Folks, we all know that Republicans got crushed in the mid-term elections last night. The Democrats captured Senate seats in Kansas (last Democrat Senator elected in 1932) and South Carolina (last Democrat Senator elected in 1998), and we even lost Texas (!!!). The party in power nearly always takes a beating in the midterms, but many of us hoped that with Elon Musk helping out, Trump might be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat one more time.
It didn’t happen.
Over the course of this week, you’ll hear every self-serving explanation imaginable for why that is, most of which will coincidentally seem to align with whatever agenda the person pushing it had going into the election:
“Oh, the GOP needs to go back to being the party of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney.”
“See, this is evidence that America hates Jews and that Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes, and the other woke right people that undermined Republicans and tried to help Democrats are incredibly popular.”
“This means Americans want Republicans to move toward socialism!”
“Americans obviously want amnesty!”
On and on, it goes.
You never really get the exact answer to what went wrong in a situation like this, but if I had to pick, I’d say Trump’s general unpopularity, high gas prices related to the war in Iran, people still struggling with expenses caused by the inflation from the Biden years, and the Fed deliberately keeping interest rates high to slow down the economy were the biggest factors.
Back before James Carville went almost completely nuts, he was mostly right when he said:
When people feel economically squeezed, they punish the people in power – and we were in power.
Getting beyond that, although I struggled to support Trump until he was nearly assassinated in 2024, I think he has done more to help and strengthen America in the last two years than any president in living memory with the exception of Reagan.
However, that doesn’t mean he’s flawless or that he doesn’t sometimes make big mistakes. He’s played fast and loose with some ethical rules, gets distracted easily, is pretty bad at disciplined messaging (although he’s amazing at getting attention), and has generally run roughshod over the entire party since 2015.
Well, Trump’s hold on the party probably ended last night.
That’s because not only is Trump unpopular, he’s now a lame duck with two years left, and this will be viewed as a huge defeat for him. Trump is like an alpha of a pack of dogs who’s getting old, is starting to limp a bit, and all the dogs are now much more willing to challenge him while a number of them are looking for an opportunity to take his place. The race to be the GOP nominee in 2028 starts today.
Against that backdrop and on the heels of a big victory, the Democrats will be emboldened to push socialism, hatred, engage in politically motivated prosecutions, and do everything they can to weaken and tear down America.
So, what do we do? We do what Ronald Reagan did in 1976 after he lost a tough race to Gerald Ford.
Can you imagine REPUBLICANS looking at Reagan, who was one of the greatest presidents in American history, and choosing a mediocrity like Gerald Ford over him? Yet they did, and then things got even worse because Gerald Ford went on to lose to Jimmy Carter, who turned out to be one of the worst presidents in all of American history.
After Reagan lost to Ford, he talked to his crushed campaign staff, who felt like it was all over the next morning. Reagan was 69 years old and many of them didn’t expect him to run again. What did he say to them?
“We lost,” Reagan acknowledged to advisers and workers, many of whom were weeping, “but the cause, the cause goes on.” And then he quoted an old Scottish ballad…
The bad guys won a battle last night. A big one. There’s no question about that, and yes, if you care about your country, it hurt – and the country is going to bleed a while because of it. A lot of bad people are moving into positions of power. These people don’t mean our nation or us well, and given how they think, it probably won’t take long to see their true colors. However, we’re also going to rise, fight again, and make sure that the greatest nation that has ever existed in human history isn’t run into the gutter because of it. We lost last night, but the cause goes on.
Outstanding message, John!!!
We could have put forward better candidates, follow through with convicting the pedophiles involved with Epstein, allowed Joe Kent to investigate the Charlie Kirk assassination and kept our promise on “no new wars president” and spent more on American interests than on foreign wars. That was not a good look for Republicans. Look what a low turnout it was for Republicans.
Now we lick our wounds and hopefully learn from this. If not, we’ll lose our country to the socialists.