We’re down to the wire, folks.
We’ve been writing about it, reading about it, seeing it on the news, and hearing our friends, family, and acquaintances talking about it: the all-crucial midterm election. For political junkies, it’s been dominating our lives.
If the GOP loses both the House and the Senate to the increasingly radical Democrats and socialists, will it be the end of this country as we know it?
Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio say absolutely not — we’ll still hold the White House, and that is arguably the most important branch of all. Their jobs would be made more difficult, but it won’t stop them, they both say. (See: Trump Says He Thinks GOP Will Prevail in the Midterms — but He Has Plans Up His Sleeve If They Don't.)
I won’t gaslight you, however: if Democrats take both chambers, they will do their best to make our lives a living hell and will hound the president with investigation after investigation and try to raise taxes and impose burdensome regulations wherever possible. That’s just how they roll these days.
There’s an easy solution to that, however: Everybody on our side gets out and votes and kills this supposedly unstoppable blue wave. Just do it!
Win or lose, however, one thing we’ve gotten used to is almost certain to come to an end: Trump rallies. They’re ubiquitous. At no time in my years on earth have I witnessed such enthusiasm, such patriotism, and such electricity at an American political event. Sure, party conventions are often full of breathless, excitable people, but Trump seems to put on one of those every single night.
As a political writer, I keep the TV on mute in the background, and almost every evening as I sit at my keyboard, I look up and see him pumping up another crowd. (In fact, if I tear my eyes away from the computer right now, I see that he’s firing up a rally in Kansas.)
If I look up again in about an hour, I’m guessing he will still be going. Fans and foes alike have to admit that his energy level for an 80-year-old, much less just a regular person, is like something we’ve never seen.
He’s done at least 31 of the gigantic events in recent months, and at every one he speaks off the cuff for anywhere from one to two hours.
I’ve seen him in person twice: once at the CPAC conference in Washington, D.C., in 2024, and more recently at the GOP Midterm Convention in Dallas. In both cases, the event felt like a festival as much as it did a political event. He's incredibly funny, he's sometimes incendiary, and you just never know what he might say next.
— Bob Hoge (@Bob_Hoge_CA) September 13, 2026
We’ve all grown familiar with the standards: Lee Greenwood’s soaring “God Bless the U.S.A.,” the military jet flyovers, the Trump quips, the “YMCA” dance at the end.
In darker moments, we also remember witnessing the 2024 Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt, which left the then-candidate shot in the ear and, tragically, firefighter Corey Comperatore dead.
As of now, the last scheduled rally will reportedly take place Monday at a fitting location: the Lincoln Monument Reflecting Pool. Why is that fitting? The site represents three things simultaneously: 1) Trump’s relentless efforts to make our nation’s capital a place we can be proud of, 2) Not everything goes perfectly, and things can go wrong even when the motivation comes from the right place, and 3) the Left will oppose any and every effort to let us have nice things.
Will there be any other rallies in the future? Maybe. Perhaps Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be running for president in 2028, and Trump will take to the stage to fire up the crowd.
Although I will miss the almost nightly rallies, I’m not sad — the president still has two more years in office to knock around the Democrats, and he’s paved the way for his successors to carry on the torch and continue to work toward America’s greatness, not the gray dystopia pushed by the Democrats and socialists.
I’m old enough to remember the Carter years, when malaise was the word of the day, but Americans woke up and installed Ronald Reagan as our commander in chief. After eight years of Obama bowing to foreign leaders, meanwhile, the electorate saw the light and said: “Take that act somewhere else.” Four years after Biden supposedly garnered 81 million votes, patriots made sure his comical would-be successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, was sent packing.
Trump’s indefatigable efforts in the home stretch make two things extremely clear: There are still a whole lot of Americans who don’t want open borders, men dunking on females in women’s sports, unfettered taxation and regulation, rampant antisemitism, and treating violent criminals as lovely people who just need a little compassion.
But the other thing he’s exposed is that there is also a disturbing number of America-hating socialist extremists out there, and they must be defeated.
The movement will not stop in two years’ time, whether it’s next directed by Vance, Rubio, DeSantis, or someone else. I just hope whoever it is will be able to keep playing “YMCA” at the end of their events, because that is one rockin’ tune.
What an effort.
