It’s kind of hard to believe we’re just a couple days shy of two years since we cancelled the apocalypse, and here we are getting ready to do it again. As I predicted within days of the 2016 election (but then foolishly neglected to mention until about a year later, so much for my claim to prescience), the narrative for months has been about the impending “blue wave” that will sweep the Democrats back into power and repudiate President Trump, because that’s what happens in the first midterm election, right? Except…not always. Notably, it didn’t happen in 2002, despite the left’s endless whining and vitriolic hatred for George W. Bush. It happened in 1994 to a Democratic president, and again in 2010…again to a Democrat president. Seems to me the indicia are more that Democrats get repudiated once people figure out what they’re up to. But I guess we’ll see soon enough.
As usual, the polls have “tightened” as election day nears, meaning they have become somewhat less slanted in favor of the Democrats because the pollsters and the fake news media that employs them want to preserve at least a semblance of credibility for next time out. Funny how that always happens. Dr. Pantsuit has an 89% chance of winning. Carter’s up by nine, Reagan might as well concede now. I know my own record of predictions is spotty at best but seriously, Alabama was just f**king stupid. Nevertheless, I’m going to define some terms and lay out what I believe will happen. As I have stated on numerous occasions before, if I am wrong, I’ll deal with it when it happens.
First of all, let’s lay some ground rules. The conventional wisdom is (for some reason) that the Democrats are set up for a “wave” because they’re favored (again, for some reason) to take control of the House of Representatives. I will acknowledge that it is possible that they could do so. However, just taking over the House does not mean there was a “blue wave.” True “wave” elections involve flipping 40-50+ seats in the House and taking control of the Senate. The Democrats are looking at maybe half that, and even their leadership has all but written off the Senate. They’re going to have to really overperform in order to deliver on what they’ve been predicting all this time.
The Senate really isn’t even in play here. In order to flip it back to the Democrats, the Ds have to win every tossup election AND score a major upset win. Frankly, it’s much more likely that the Republicans will win every tossup and score an out-of-nowhere upset (fingers still crossed for Leah Vukmir in Wisconsin and John James in Michigan). The idea that anything but massive fraud will put the Senate back into Democratic hands is just ludicrous. Keeping the Senate means that even if we lose the House it won’t stop the train–we won’t get the wall but what we WILL get is any judicial nominee we want, and they can only keep the reanimated corpse of Ruth Bader Ginsburg vertical for so long.
Flipping a bunch of GOP seats is not nearly as significant this time out even if it happens because a whopping 45 Republican Congressmen have stepped down for one reason or another. For some, like Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee or Ron DeSantis in Florida, they left their seats in order to run for another office. For many others, however, they retired because of their NeverTrump leanings–and the GOP candidates to replace them are for the most part steadfast Trumpists. On top of that, a not-insignificant number of seats in play are in Pennsylvania, where the Democrat-leaning state government just redrew the districts to favor the Democrats. Cry more about “gerrymandering” you filthy liars. The bottom line of all of this is that a “wave” is generally significant because it is powerful enough to overcome the advantage of incumbency. Dozens of spineless NeverTrump Congressmen threw that advantage away (most notably Paul Ryan) or realized it wouldn’t be enough to get them over their NeverTrumpism. It’s not only premature to assume that these races will all or even mostly break for the Democrats, but it’s also flat-out incorrect to assume that the ones that do flip blue have done so out of disenchantment with the Republicans or President Trump. Nevermind that the seats that DO flip will be ripe for flipping back in 2020.
The fake news media and the overconfident Democratic bullies are underestimating some important demographic shifts and voter trends. Whether the left wants to acknowledge it or not, their deranged opposition to President Trump has gotten the attention of the normals and even some of the less-loopy members of their own rank and file. #WalkAway is a thing. Early voting numbers are heavily in favor of Republicans for the first time ever, and that doesn’t account for the thousands of disenchanted Democrats who have had enough of their party’s bulls**t. Even if the fake news was correct about #WalkAway being comprised of “Russian bots” or the work of Republican fakery, it’s good news that it’s a big enough farce to get the fake news’ attention because it shows that the right is finally playing by the same rules as the left. But it’s not the fake that the fake news wants to believe. #Blexit is also happening. President Trump’s approval is up, even some fake news polls have him above water, and even among minority groups that traditionally swing hard left he’s pulling in significant numbers. The fact is people are doing better now than they were two years ago and everyone knows it. If it is “the economy, stupid,” then the GOP is in great shape.
It’s important to realize what people are voting for if they vote Democrat. The Democrats have literally nothing to run on but lies, lawlessness, and hatred of President Trump. They have to keep pushing this “racist” and “Nazi” nonsense to keep their lunatic base moving and they have to keep repeating the “he split up families” and “he put kids in cages” fairy tales to try to tug at the normals’ emotions. Meanwhile they still can’t tell you one thing President Trump has lied about that doesn’t involve crowd size (which the Democrats and the fake news lie about all the time so whatever). Seriously, I’ve been asking for two years and gotten nothing but facts the left doesn’t like and estimates that turned out to be incorrect. Beyond that they have nothing but deranged hatred for President Trump, everything he stands for, and everyone who supports him. That last part is important. A vote for them is a vote for Antifa. A vote for them is a vote against the robust recovery of the past two years. A vote for them is a vote against the tax cuts that revived the economy and put more money into everyone’s pockets. A vote for them is a vote for being the laughingstock of the world again. A vote for them is a vote for the idea that our border doesn’t matter and neither do our immigration laws. A vote for them is a vote for the lying bully tactics they deployed against Justice Kavanaugh. In short, a vote for them is a vote for irrational hate.
The Democrats have all but openly bragged that if they get control of the House then the first thing on their agenda will be to impeach President Trump, because reasons. They won’t be able to get rid of him of course, they’re not going to win the Senate (much less the 67 votes needed to remove). I do worry, though, about what President Trump will do if the GOP loses badly. He is a populist after all, and he’s a businessman. For the past two years (despite the NeverTrumpers’ insane ignorance of this fact) he’s been giving his customers what they paid for. I wonder what he will do if the midterms can be cast as a repudiation of that. I honestly would not be surprised if his agenda changed to mirror that attitude (i.e. adjust to the market) but I would be equally unsurprised if he threw in the towel. The left would call it “throwing a tantrum” but really, this man has given more than three years of his life and a substantial part of his fortune to making his country great again, and if the thanks he gets is to make his job even harder for the next two years, I couldn’t blame him if he said “you know what, I’m done. I can afford to go home and enjoy what’s left of my wealth without Bob Mueller trying to scrape together reasons to send all my friends and associates to prison and without deranged lunatics in fascist masks threatening my life on a daily basis. If this is what you want, if you’re telling me you don’t want to be great again, that’s on you. I’m out.”
I hope he doesn’t, of course. But I couldn’t fault him if he did.
So what do I think will happen? I think the only augurs of a “blue wave” have been the ones the Democrats have ginned up and convinced themselves of, or that the NeverTrumpers have handed to the left. We keep the Senate, that much is not in legitimate dispute. Personally, I think we keep the House too. I think there’s a not-insignificant chance it ends up flipping by a couple of seats but there’s at least as good a chance we hold. Frankly, as Rush Limbaugh points out, the Democrats deserve to lose big this time out and that sentiment from the Kavanaugh debacle hasn’t dulled (despite the left’s desperate insistence that the Not-MAGA Not-Bomber and the synagogue shooter let the wind out of the GOP’s sails). The Democrats continue to act like a deranged mob and still just have a preposterous fairy tale about President Trump being a racist Nazi antiSemite that they keep repeating. The normals aren’t going for it. Even some nominal Democrats aren’t going for it.
As a final note, I haven’t been keeping up with many governors’ races other than here in Wisconsin. I’ll be watching to see how Florida and Georgia come out (the fact that either Democrat has a chance in hell is more than a little silly). Here in Wisconsin, the last Marquette University poll had Scott the Destroyer and Tony the Phony Evers tied. Considering they had Evers up by ten a month ago I think it’s safe to call them fake news; considering in 2016 they had Dr. Pantsuit walking away with Wisconsin and Russ Feingold winning over Ron Johnson (Johnson shellacked Feingold so hard that Russ was conceding before it was clear Trump had taken the state) I’m feeling pretty comfortable with Scott Walker’s chances. Comfortable, not complacent.
Go vote, my friends. The tide’s coming in.
Wanderer's Way 