Maybe Joe Biden thinks these “vulnerable Democrats” are just being wise guys, eh? Don’t they listen to Biden’s legendary fourteen Nobel laureates?

Per CNN, they’re too busy listening to their constituents:

The Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats are all calling on the Biden administration to do more to address the pain consumers are feeling from the cost of rising goods — and taking steps themselves to show they are in tune with voters’ concerns, whether it’s on the price of gasoline or groceries.

And very few of them say President Joe Biden is doing enough to deal with the fastest pace of inflation in four decades.

“No,” Sen. Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat, told CNN when asked if he were satisfied with the administration’s handling of the issue. “Until it comes down to something that’s more sustainable and that families across the country can actually deal with — no.”

The four Democratic incumbents who are in the toughest races this fall all indicated Thursday that far more needed to be done — and none of these vulnerable members indicated they were pleased with the job the Biden administration is doing on the matter.

What, in fact, has Biden and his team done about inflation, let alone anything effective? Lester Holt asked Biden specifically about it, and all Biden could cite was pushing to relocate Intel’s chip supply chain to allow auto makers to pick up their output. Even that effort came months after both inflation and the general supply-chain crisis emerged and were largely laughed off by the White House. “High class problems,” indeed.

The concern from Democrats isn’t limited to 2022 incumbents, either. The Hill reports that the 40-year records that Biden keeps breaking on inflation mean a serious recalculation on legislative priorities, even if Biden himself doesn’t recognize the need. And it’s not just Joe Manchin talking about it any more, either, even if some of his colleagues still prefer the hair of the dog:

Other Senate Democrats acknowledge that rising inflation is becoming a bigger political problem that doesn’t bode well for Biden’s plan to pass another spending package that would be well in excess of $1 trillion.

“Clearly we’d like to see that go down, I think the Fed’s got to act,” said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.).

As for what inflation means for Build Back Better, he replied: “Nothing comes easy.”

“Obviously the inflation numbers don’t make it easier,” he added.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said the possibility of dramatically shrinking the size of Biden’s climate and infrastructure spending package is “always on the table” to respond to inflation fears.

But he also pointed out that might not be necessary if Democrats can successfully make the case that Build Back Better will address inflation by helping middle-income Americans lower their costs.

“There are things that can help reduce inflation in BBB, childcare, housing, those kind of things but I do think we need to look at it from how we can help reduce costs for families,” he said.

Massive deficit spending will only exacerbate the problem. In order to fund that, the Federal Reserve will have to keep expanding the monetary supply, which they will need to do just to keep up with normal deficit spending anyway. Any excess expansion will keep adding fuel to the inflationary fires that are already raging, and any attempts to “solve” inflation by simply subsidizing purchases will keep demand at the same sugar-high levels that Biden’s disastrous and unnecessary March 2021 stimulus bill boosted.

But there’s a bigger problem facing Democrats with Joe Biden. It has become clear that Biden isn’t actually providing pro-active leadership, or leadership of any kind. Instead, Biden’s letting events get ahead of him, a point that the mutiny of Democratic governors over mask mandates is making painfully clear:

It’s not that Democrats don’t get the magnitude of the political challenges ahead.

It might be, though, that they’re not sure what can be done to change fortunes ahead of the midterms. It might also be that President Joe Biden lags behind key party leaders in recognizing the severity of the issues at hand and adjusting accordingly. …

A parade of Democratic governors announced the winding down of COVID mask mandates. That came despite the Biden administration’s guidance to mask up when possible — and despite the kinds of warnings from medical professionals that in the past held significant sway over blue-state policies.

This has been the most reactive, non-strategic White House in long memory. At every stage, they have gamed out only the first move in any decision — whether that was on the stimulus bill, Afghanistan, supply chains, inflation, or the pandemic. They routinely ridicule those who point this out, a pattern that started with Larry Summers in the first two weeks of Biden’s presidency and extends to Ron Klain and Jen Psaki as well as Biden himself. Then they scramble to catch up only long after everyone else has discovered Biden’s incompetence.

Of course, that’s exactly what Joe Biden has always been: an overrated incompetent whom Democrats spent almost 50 years keeping from any real executive authority. They chose him to run for president in 2020, though, and now they’re stuck with him. As are we all, unfortunately, but Democrats will pay the price in the midterms, and there’s not much that they can do about it now.