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The midterm election post-mortems will be fast and furious. Make no mistake: for Republicans and the MAGA movement, the results amount to a political slaughter. Many will rush to blame the war in Iran, gas prices, the Democrats’ sweeping affordability message, or Donald Trump himself. But those are only minor pieces of the GOP’s 2026 demise.
First, let’s dispense with the false “it was the Iran war” narrative circulating across social and mainstream media. Iran initiated war with the United States in 1979 and has continued its armed confrontation through proxies: Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, and every other ragtag group of Islamist radicals desperate to subjugate the world under Islamist dominion.
While every president—Democrat and Republican—from 1979 onward failed to answer the Islamist slight with a decisive, overwhelming response, our current president finally did what had to be done. Any legitimate criticism lies exclusively in his belief that the mullahs would negotiate in good faith and his failure to finish off the illegitimate Iranian regime.
That brings me to gas and diesel prices. When voters went to the polls on November 3, fuel prices were high—not as high as during the Biden years, but high nonetheless. The disingenuous blamed the Iran conflict, ignoring that, in the weeks before the midterms, more oil was flowing through the Strait of Hormuz and from the Gulf oil states than before the conflict began.
So, why are fuel prices high? Because far-left policies prevent refineries from operating as markets demand. Even now, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, a radically liberal Democrat, seeks to close refineries in her city, citing their disproportionate impact on minority communities. Without refineries, oil from oil-rich nations can’t reach the market, and prices will stay high. The Democrats’ policies will only keep them there.
Then we must expose the lie behind the Democrats’ midterm mantra: affordability. Yes, prices are elevated, and buying a house seems forever out of reach, especially for younger generations. But why? GDP isn’t down, unemployment isn’t high, and the stock market isn’t suffering. Inflation is lower than under both Obama and Biden, and real earnings are up. Again, the cause is policy.
Far-left policies, mandates, regulations, and agendas from past administrations drive up the cost of everything they touch. The result: unaffordability. One need only look at Obamacare to see the lie of anything “free” or “for all.” Housing? Look at what far-left and progressive policies have done to rents and building costs in Mamdani and de Blasio’s New York, Johnson and Lightfoot’s Chicago, Bass’s Los Angeles, and Gavin Newsom’s old haunt, San Francisco.
Then there is the incredibly successful psyop that produced Trump Derangement Syndrome. Make no mistake: this was a well-crafted effort to make Americans rage against the idea of a man—not his policies or even how he carried them out. It’s rule thirteen in Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”
Compare Trump’s policies with Ronald Reagan’s, whom the left now admits was a great president: strong defense, lower taxes, secure borders, America first. They are essentially the same. Reagan’s legacy destroyed the Democrats for decades, and they could ill afford a repeat. So, rather than fail again by attacking conservative policies, they sought to destroy the man. They had nothing to run on, so they manufactured hate and ran on that—and it worked.
But, as I said, these perceived grievances, when measured against the record and the statistics, are either wholly attributable to leftist policies and agendas or nonexistent.
The two most debilitating forces behind the Republicans’ 2026 midterm slaughter were a failed US Senate and an elitist, antiquated, inept Republican consulting class.
As of November 3, the US House, under Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), had passed 754 bills and joint resolutions. Of those, the US Senate, under John Thune (R-SD), had left 675 unpassed or in legislative limbo. Chief among them was the SAVE Act, supported by 85% of Americans across party lines.
When American voters give a party control of the Executive and Legislative branches, they expect results—not intraparty bickering and self-important ego trips. The GOP Senate majority’s failure to turn its agenda into law is the chief reason Republicans are bloodied. It’s also why the GOP won’t have another chance to hold the Senate majority until 2038.
Then there is the crony GOP consultant class: good old boys who couldn’t think outside the box if it would prevent Armageddon. Their failure to deliver a simple, consistent message, where people actually consume information, steered every losing House and Senate race off the cliff, all while feeding off the biggest financial war chest in recent history. These parasites must be replaced with critical and strategic thinkers who know how to reach the American people.
So, enjoy the blame game if it makes you feel good. But one man didn’t move half the nation to embrace the suicide of Democratic Socialism. Blame lies with those who failed for decades to communicate the evils of Marxism effectively. And it would have helped if the Republican-led Senate had acted on the agenda Americans mandated in 2024.
