The day after
As I wrote last night, the results are even worse than expected. And what was expected was already bad.
The whole debacle reminds me somewhat of the 2024 British election, the one that put Keir Starmer in the driver’s seat because the voters were mad at the conservatives who’d been in power. Afterwards voters had some buyer’s remorse but they couldn’t do very much about it except substitute another PM of the same party.
For years the left has been foaming with rage at everything Trump does, but a large number of voters on the right are also angry at Trump and the GOP for this or that or the other thing, whether it be the war in Iran (despite the very low number of US casualties), the high price of gas and real estate, or the failure to pass the SAVE Act.
And when in doubt, blame the Jews. As Tom Lehrer sang long ago:
Trump is still president, though, since we don’t have a parliamentary system. If we did, he’d be out. He also will have veto power for the next two years. However, the Democrats will do what they can to stymie and undermine everything he attempts: his war efforts in Iran, his support of Israel, his judicial appointments, you name it.
Will they try impeaching him once again? Of course. But as with previous impeachments, I don’t think there’s much chance there will be the requisite 67 Senate votes for removal. That would require a lot of Republican cooperation.
It’s not just that Democrats won yesterday. It’s the large margin of victory by which they won, even in some red states. Talarico, for example, in Texas, seems to have won by twelve points. Paxton was a weakened candidate, to be sure. But twelve points? In Texas? Democrats have been saying for years that they will turn Texas blue; have they finally done it? Was it an influx of Californians?
And even Susan Collins, who usually manages to defy the polls, could not win against Troy Jackson, who was far from a stellar candidate. The quality of the Democrats didn’t matter, for the most part. All that mattered was having a “D” after their names.
Some people are saying it will be good for voters to experience the awful things Congressional Democrats will do. However, it occurs to me that, because Trump is still president and will veto the leftist bills Congress passes, the Democrats will not have to take responsibility for much of anything they try. They can say they would have accomplished wonderful things but evil Trump thwarted them, and so if voters elect a Democrat for president in 2028 all will be well.
And then – watch out if they get both houses of Congress and the presidency in 2028. Maybe it won’t work out that way because life is unpredictable. But right now I’m not seeing anything that’s cause for optimism.
I think the most basic problem is that the Gramscian march through the institutions has been successful, and the internet and especially social media have helped it along tremendously. Younger voters in particular are affected by this.
This feels like the worst election of my lifetime, by far. Maybe I just don’t quite remember the others. But this feels irreversible, I think in part because the Democrats of today are different than the Democrats of the past. They intend to make it impossible for the right to ever win elections again. They’ve done it in states like California, and they intend to do it on a national level now.
I certainly hope they don’t succeed. But so far we have failed to heed this admonition:
I used to really like the Drudge Report. One section had these headlines earlier…
GOP best drop Vance in 2028 now. Don’t put any GOP gays and Muslims up as President candidate in 2028, but the message on the wall looks obvious.
“Some people are saying it will be good for voters to experience the awful things Congressional Democrats will do. However, it occurs to me that, because Trump is still president and will veto the leftist bills Congress passes, the Democrats will not have to take responsibility for much of anything they try.”
And on the flip side, they can stymie a big part of Trump’s agenda. Which the press will relentlessly report as his “ineffectiveness”. Anything that goes wrong over the next two years will be his fault and there are plenty of idiotic “independents” that still trust the media and will buy it. The chances of having a Democrat sweep of all three branches after the next election are very high…and if that happens, we’re done.
The biggest impact on losing congress will be on the end of any hope for passing election integrity reform. I’ve been saying for a year that that should be priority number one and we should all be beating our Republican senators and representatives about the head and shoulders repeatedly until they figure out a way to get it done.
Dems won control of several state legislatures too…which means the Dems in those states are free to do whatever it takes to ensure they never lose power again.
The stage has been set for massive vote fraud in 2028 and I’ll honestly be shocked if a Democrat doesn’t get the most votes (I won’t say “elected” because that would imply all the votes are legitimate).
A people always gets the government it deserves. Our society has been trending this way for generations and we’re going to get what we deserve good and hard.
My only hope is that I’m dead and buried before it all comes crashing down, because at this point, it’s just a matter of time.
Everything that has a beginning also has an end.
I doubt they’ve turned Texas blue on any fundamental level. It’s the same old midterm problem, our side didn’t turn out (except in Florida, de Santis has showed one way forward theough simple competence), exacerbated by prices.
A lot of people are still judging success by the return of pre-covid prices, even now. Which will never happen.
Irreversible? Of course not. It looked horrible in 2008, too, with the Dems holding the trifecta by solid margins. 2010 shattered that.
A lot of Republicans thought 2024 was irreversible. It doesn’t work that way.
Is it the Californians? Yes, yes it was! We should have known better and disenfranchised them for one (only) election cycle so they could see why they moved here and left California. Unless it was a Democrat strategy of course.
juvat
This feels like the worst election of my lifetime, by far.
I thought the election of Obama was the worst. The Manchurian president. Raised, in part, on Frank Marshall Davis’ knee. Davis was purportedly a member of the Communist Party USA, according to a guy that kept their records.
Some people are saying it will be good for voters to experience the awful things Congressional Democrats will do.
It seems to me that there is this incredible ability for the Dems to spin everything. Up is down. Fighting corruption is corruption and vice versa.
Fox now has two former White House press secretaries hosting with them and one said (Leavitt, I think) that the news omissions by the mainstream media was just mind boggling. We couldn’t get anything positive out.
I just saw Chuck Schumer pounding a table this morning saying that we are going to put a stop to the most corrupt administration in history. Really!? And the Fox News host plays this clip and is silent after.
One can say that voters are stupid, but the key is that they know nothing. They know the actual price of gas, food, homes, and rent, and not a helluva lot else.
The markets are WAY up today. Generally, these are not dumb people. I suspect that they like gridlock.
The Iran war was a bad idea. Many said so repeatedly. It’s to what extent it affected today is what’s open to debate.
(I posted this over on the open thread.)
Huh. Even Trump says that gasoline prices was the big factor in the election. I’d have to agree. But Trump is the one that messed up the Strait of Hormuz, and the result was predictable, IMO. The “stealth” factor was the loss of refinery capacity in Iran and Russia, which helps keep diesel prices up.
Polster Mark Penn said that the Latino vote was the big swing. They swung in favor of Trump in 2024, and against the GOP in this election. According to Penn, it’s about cost of living.
I am a little mystified that people drive around in giant SUV’s and pickup trucks that get terrible gas mileage and then complain about the cost of gas. On the other hand, many of the Latinos in my area are involved in labor jobs of one sort or another, and they actually haul things in their pickup trucks. So it’s something of a necessity.
I know nothing about Ken Paxton, but everyone was in agreement that he was a terrible choice, by Pres. Trump. The vote tally says that they were correct. Some say Trump chose Paxton out of peevishness. Swell. Can you say “unforced error!”?
I think we can agree that no one in the Trump admin. is playing 3-D chess. neo posted about voters being stupid, but there’s enough of that going around inside of Trump’s team.
(Some Texans said that Talerico’s pious/religious background helped him greatly. I wouldn’t be surprised.)
From Salena Zito: “That’s why the House is the right place to look. The framers designed it to register the public’s mood. In Federalist 52, Madison wrote that this branch in particular “should have an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people,” and that “frequent elections are unquestionably the only policy by which this dependence and sympathy can be effectually secured.”
“The biggest lesson history offers is the one the winners keep forgetting. A party that wins the House usually believes voters fell in love with its ideas. More often, voters were just angry enough at the other party to hand over the keys.”
She seems to have her finger on the pulse of the nation as much as anybody, IMO.
Take heart: How did you feel 6 years ago almost to the day? How did you feel 2 years ago almost to the day? Polar opposites.
Now some people in the GOP better sit across a table from each other & have a long talk. And I hope Trump never endorses another candidate. Ever!
I know nothing about Ken Paxton, but everyone was in agreement that he was a terrible choice, by Pres. Trump.
==
Trump endorsed Paxton seven days before the primary runoff election contra John Cornyn. Cornyn won about 36% of the vote in the runoff IIRC. It’s a reasonable wager he’d have lost had Trump said nothing-at-all. Had he wished to have Trump’s endorsement, he would have had to have sided with the President and 90% of his caucus on some crucial legislation. Instead, he sided with Glitch McConnell.
A lot of people are still judging success by the return of pre-covid prices, even now. Which will never happen. — HC68
No kidding. Modern economic theory and Federal Research policy demands, NO DEFLATION EVER. It’s the pathway to a depression, is the logic. With historical basis.
Raised, in part, on Frank Marshall Davis’ knee.
==
Marshall was a checker-playing hookah-smoking chum of Stanley Armour Dunham. IIRC, Grandpa Dunham introduced BO to Frank Marshall Davis in 1975, when BO was 14. Davis had lived in Hawaii for about 30 years at that point. He was dispatched there for a position on the staff of the west coast Longshoreman’s Union. For some time, he’d earned a living in business (a paper distributorship, IIRC); it’s a reasonable wager he’d gone native; mainlanders who settle in Hawaii do. How ‘zit?
==
Obama by all appearances is a conventional wine-track Democrat. His signatures are quite personal (the secretiveness) or are what you’d expect of a leftoid who came of age at a particular point in time (the solar energy fetish, toadying up to Iran).
Karmi:
The Drudge Report did a 180 many years ago and became leftist. Can’t recall exactly when, but I think it was when Trump was first elected in 2016.