You can see it in their eyes. Hear it in their voices. The fear. The panic. The anger. That feeling you get when you do something really stupid, it’s too late to fix it, and you know what’s coming. Democrats on Capitol Hill, in the lapdog liberal media, and across America are bracing themselves for a good old-fashioned a**-kicking come the 2022 midterm elections. And worried silly, they should be.

How fun is that?

But, worried about what, you ask? Want the answers in alphabetical order or categories?

Let’s begin with the elephant (how ironic) in the room: Donald Trump.

The Democrats were far more concerned with defeating Trump in 2020 — to the point of irrationality — than they were concerned with electing a Democrat president. Yeah, that sounds crazy. Because it is.

How else can a rational person explain the Democrat Party steering the nomination to an addled, 76-year-old guy (at the time), who thinks everyone in America has a right to “badakathcare” and wants to “lead an effective strategy to mobilize true international lead an effective strategy to mobilize true international “trunalimunumaprzure“? Or something.

The bottom line was stopping Socialist Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination by circling the wagons around Joe Biden after he won handily in the South Carolina primaries — and of course, beating Trump at all costs. Welp, here we are, more than a year after the election. Democrats, how’d that all work out?

Spoiler: It didn’t.

Mix in the most inept and clueless vice president in at least modern history and there you have it. Shudder at the thought of Biden being forced to step down. Goodbye, President Biden, hello President Harris.

And we think we’re screwed now.

America is sick of watching Kamala Harris mishandle the crisis at our southern border and laughing in our faces about it. Her disapproval rating is at an all-time high! Our Country is in dire need of new leadership. pic.twitter.com/Ve5LWIX7yi

— Lori Chavez-DeRemer (@Lchavezderemer) November 18, 2021

The Biden presidency has been and remains an unmitigated disaster that’s only going to get worse. Meanwhile, stage 4 TDS-riddled Nancy Pelosi continues to clench the House gavel with her bony little hands, while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer remains a slimy, Gollum-like political tool whose heights of hypocrisy and depths of dishonesty know no bounds.

Toss in the twin facts that 2020 was not supposed to be a good year for the GOP in Congress, yet Republicans flipped 15 seats, compared to the Democrats’ three, and the fact that the party that holds the White House does not historically perform well in the midterms.

Bottom line: Democrats should be scared poopless.

Biden’s approval rating at 36%.

And that’s a Quinnipiac poll which typically favours Dems strongly. https://t.co/cavzMiW0yf

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 19, 2021

We’ve beaten to death — with good cause — the many crises of the Biden presidency. From the border disaster to the debacle in Afghanistan, gas prices, Bidenflation, the supply crisis — and Harris, of course. Yet the Trump-loathing, Democrat-loving “mainstream” media continues its ridiculous dog-and-pony show.

'Dangerous' Trump will disrupt coverage of the 2024 election: ABC's Karl https://t.co/0I9bF9ZHez

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 27, 2021

All of that said, let’s go to an outside source for a bit of insight on five specifics that should keep card-carrying Democrats awake at night as the midterms approach. As Business Insider sees it:

Democrats No Longer Have a Lock on the Suburbs

Four words: Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears. The governor-elect and lieutenant governor-elect showed not only Virginia earlier this month; they showed the entire country — nobody more so than the Democrat Party — that election calculus can be changed. As Business Insider noted, their respective paths to victory relied on winning back white and suburban voters who recently turned away from the GOP.

That is yuuge and can be replicated across America.

Democrats Continue to Lose Among Rural and Blue-Collar Voters

“Rural areas getting redder while suburbs got bluer was a major storyline of Trump-era elections.”

And the continued erosion of Democratic support in rural areas while non-Trump Republican candidates forge new paths in suburbs presents a worrying math problem for Democrats entering 2022.

Compared with the 2017 governor’s race between the Democrat Ralph Northam and the Republican Ed Gillespie, the southwestern corner of [Virginia] saw both higher turnout and larger margins for Youngkin and other Republicans, with McAuliffe getting lower margins than Northam.

Again, there are signs that suggest the trend will continue across the country in 2022 and hopefully beyond.

Democrats Can No Longer Bank on Making Every Election a Referendum on Trump

We saw it every day in Virginia — 24×7 — from Terry McAuliffe ad nauseam to Biden, as well. Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, and more Trump. Again, how’d that all work out? Great. For Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and the people of Virginia.

To Youngkin’s credit, he put enough distance between himself and Trump both stylistically and in his policy positions so as not to alienate diehard Trump supporters, Biden voters, or independents — all of whom he needed to win statewide.

Republicans Now Have a Clear Road Map to Win in Blue and Swing States

This one is key. The lessons of Virginia and elsewhere across the country where Repubs pulled off “upset” after “upset” must be replicated not only in 2022 but in 2024 and beyond if conservatism is going to ultimately kick socialism’s a** in America.

While Biden’s big win over Trump in the presidential race got most of the attention in 2020, down-ballot Republicans proved themselves able to shed Trump’s baggage, picking up about a dozen [net] seats in the House and flipping more than 80 seats in state legislatures.

And elsewhere in the Northeast, Republicans furthered that trend and secured more under-the-radar but notable down-ballot wins.

Negative Polarization: Biden’s Terrible Approval Ratings and Down-Ballot Democrats

Clearly — and call it what you want — crap rolls downhill. As a politician, you dance with the guy who brung ya. That guy is Joe Biden, Democrats; he’s your self-anointed huckle bearer (pun intended). Your paramour, if you will. Heh.

Over the past decade or so, the phenomenon of negative polarization, in which voters are more motivated by disdain toward the opposing party than affinity toward their own, has increasingly shaped American voter behavior and the outcome of elections.

This is manifested in Americans holding increasingly negative views of the other party and its voters and record-low levels of voters splitting their tickets between one party at the presidential level and down-ballot races.

While negative polarization gave Democrats a yuuge down-ballot boost in the Trump years as dissatisfaction with Donald — particularly among white and college-educated voters — delivered Democrats big wins in the 2018 midterms, the shoe is now on the other foot, as Democrats find themselves continually stumbling over the totally incompetent feet of the guy who brung them to the dance.

Even better — in the long run, as it pertains to future elections — that dance is far from over.

Recent related RedState articles:

Newest Polling Numbers for 2022 Elections Suggest Speaker Pelosi Is Toast

Joe Biden Just Handed Republicans a 2022 Gift Complete With Shiny Red Bow

Biden’s Approval Rating Hits Single Digit Given by Man in Nantucket