Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.
Democrats look ineffective.
If Democrats cannot solve problems voters will elect candidates who say they can.
America faces problems with no easy solutions. Democrats get the blame because they are nominally in charge, in the U.S. and in Oregon. The problems are real. The excuses are legitimate, but they are still excuses. It isn't very satisfying to a frustrated and discontented public.
This is the summer of our discontent.
Inflation. Inflation is a worldwide phenomenon, caused largely by COVID interruptions to supply chains and a world price of oil. The independent Fed by leaving interest rates too low for too long, and the Fed will fix it--by initiating a recession. A president is a victim of this, neither the cause nor cure.
Reproductive Rights. The Supreme Court unleashed the red states. Not Biden.
School shootings. Crazy people have access to guns. Crazy people are out there. The NRA and Supreme Court blocked anything potentially meaningful about access to guns.
Build Back Better. Manchin and Sinema blocked it.
Immigration. Congress cannot pass comprehensive immigration reform. They are gridlocked.
COVID. The disease mutates and evolves on its own. We don't control it. We react to it.
Vaccinations. Republicans say no. Their bodies, their choices.
Russia/Ukraine. This is Putin's doing. We react.
Restrictions on voting. Red states make their own laws, over Democratic objections. Republicans have the power.
Federal voting rights protections. Congressional Republicans block them, and Manchin and Sinema won't budge.
End filibuster. Manchin and Sinema block doing that.
Climate change. This is a world problem. Fossil fuels are cheap and available now, and representatives of fossil-fuel states defend their use.
Western drought and extreme weather. This is due to climate change that was decades in coming, and it is getting worse. See above. A president doesn't control the weather.
Develop wind and solar. China builds most of the components, and they have COVID lockdowns.
Develop Electric Vehicles. Raw materials for batteries are scarce, expensive, and overseas.
Oregon Democrats have their own set of intractable problems. The Oregon Governor Kate Brown and Democrats get much of the blame for persistent problems.
Uncontrolled rioters. Portland police are unwilling to act and intentionally sabotage the elected officials.
Homeless encampments in Portland. No place for them to go. No one wants encampments near them. Much of the problem is due to mental health and addictions, and those are not easy for government to fix.
Columbia river bridge. The state of Washington doesn't want to connect to Portland mass transit, and Oregon needs its support.
Departments screw-ups. Employees overworked, demoralized, and quitting. Paying them a lot more is expensive.
Summer smoke. Big forest fires come from unusually dry summers, the effects of climate change, lightning, and 100 years of forest policy. It is slow to change.
Rural areas think Portland area dominates state politics. It is true. It does. The Portland area has most of the population.
Clackamas County vote screwup. There is an incompetent Republican county clerk, elected locally.
Governing is hard. Politics is unfair. It is easier to complain. There are good reasons that the problems persist. The political problem for Democrats is that voters are impatient and frustrated. They elect people to fix problems. They want to hear that someone will be doing something. Democrats need to do something very big and bold and controversial on two or three of the big issues. That way they will be seen as trying. Tinkering won't do it. That will look like more of the helpless dithering people are sick of.
Trump understood that. "Build the Wall" was something people understood. Are Democrats too good and mature and realistic to propose potential solutions so simplistic? Something so easy to understand? Something people could chant or put on a bumper strip? Republicans hope so.