously-legitimate regime has already caused. But we’ve never quite accepted this full-on doom and gloom perspective. In fact, it drives us absolutely crazy to see perfectly intelligent people willingly adopt such a loser mentality rather than reclaim their fighting spirit.

We could give you the revivalist pep talk here, but we won’t. Instead, we will posit something which is not only manifestly evident now but has been true for quite some time: namely, that regardless of the failings of the Republican Party, the Democrats are simply not good enough at what they do to hold power for very long in places where outmigration isn’t practical.

Yes, the cities are all run by Democrats. The suburbs, which are better places to live and, in fact, are generally more populated than the cities, have seen to that. The middle class has moved or is moving to suburban jurisdiction as a direct result of intentional maladministration by urban Democrats who have chosen to run them off in order to secure a permanent Democrat majority in those cities.

But that doesn’t work so well at the state or national level. It’s easier to decamp for the suburbs than to pick up and move to another state, and definitely easier to flee to the ‘burbs than to emigrate to another country.

So if you want to survive at the state or national level you actually do have to govern somewhat successfully. And this, Joe Biden is clearly not doing.

Don’t just trust your lying eyes or take our word for it. Let’s go and have a look at some polls, shall we?

Start with the Des Moines Register poll in Iowa, which has been used as a benchmark survey of Middle American attitudes. Boy, they really don’t like POTATUS much there…

Less than a third of Iowans approve of the job President Biden is doing — an alarming sign in the swing state that plays a key role in national elections, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

While 31 percent gave Biden a thumbs up, 62 percent disapprove of his performance, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll shows.

That’s a huge drop from June when the margin of approval was 43 percent to 52 percent.

The last time Biden was in positive territory in the poll was in March when he stood at 47 percent approve to 44 percent disapprove.

“This is a bad poll for Joe Biden, and it’s playing out in everything that he touches right now,” pollster J. Ann Selzer told the Des Moines Register.

Biden is down 36-60 on his treatment of COVID in Iowa. You undoubtedly saw how Team D pivoted from their Afghanistan disaster to COVID in an effort to find some footing; well, that sure didn’t work.

Hey, look, Gallup has a new poll out! How’s Biden looking in that one?

The survey service said the president has plummeted 13 points since June, now sitting at a dismal 43% approval rating, the lowest of his presidency.

Worse, said Gallup, “For the first time, a majority, 53%, now disapproves of Biden’s performance.”

The survey was taken after the failed Afghanistan withdrawal that left many Americans behind, an event condemned by the nation in multiple other surveys.

“The latest drop in Biden’s job approval score is the second significant decline since June. Biden’s honeymoon ratings near 55% first faltered in July, falling to 50% amid rising COVID-19 cases caused largely by the delta variant. In Gallup’s Aug. 2-17 poll, Biden’s rating was essentially unchanged, at 49%,” said the service.

…

Out of the headlines for a while, Vice President Kamala Harris has steadied her polling, and now the nation is split on her job, 49% approving, 49% not. She sits exactly where Biden did in 2009, his first year as former President Barack Obama’s vice president.

So Kamala Harris running and hiding, and staying away from the American people, makes her more popular than Biden. Not that this would last, as every time Harris has had a public face in this administration the public has reacted almost violently. But that’s a number which could signal a move should things get worse for Biden.

Will they get worse? Oh, who can say, right?

When [so-called quote-unquote “president”] Joe Biden announced that an authoritarian vaccine mandate would be imposed on roughly 100 million Americans by OSHA, the glee on the left was palpable. Today, the unintended consequences of Biden’s attempt to distract from the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan are becoming apparent. According to Morning Consult, hardly a right-wing pollster, Biden’s net approval among black voters have fallen 17 points since the mandate. The share of black voters who disapprove of Biden’s job performance increased 7 points, to 24%, with 14% saying they strongly disapprove.

The mandate is a dubious public health move, given the number of recovered Americans. It could also prove to be a catastrophic political move. Democrats are already concerned about shifts in the Hispanic vote toward Republicans in 2020 and the recent California recall. While there might not be a similar shift in the black vote, all they have to do is stay home in 2022 to kneecap Democrats. Even Morning Consult notes that Democrats are suffering from an enthusiasm gap. . .

. . . When you consider the percentage of the black population that is not vaccinated, the breakdown from Morning Consult becomes an even bigger problem. Keep in mind, approximately 70% of black Americans are not fully vaccinated, and only 34% have taken an initial dose, according to the CDC.

There were also more significant declines among black voters in their view of Biden’s handling of specific policy areas than the decline among all voters. He is five points underwater with black voters on his handling of immigration and barely making 50% on foreign policy and national security. As Barack Obama reportedly said, “Never underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up.”

Black Lives Matter is threatening to tear down New York City over vaccine mandates, and Biden’s trying to push them all over the country on a population which is heavily vaxx-reticent and DOES NOT TRUST THE GOVERNMENT. Now you’ve got fewer people taking the jab than before Biden tried to mandate it.

Oh, and Hispanics, who are already moving away from the Democrats, are quite vaxx-reticent as well. How’s that helping?

Well, Rasmussen has Biden holding on at 45-54, but Strong Disapproval is now 46 and Strong Approval is down to 25. Rasmussen might actually be Biden’s best poll now, which is pretty amazing.

Reuters/Ipsos has him down 44-50, but that’s a huge drop in the last couple of months. He’s at 33 percent approval with independents. And the Reuters/Ipsos poll sample was 44 D, 36 R. Come on.

Then you’ve got the Harvard/Harris poll, which is another big Democrat sample, and it doesn’t have much good news…

President Biden and former President Trump are statistically tied when it comes to their favorability among U.S. voters, according to a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey shared exclusively with The Hill on Monday.

Forty-eight percent of respondents say they have a positive view of Trump compared to 46 percent who say they have a favorable opinion of his successor. Biden’s favorability is slightly underwater, however: 49 percent of those surveyed said they have an unfavorable view of the current president, while slightly less — 47 percent — report an unfavorable opinion of Trump.

The findings are a remarkable shift for Biden, who repeatedly outperformed Trump’s favorability numbers throughout the early months of his presidency.

But multiple crises, including a surge in new COVID-19 infections in recent months and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, have bruised public perceptions of Biden.

Fifty-one percent of respondents now say Trump was a better president than Biden, while 49 percent prefer the White House’s current occupant, the poll shows.

It’s ugly out there. The fact that Biden keeps collapsing on each issue he focuses on is an especially bad problem. He pulled out of Afghanistan and it shattered the public’s confidence in his foreign policy. Then he pivoted to COVID and he’s killing himself with blacks and latinos. Eventually he’ll have to pivot to the border and it’s going to be tough to figure out who he won’t piss off.

Meanwhile, his legislative agenda is in tatters and Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin both appear to have recognized their only chance of political survival back home is to stand against all of the big legislative pieces, which puts Biden in a vise between them and the Hard Left whose demands grow louder and louder now that they’ve begun to realize the window is closing as the 2022 midterms near.

Let’s not forget that the Democrats are more riven with internal conflicts now than perhaps ever before. The black leaders and the Hispanics don’t get along, neither like the LGBT lobby, the Hard Left wants to kill what few moderates they have left, nobody can stand Pelosi and nobody has confidence Biden can keep a lid on any of it.

This is filtering down the ballot, by the way…

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D., Mich.) job approval rating has plummeted more than 10 points in the last year, according to a state poll.

The Glengariff Group, a Michigan survey research firm, found only 48 percent of voters approve of Whitmer’s performance as governor, whereas 46 percent disapprove. In September 2020, the same poll found 59 percent of voters approved of Whitmer’s leadership and 38 percent disapproved. The shift in opinions occurred most noticeably among independent voters.

Whitmer’s lagging poll numbers come after a year of reports showed Whitmer repeatedly violating her own COVID health policies.

Whitmer is actually down six points now to James Craig, her most likely GOP challenger, the former police chief in Detroit (he’s black).

Then there’s Virginia, which is a gubernatorial race that’ll happen this fall…

The Virginia gubernatorial race is shaping up to be much closer than previous elections, according to a new poll by the University of Mary Washington and Research America Inc.

The poll found that 48 percent of likely voters back Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, while 43 percent support former Democratic governor Terry McAuliffe. However, among total registered voters, 46 percent back McAuliffe while 41 percent favor Youngkin.

“The reports of the end of Virginia’s status as a swing state are greatly exaggerated,” Stephen J. Farnsworth, director of UMW’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies, said in a news post on the UMW site. “The large number of undecided voters at this stage demonstrates that either major party candidate can become the next governor of Virginia.”

Yes, but, say the Eeyores, we’ll never have a real election again and the Democrats will just steal it.

If that’s what you believe, you’re not paying attention to what the other side is saying. They’re telling each other it’s all falling apart. Just look at how the Florida Democrat Party is melting down…

Florida was once considered a battleground state, but whatever influence the Democrats had over the Sunshine State is swiftly disappearing as issue after issue plagues their efforts to gain momentum and their footholds are disappearing for the first time ever.

According to The Hill, Democrats are facing a myriad of issues such as a fundraising gap a mile wide when compared to the Florida GOP. This is on top of the fact that the voter registration advantage that they’ve held for years has effectively been destroyed, going from 700,000 more registered voters in the state to just 23,551 over the course of 2008 to today.

Florida passed a nice package of electoral reforms. The Dems now can’t raise money for statewide races there because their people think it’s hopeless.

At the same time, Democrats are facing daunting structural challenges, including Republican-led redistricting and a controversial new election law pushed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) that puts new restrictions on the collection of mail-in ballots and the use of drop boxes.

“It feels a little bit like we’re kind of set up to fail,” one Florida Democratic official said. “It’s not any one person’s fault. A lot of these problems have existed for years. But for a party that has been decimated in the last few elections and especially the last one, I’m not seeing a sense of urgency yet.”

You’re seeing this in lots of places.

And while the country isn’t done suffering – just wait until the full weight of Biden’s maladministration lands on the economy, for example – at the end of the day you don’t have enough energetic or charismatic leadership to overcome the decline.

It’s really cold comfort amid all this bad news to think the public is likely to make Biden and his party pay for it. But when the “F**k Joe Biden” cheers continue getting louder in those football stadiums every weekend and the panic starts setting in among members of Congress and endangered governors, we’re at least in for an interesting show of political collapse from a Democrat party which richly deserves it.