Yesterday was a huge win for Democrats. It was, aside from Florida and a few districts in New York, an electoral nightmare. Sure, sure – in the morning after, America stands in a seeming fifty-fifty deadlock. But that deadlock really is “seeming”. For starters, the American political playing field is not even remotely “level”. We begin every “game” walking onto a pitch that’s pitched. There’s gerrymandering all around. And the Republicans have turned voter suppression into their main campaign tactic. The news media and its punditry insisted that, as usual, a newly elected POTUS’s party would lose big in the first mid-term. But, nothing about now is “usual”. If yesterday had been “usual”, the GOP would have gotten their “red tsunami”. They didn’t because these are unusual times. Bad times to be a Republican because the GOP’s nightmare has only just begun.
For shits n giggles (once it was clear there wasn’t going to be any sort of red tsunami, wave or even ripple), I tuned into Fox News for a few minutes. The tone was somber. Like there’d been a death in the family. Karl Rove was the one bright light, insisting that they had the House! That really is hilarious. Going into yesterday NO ONE had “Democrats Could Keep The House” on their Bingo card. Last night, Fox – the Official Republican Party Mouthpiece – found itself befuddled. The only possible explanation for the catastrophe? Donald J. Trump.
DeSantis Won’t Be “Da Answer”
Florida is no longer a swing state. It’s red nearly all the way. But, I suspect, a lot of that rests on Ron DeSantis. The Republicans are a cult of personality. DeSantis is merely Trump with no personality and actual religious faith. As LA draws people to its weather, so does Florida. Florida has drawn red voters like LA used to. Remember: California used to be a bastion of conservative politics.
DeSantis runs Florida like a tin pot dictator’s mean little brother. It works for enough Floridians to keep him in office. The rest of America ain’t like Florida. We just proved that.
Want to know who’s going to destroy Ron DeSantis? Donald Trump. It’s true. Trump already vowed to do it – and we all know how Donald is about his promises. He says he knows things about DeSantis that even his wife might not know. Maybe Trump does and maybe he doesn’t. He’ll say it anyway and insist that it’s true.
“If The GOP Nominates Trump…”
In an environment where Truth really doesn’t exist, Ron DeSantis will have to defend his honor among thieves. How delicious will the irony be when Donald Trump hoists Ron DeSantis on his own petard? Who cares what DeSantis does in response. Of all people, Lindsey Graham got it right. If the Republican Party nominated Trump, he said, they’d get destroyed and would have only themselves to blame.
You can say that again, Lindsey.
“Putin Pays Trump”
The GOP – including Lindsey – crawled into bed with Trump despite knowing he posed a grave national security threat. On June 25, 2016 – a month before the GOP formally anointed Trump their candidate – current GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy attended a meeting about Vlad Putin’s attempts to undermine Ukraine’s fledgling democracy. McCarthy came away from that meeting with the clear impression that Putin had Donald Trump under his control – Putin’s.
The next meeting McCarthy walked into was a GOP leadership meeting. Upon entering, McCarthy said “There’s two people I think Putin pays – Rohrbacher and Trump – swear to God!” No one at this meeting of GOP leaders reacted with shock or horror. There was nervous laughter – which was why McCarthy threw in “Swear to God!” He was trying to impress everyone else there that he was deadly serious. He believed Russia was paying Donald Trump.
No one contradicted McCarthy. And no one asked him to explain himself. That’s because no one there questioned what McCarthy said: Putin pays Trump! Before the conversation could escalate, then Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan stepped forward and seized control of the conversation. No one, Ryan insisted, was going to repeat McCarthy’s accusation outside that room. Rather, they were going to keep this terrible secret a secret. As Ryan put it: “That’s how we know we’re family“.
Yeah, dude, an organized crime family.
An Idiot’s Guide To Treason
Everyone in that room committed treason that day. The six years that followed bear that out. But for Russia, Trump would never have been POTUS.
Now, the reason Trump needs to be POTUS again (from his POV) is that being POTUS is the only thing that might save him from prosecution. I’m sure he assumes that were he to be POTUS again, his first order of business would be to finish breaking the Department of Justice. Nothing even remotely like justice happened while Bill Barr was running the Department on Trump’s behalf. That’s another thing that’s about to catch up to the GOP.
Any minute now – now that election season’s done (and only the counting remains) – the DoJ will resume prosecuting Trump and the insurrection but at a more urgent pace. If we consider everyone who’s already flipped (that we know about!), it’s a bleaker than bleak picture for Donald. And for everyone around Donald who hasn’t flipped yet. Consider all the different criminal and civil venues in which Trump is being prosecuted and sued. Those prosecutions all lie in the future! And that future’s about to break like a “red tsunami” on the Republican Party’s heads.
Nightmare On The Horizon!
So – while a civil war rages among them, prosecution will besiege them from without. By the time we get to campaign season 2024, the ground beneath our feet won’t look how it looks today. It just won’t.
But, it gets worse – this GOP nightmare!
Remember all the pundits buying the Republican poll results that screamed “red wave”? They were wrong on a thousand different fronts. The punditry’s conventional wisdom – long on convention, short on wisdom – said “youth don’t vote”. Wrong. They said “women have forgotten about abortion, what they care about is crime and inflation – just like the Republicans are saying!” Wrong.
Of Punditry And Putzes
The media’s brain trust completely missed the youth vote and just how deeply America’s women feel betrayed by the SCOTUS. And a Republican Party intent on doubling down on the women-hating madness. The youth vote showed up. So did women. And, before they showed up? Many registered to vote for the very first time.
America doesn’t teach its youth civics. That’s why apathy used to rule the youth vote. Circumstances and the GOP came together to force the youth vote off its ass and into the voting booths. And then they witnessed the power of their vote to get what they want. Don’t think that was empowering?
America’s women felt empowered during the Women’s March just after Trump “won” in 2016. They felt their collective might. Yesterday – the first election after Roe was taken from them – they put that might to use. Every single attempt to make abortion illegal via referendum died on the vine. The majority of American’s don’t want that.
It’s how democracy works, ya see. And – it turns out – democracy (of all things) is the GOP’s worst nightmare. Poor them. Their nightmare’s about to get worse.
Photo 35744491 / Nightmare © Czuber | Dreamstime.com