The midterms: is the US even slightly sane these days?
I’m with Kruiser on this:
In my four-plus decades of political activism, I have never seen a party that is supposed to steamroll an election be in the kind of disarray that the 2026 Democrats are in. Their candidate slate is a motley collection of communists and buffoons. They’re embroiled in a power struggle between the young, loud and proud commies, and the establishment, more subtle commies.
And their only clear policy position is that they are pro-criminal and anti-law enforcement.
Seriously, in an even slightly sane world, the Republicans should be able to dominate these midterms without candidates even having to get out of bed. Sadly, “even slightly sane” has been in the rearview mirror for too many miles now.
Well, they do have one more clear policy position, probably their over-arching one: anything Trump is for they are against.
I am gobsmacked at the idea that the current Democrat Party is poised to do very well in November. How can this be? Are we that far gone? Maybe; probably. If so, I am convinced it is because of our educational system, which has been churning out historically (and otherwise) ignorant pro-leftists for decades. That group has finally reached a critical mass. Many of them are also ruled by envy; it’s not for nothing that one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not covet.”
Now might be the time for me to post the results of some polls for the midterms, but I have come to distrust polls more than ever. So I’ll skip it.
Even if the GOP loses the midterms, the % of votes for GOP candidates will equal the % of voters who are slightly sane. So, 40% plus are at least slightly sane.
Four years ago we won a majority in all three branches.
Now is the time for all good men (and women) to come to the aid of their country!
Watching Baris and Barnes on YouTube, the outlook does not look good. They are in a constant state of self-immolation, and yet their currency still seems to have a lot of value.
At some point the Democrat Party is going to have some kind of spectacular meltdown. The only question is how much collateral damage there will be.
> Four years ago we won a majority in all three branches.
Yes, but… what good has it done? A lot of course, mostly because of the damage that isn’t otherwise being done. We are also suffering from the most do-nothing Congress in our lifetimes, where the majority leader pre-emptively surrenders on issues a vast majority of the voters want. If there is a blue wave next month, it will be most richly deserved. But not by conservative voters.
Correction:
FourTwo years ago we won a majority in all three branches.Amazing that it’s been less than two years since the USA chose DJT!
The thing that galls me is the Democrats hypocritical campaign on fuel prices. If it were up to the Democrats we would not have a domestic oil and gas industry.
Biden’s first day in office he killed the keystone XL pipeline.
Right now the Republicans should mount an all out campaign challenging all domestic restrictions on drilling wells in blue areas and let the Democrats reveal themselves.
Also push for more refineries.
I saw a video montage within the last couple days, of several, 5 or more, Dem candidates proclaiming their support for “Medicare for all.”
So, Medicare for all, sounds roughly equivalent to “universal healthcare.” Haven’t we been here before? I’m recalling some US history, that’s long enough ago, that I don’t have a memory of any searchable specifics. Admittedly, these current candidates are speaking of a federal policy, whereas my recollections are of a statewide movement.
Didn’t some New England state like Vermont elect a slate with majorities claiming to enact universal healthcare, back in the ’90’s or maybe around 2000?
Since there were enough slightly sane politicians in that left-wing body, they decided to do an actuarial and financial study before proceeding down the implementation path. [They did implement!] Big surprise (sarc): The results were wildly unaffordable.
– – – – – –
Not that hard to search. I got Vermont correct! 😉
Yet Dems keep winning seats. My own District will flip, again, this time from Rep to Dem. The District is only 4 yrs old. The Dem is a closet DSA guy. He will win. The ads against Evans are just lies. Now the ads are really focusing on gas prices, as they come down. Not even as high as under Biden but they don’t care. Low Intelligence Voters.
I just checked on
https://california.ballottrax.net/voter
And my California ballot has been received and counted. Or so they say.
Go Hilton!
— Rick Gutleber
‘In our lifetime?’ No. The Congresses of 2017 and 2018 were worse. We are very slowly, grindingly forcing back the GOPe. But they’re fighting hard against it and trying desperately to get back to the pre-2016 ‘normal’.
— Selfy
But keep in mind that some of the people who voted for Trump were actually voting against Biden/Harris, rather than for DJT. Also, part of the key to DJT’s success in 2024 was that some Dems stayed home in protest against Biden/Harris. Some of those stay-at-homes were mad because they thought B/H had been too right-wing.
That said, it comes back to the same problem the GOP has had since FDR’s time: the voters don’t like GOP economics. The Business Agenda. SoSec and Medicare privatization. Deregulation is something the electorate is mixed on. ‘Free’ trade. Unlimited legal and illegal immigration.
The Business Agenda.
So even with the Dems as bad as they are, the GOP has trouble breaking out, because that Business Agenda the voters hate is precisely what the GOPe is primarily motivated by.
This is why we have GOP Congresses that don’t want to do anything. The old guard wants to implement the Business Agenda and nothing else. The MAGA-esque GOP still does not have enough votes to force the issue.
This midterm may or may not go badly for the GOP. But given how horrific the Dems are, it should be a walk-away for the GOP and it won’t be because of the Business Agenda.
Why? The 60s. And the destruction of the educational system ever since. I don’t think it gets talked about nearly enough. I tutor math and reading. It’s appalling. History? Civics? Fugetaboutit. The teachers don’t know any more than the students.
I think it’s a case of the voting populace being continuously whipsawed to the point that we’re now completely punch drunk. We don’t even have much more than a clue what the sentiments of citizens are anymore, because the information has become the equivalent of junk food: Over-processed, devoid of nutrition, a product of some ultra-modern plant that engineers them to be hyper-palatable and addictive. That’s what social media and the electronic media world have done to us. Polls are no longer assessing thoughts from voters, they’re subtly providing them. A.I. has made ad messaging slick and subliminal. Social media comments are half bots to begin with, bought and paid for. Supposed grass-roots demonstrations carry the weight of mobs but upon closer examination, are the work of a few dozen who are well-paid by NGOs, with camermen that know how to work a favorable angle to make a tantrum look like a riot.
The only thing you can be sure of, is your own vote. Be sure to exercise it.
No matter what the polls say, I will go vote.
”I have come to distrust polls more than ever.”
I don’t trust the polls either, but this feels like a repeat of the 2006 midterm with the 2008 election on deck.
Both the 2006 and 2008 elections were referendums on George W. Bush and the Iraq war. This allowed the Democrats to shift solidly to the left, and it didn’t matter, because those elections weren’t about the Democrats.
Likewise this election (and most likely the 2028 election) will be a referendum on Donald Trump and the Iran war. This is allowing the Democrats to shift even more left, because this election isn’t about them.
You don’t have to look at just the polls. The Republicans are playing defense, spending a lot of money on red states such as Florida. Trump’s campaign stops have been in — what? — Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio, Nebraska, and Alaska. All solid red states — defense.
Meanwhile the Democrats are also spending large sums of money in solid red states. Here in my red county in a red state the Democrats are spending large amounts of money trying to unseat my Republican state assemblyman, and they’re doing it with a DSA candidate campaigning against school choice and for “reproductive justice.” This is (the edge of) the Bible Belt. Such a campaign would be suicidal in any other year, yet the Democrats are spending gobs of money on it.
I’m not making any predictions yet. Polling has gotten very bad, and the gaslighting is through the roof. I’m just saying this election feels like 2006.
With wages at all time with crime at all time lows yes that makes perfect sense you ask why i have been absent from this platform because i refuse to believe they would vote these vipers into power, barnes and co seem to have forgotten how close to knife edge we were
Here’s the key: “The plan was designed to ensure all Vermonters had access to affordable care, with public financing and centralized management.”
See: “had access”. So you’ve got “access”. BFD. Access is cheap.
Then we get to “public financing and centralized management”. Ahh Ha. Bureaucrats in charge!
— mkent
No, they weren’t a referrendum on Iraq. That’ been the Dem/GOPe spin on it ever since, each for their own reasons, but it wasn’t Iraq that wrecked the GOP in 2006 and 2008, it was mostly immigration.
In 2000, 2002, and 2004, socons and defense cons turned to save the GOP in 3 successive surprise victories. But after 2004, Bush II started trying to implement the stuff his family taught him. The Business Agenda, more or less. His GOP support immediately began to fracture.
In May 2005 the McCain/Kennedy ‘Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act’ i.e. Comprehensive Amnesty was proposed. The negative public reaction, mostly from the GOP base but a lot from the Dems was so explosive that it never received a Senate vote and was pulled in early 2006.
This backlash caught the ruling class by surprise. Senators McCain, Arlen Specter, Hagel, Brownback, Graham, and Teddy Kennedy (the SOLE Democrat) cosponsored the comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, i.e. ‘Comprehensive Amnesty 2, Open Borders Boogaloo’. The line from Bush and McCain etc. was that “we heard you and we fixed it”.
The GOP base did not consider it fixed.
The GOP base, who were already angry about having had to waste the late part of 2005 and early 2006 killing Amnesty 1 were white hot angry over Amnesty 2. The GOP spent most of the rest of 2006 in a civil war over Amnesty 2.
When November came, nobody was in a mood to rescue the GOP again.
Of course, having lost both houses of Congress in 2006 over failed immigration amnesties, the Bush 2 Admin and the GOPe immediately joined with the Dem majorities to try and pass the ‘Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act of 2007’, i.e. ‘Amnesty 3, Keep Labor almost Free’. The GOPe responded to the rebuke of 2006 by doubling down on what had wrecked them, and gave us Obama.
Why pursue such politically suicidal policies? Because business wanted it, more or less. The Business Agenda.
2006 was not about Iraq888, but the Dems and the GOPe wantto clai it was because they still want comprehensive amnesty.
The US might not be even slightly sane these days but the Gods of the Copybook Headings always have the last word.
I think you’ve likely understated the effect of the Iraq mess in 2006 and the financial meltdown in 2008. You are correct that Bush, McCain, McConnell, Ryan &c were always awful on immigration policy.
I’m never sure what motivates people, but it’s difficult to imagine the Iran war is of much interest to people who were not already hostile to the Republicans.
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I consult Rothenberg, who is not forecasting much in the way of shifts in either direction.
If the Republican party was as passionate about the SAVE Act as they are about hitting me up for campaign money we’d be talking about a Red Wave.
I feel it this point I’m just voting for the lesser of two evils. I don’t mean to infer Republicans are evil. They’re just not very bold on the contentious issues as I think they should be. They act like Trump is a Democrat and they don’t want his endorsement. You can either fight and lose, or be passive and lose. At least if you fight you have the dignity of not having given up. Publicans prefer the passive route.
How the F do you lose to Commies?
> I feel it this point I’m just voting for the lesser of two evils.
I’ve never not felt like this with respect to voting for Republicans with the exception of Trump.
This discussion about election 2026 is neglecting the several MAGA candidates for Senate in R states. Most expected to win.
And this could be enough to get the SAVE America Act passed into law.
There really is potential for big and important change, even with a closely divided legislating Congress,
A common theme to the replies to this post is the voters are too dumb to realize what they are voting for. I don’t think this is a way to win elections. Trumps largest accomplishment was to close the border – and this is a great accomplishment . But he promised to bring down prices on day one – fail. He promised to end the Ukraine war – fail. He promised no wars – fail. He promised affordable housing – fail. He promised gas under $ 2.00 – fail. Deport 1 million illegals a year – fail.
I’ll never vote Dem. But I can’t reward the liar Republicans. I’ll be voting for local races only.
— ‘William Kline’
OK. I can hear Limbaugh’s voice whispering ‘seminar caller’. All the signs are present.
That said, it is a bad habit to attack and belittle the voters. When the sovereign behaves like an idiot, courtiers don’t get to call him out. They have to try and persuade his Majesty to behave more majestically, while remaining respectful.
Frustrating yes, but I guarantee attacking the voters will just make things worse.
Klein
Thanks for helping put DSA crackpots in office, Klein.
When the fall comes ( it will be soon) it.will be something.