Red Wave! Red Wave!...Wait, Never Mind
The massive House and multiple Senate pick-ups promised are dramatically less than what the vacuous talking heads insisted would come to pass. And as the states continue counting ballots to get to 100 percent vote counts, the hubris displayed by the Washington, DC, GOP ruling class is glaring.
There was no “red wave.” If anything, there might be – might be – a “red trickle.” And while there is still a pathway to saving the Republic from the radical Left’s extremist and fascist policies by capturing the House and the Senate by the slimmest of margins, the truth is this. It never – ever – should have been this close.
To that end, the arrogance and ineptitude of Republican Party leadership; the antiquated and visionless leaders of the Government Of the People (GOP), must come to an end and that means a bloodletting in a changing of the guard.
The Gift
The elevation of the Fascist-Progressive wing of the Democrat Party to power in 2020 was, arguably, a gift. The nation was audience to the true colors of the radical Left; their hybrid fascist-socialism, their lust to deliver the United States to the altar of globalism, and their disdain for individualism.
Going into the 2022 Midterm Elections, the bloviators of the GOP hierarchy – along with the status quo ivory tower occupants of the think tank class – prognosticated about how the “red wave” would soon envelope Washington, DC. The Biden administration, in collusion with the Schumer Senate and Pelosi House, took the nation so aggressively far Left that the pendulum, they told us, simply had to swing back with a vengeance.
The extreme radical agenda of the Ocasio-Cortezs and the Sanders and the Waters was proving to be several steps too far for the average American, the GOP ruling class contended and, as a result, 2024 would see double-digit games in the House and a majority in the Senate. Soon, they insisted, the bleeding would stop and the nation could begin to heal; to right its course.
The economy in shambles, 401ks tanking, the world on the precipice of war, China on the march, and American’s in general, alarmed about the direction of the country, we were told we could rest assured of a substantial victory on November 8th. And so they began to plan for their reign.
But that “red wave” never materialized and – as usual – the GOP hierarchy was caught flat-footed and dumbfounded.
The Biggest Mistake Of All
The glaring error in the execution of the campaigns leading to the 2022 Midterm Elections is easy to spot. Republicans, for the most part, allowed the Left to dictate the focus of their campaigns. Instead of staking claim to the benefits of conservative policies; instead of explaining how conservative policies benefited everyone just two years ago, Democrats forced the GOP to focus their campaigns on the cult of personality.
This is going to be incredibly unpopular with many of my readers and listeners, but I would be just as guilty as the pompous political half-wits that populate the mainstream media as well as the “it’s my turn now” GOP national and state apparatuses, if I didn’t speak the unpopular truth. Making this race about Donald Trump and who he endorsed or didn’t endorse, and failing to make it about the policies he employed while in office will end up being the reason the election was so unacceptably close. Should we fail to take one chamber (or both) it will be the overarching reason.
When a political contest is about the cult of personalities, sound, base principles and policies that foment stability and growth go out the window. Instead it’s about whether the candidate once made a lewd statement or once made a donation to someone in the other party; whether they used the wrong pronouns or are vulnerable to false-accusations advanced by disingenuous actors who seek to damage the opposition. When the contest is about the cult of personalities the manipulators win 99 percent of the time.
Candidates who execute platforms that juxtapose good policy against bad; who explain, educate, and inform the voters on the benefits of policies and platform planks glean voters who do not waffle. They gather the support of a more educated voter who will not be wooed by fake sex scandals and mass media propaganda.
Instead of the media being able to demonize a candidate because they garnered a Trump endorsement (i.e. a Kari Lake, a Mehmet Oz, or a Herschel Walker), the so-called journalists of the 21st Century would have no choice but to focus on the policies being juxtaposed.
So, as we all watch US House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), stand slack-jawed trying to explain why the “red wave” never materialized, we really should be having an honest, unbiased, and realistic conversation as to whether a pivot away from personality politics isn’t desperately needed.
And I say this with all due respect, unless Donald Trump “re-imagines” himself and dispenses with his palpably enormous ego and starts making his existence on the political stage about the superior policies he employed during his presidency, the results of the 2022 Midterms prove him a liability to the GOP in 2024.
A Missed Opportunity...Maybe
In a perfect world, Trump would have understood almost immediately after the troubled election of 2020 that his higher calling wasn’t to sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, instead it was to cultivate a new class of conservatives who held tightly to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, sound economic principles, the free market, a decentralization of government, and in advancing the American Dream for all, for everyone.
To that end, the influence he could have wielded, with his devoted base, in crafting that new conservative class would have made the Tea Party movement seem like a blip on the screen. His influence would have gone down in the history books and put him in the company of Chicago’s Richard J. Daley in the potency of his political influence in elections to come for the next 50 years.
All it would have taken for Trump’s ascension to political kingmaker would have been to realize the higher calling. Instead, he has been playing the political marketing game in overt preparation for a 2024 presidential run. He even recently took a shot at the Republican Party’s best promise for the future, Ron DeSantis, so as to mark his potential candidacy.
This kind of petty, self-absorbed egotism pisses all over Reagan’s 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Speak Ill Of Thy Fellow Republican. And not holding to that intelligent adage damages the party and the election chances of those he castigates. It gives the opposition party political fuel. It is not smart politics unless all you care about is winning for yourself.
Has the window for Trump ascending to kingmaker closed? No, it is not. But it will close completely and forever if he announces another run for the White House.
An Outdated & Antiquated Apparatus
In 2012, in the aftermath of the wholly unpopular and gerrymandered passage of Obamacare, no one could have fathomed that Barack Obama would win re-election. The novelty of a mixed-race president was old, his racism and fascism were worn on his sleeve, and his extremist policies and crony favoritism was apparent in how the housing crisis was contorted to help his political benefactors. He was, without doubt, an easy election defeat.
Until he wasn’t.
One of the most milquetoast Republican candidates in recent memory, Mitt Romney – who along with his team was so preoccupied with taking control of every aspect of the Republican Party that he forgot he needed to win before he could rule, completely missed the creation of the coercive yet effective Analyst Institute psyops campaign.
A creation of the far-Left, the Chicago Progressive machine, and the AFL-CIO labor union, this campaign targeted individuals using behavioral psychology to coerce them into voting and voting for Obama. And it worked.
Fast forward to today and the 2022 Midterm Elections. Can anyone say that the national and state Republican organizations outperformed their Democrat counterparts when it came to turning out voters at the polls? Can anyone honestly say that juxtaposing policy points were successfully laid out for all to see; that the argument for good policy over bad, the free market, and freedom in general was adequately made? Or was it all slogans and bumper stickers, yard signs and robocalls; was it all about endorsements?
The Republican Party – both nationally and at the state levels – cannot continue to use the same tired campaign tactics used during the Nixon Era. And to evolve, the party must pivot from the “it’s my turn” political ideology of the Mitch McConnells and the Mitt Romneys and, instead, empower visionary leaders and those with their feet planted firmly in the 21st century. New conservative leadership must have a cutting edge understanding of technology, the humility to entertain new ideas about how to engage the individual, and – most of all – fidelity to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the dismantling of the unconstitutional centralized government we have been stupid enough to allow to come into being.
Our Last Best Chance
Ronald Reagan, in a speech given in the 1960s, talked about a simple choice we, as Americans, had to make going forward. In advocating for the presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, he said, in part:
“There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty...You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
Should we who consider ourselves conservatives – the core bedrock of the Republican Party, fail to avoid the approaching Ross Perot moment that will culminate in an internal political battle centered on a cult of personalities, we – not our opposition – will have handed the Fascist-Progressive Left an assured victory in 2024 by splintering our party prior to the election. That victory will set the stage for the end of the Republic.
While I pray that at the end of the ballot counting day those on the Right side of the aisle are victorious and the GOP takes control of the US House and Senate, that outcome is not assured. And that uncertainty was completely avoidable.
Next time, we will not be so lucky.
