According to media, polls, and paid pundits, congressional Republicans are in for a rough ride in this midterm election just three weeks away. That would likely spell d-o-o-m for any more progress during President Trump's last two years.
On the surface, history would seem to confirm that grim prognosis. In the last nearly two dozen midterm elections, the incumbent president’s party has lost congressional seats, sometimes a lot of them. During Barack Obama’s first midterms in 2010, voters evicted from office an historic 63 House Democrats and seven senate Democrats.
Such an interim voter verdict has held true this entire century, except for 2002 when 9/11's wounds remained fresh.
Through decades in the business of writing news, especially more recent times, I’ve learned to avoid predictions. Through the last decade-plus, I’ve also learned never, ever, to count out the unique political phenomenon of Donald Trump.
Remember the “Hollywood Access” tape that came out exactly 10 years and four days ago?
The locker room talk captured on that audio tape had been unearthed by opponents and timed for release as a last-minute October surprise to devastate Trump’s rookie campaign. Everyone knew it would.
It didn’t.
Or Hillary Clinton’s Russia collusion hoax. Or all the unverified anonymous deep-state leaks shared by media. Or all the indictments, the show trials, and convictions, a pair of House impeachments and on and on. None of that succeeded.
Then came 2024 and — Oh, Look! — he’s baaack. Stronger and smarter than ever, with a handpicked team ready to roll from Day One with a preplanned, aggressive MAGA agenda that overwhelmed opponents.
True, a president’s name is never on any midterm ballot.
But Democrats have spent the past 4,136 days blaming Donald Trump for everything bad that’s happened. Oh, and three men have also tried to kill him.
Yet here's Trump taking this election challenge head-on after his usual five or six hours of nightly sleep. So, excuse me if I’m unwilling to write off this political comet yet.
A stunning poll last month by the Center for Strategic Politics revealed how deeply TDS has infected the minds of too many Democrats. Fifty-nine percent of them say they would feel positive about a military coup to oust Trump and end 250 years of the nation's democracy. Another 13 percent wouldn't be bothered.
Fifty-five percent would be O.K. with the president dying in his sleep, while 28 percent more wouldn’t care.
Thirty-four percent would even feel positive about him being assassinated at a rally, and 25 percent are fine either way. Think about that. The folks who brought you the president who didn't know what day it was and then tried to sub in the Venn-diagram lady would be back in power.
Wow! Now, we should do a poll of lazy conservatives, see how that affects their thinking about all the "effort" it takes to bother to vote, the check marks, and button-pushing.
Let’s say that enough reasonable voters, especially the wishy-washy midterm Republicans, fail to vote in these next 23 days. They’ve opted out of the news perhaps, or don’t see a threat to the country, their own immediate futures, or their children’s lives from a Democrat Party falling in love with socialism and communists and extreme methods of grasping power to push their socialist agenda.
That Democrat Party that successfully foisted a senile man on the nation as commander in chief.
A commander in chief and his DEI sidekick who opened the borders to more than 12 million illegal, unvetted immigrants, who approved trillions in new spending on favored progressive causes, igniting inflation to 9 percent, sold off much of the nation’s oil reserves, granted blanket pardons to cronies and his own wayward son, and let aides use a machine to put his signature on countless documents he knew nothing about.
A Democrat Party that is so financially bankrupt it had to mortgage its own building to meet expenses after trying to convince the country to vote for a DEI vice president with a concerning cackle who talks like a day drinker.
So, some shortsighted voters are more focused on today’s transitory gas prices, which are lower than under Biden, than the threat of messianic mullahs with nuclear weapons ruling an Iran that has already killed thousands of Americans in its 47-year-long jihad against the Great Satan.
And enough of these voters in just the wrong places elect sufficient newcomers to erase the GOP’s slim House majority. And perhaps their cohorts in other states vote for sufficient wannabe socialists to overcome Republicans’ tiny Senate majority.
What then can we expect a Democrat Congress to do during the next two years?
Turns out, that’s not hard to detect. Democrats have been shouting that out all over like a Muslim call to prayer.
Retribution is at the top of the list, even if it’s theatrically useless and just designed as a political preface for the 2028 campaign. Splashy House hearings on “corruption” by Trump supporters and even his family members.
We saw during Trump’s four years out of office that investigations and charges do not need to go anywhere or produce anything real. The simple process of vengeful lawfare is the punishment, even with zero actual results.
Media would gobble it all up, free of context. And that would help hide the absence of any positive Democrat actions on their top midterm issue, “affordability.” Whatever that is.
Everyone in politics or business would be a potential target. According to Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin:
"These are all things that need to be thoroughly investigated as part of our pledge to hold the crooks accountable beginning on Day One."
Currently, DC’s media "watchdogs" are not vigorously inquiring what exact concrete and meaningful steps a Democrat House — or anyone — could take on “affordability” with a GOP president and potentially Senate still in office.
But they would surely tout all the empty Democrat talk about jobs and housing, probably the homeless too. That’s an issue that always appears in the news during Republican administrations, though the real problems reside in blue cities and states where poor education and high taxes are endemic.
Hakeem Jeffries, who would be in line to become the first black Speaker, has said a key priority would be adding money to ObamaCare spending and ending the GOP’s latest tax cuts that let Americans keep more of their own money. Is that worth preventing?
A Democrat House majority would certainly seek an historic third Trump impeachment. Maybe even go for four. “Getting” Trump has been the solitary focus since 2016. And one or two Cabinet members might turn into tempting targets too.
Even if Democrats get a Senate majority, a conviction there would require Republican votes. (Democrats got seven last time and still came up 10 short.) That requires two-thirds of the 100 members, or 67 votes.
But wait! A Senate trial conviction requires a two-thirds vote not of 100, but only of those present. Meaning the conviction threshold could be considerably lower if enough members happened to call in sick that day.
Of course, the scent of 2028 will hang over the humid Swamp air. As the party of big federal government, Democrats historically prefer senators for their presidential tickets: Gore/Lieberman, Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, HClinton/Kaine, Biden/Harris.
So, expect some Senate showboating from members who see themselves as qualified to become commander in chief, such as New Jersey’s Cory Booker, who isn’t.
Other efforts there would likely center on curbing Trump’s powers, especially concerning the Iran war.
Trump himself has repeatedly urged voters to “Pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” Good idea. His name boosts turnout. The stakes are that high.
As my friend Jim Geraghty has written:
This year’s midterm elections are on the verge of sending a lot of Democrats to Washington. They will not be sending sensible moderate types.
They will instead be sending a freak show, a circus, a motley crew of extremists and outliers who were carried along by a dyspeptic national mood, not a genuine public enthusiasm for their agenda.
So, keep all these stakes in mind if the weather or a long line or a cushy couch and cold beer tempt you to consider skipping the polls again, as conservatives too often do at midterm times.
Because, after all, yours is just one vote, right? And if enough of us think that way, we’ll allow this dysfunctional crowd of Democrats to gain a little more control and thwart any further progress during the last two years of Donald Trump’s historic presidency.
