A little before the election, a poll found that Trump was getting hit hardest among people who aren’t sure about which party controls what house of Congress. During the election proper, lower-income counties swung hard toward the Democrats, as did rural counties. Republicans suffered just as bad or worse among Hispanics and the young. But those groups are recent additions to the MAGA forces. In South Carolina a Democrat’s now going to be senator, in large part because she made “significant improvements among White voters with lower education levels,” The Washington Post says. Democratic senators from South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas. The Democrats didn’t just win big, they won Red.
MAGA voters stayed home in droves, and the ones that did vote found they could support a Democrat here and there. This was after Trump galumphed about the country, telling fans at rallies to vote like he was on the ballot. No good, as he reflected the day after the Democrats’ triumph. “You couldn’t transfer that love,” he said glumly. Apparently he noticed even before the triumph became official. On the morning of election day, Trump was telling Fox & Friends no more aid for Israel, sort of, once the new year starts.
If that was supposed to encourage the base, it didn’t encourage them enough. As election night unfolded its grim news, Trump told The New York Times he wouldn’t make a fuss about the returns and their honesty. He’d been making a pre-fuss for quite a while, but here was a different Tigger, a mild and more contemplative Tigger. Asked about the Democrats, Trump said, “We’ll, you know, look forward to working with them.” No subject pronoun, but otherwise he choked out the words.
A wipeout in Texas, an up-and-down-the-ballot wipeout, can do things like that to a Republican. So can watching Mississippi’s Senate seat teetering, so can seeing Georgia host a Blue landslide. (Jon Ossoff, running for reelection as senator, won 59 percent against a schmuck who said Trump was right about the 2020 election.) When the low-income, low-informed whites of the countryside stood behind Trump, they stood behind him so tremendously that he could say and do some crazy things—send troops into cities, say “We shouldn’t even have an election.” They aren’t behind him now.
Eleven years and the folks noticed something. Their hero’s second term didn’t bring down prices; in fact it made them worse. Everything was worse. Tariffs and the Great Dumbass War hit people in the wallet after the switcharound in the Epstein business gave them a nasty whack on the psyche. First the story they tell themselves was disrupted and now it’s been gutted. Trump could get by with meager policy results before gas and groceries represented daily crises for his voters. Those days are done and maybe he is too. Or maybe not. This leader and his folks often prove resourceful in their stupidity. They can always find a new way to be dumb, crazy, heedless, etc.
Blue corner. High prices wrecked MAGA just now, two years after they messed up the Democrats. Let’s say prices stop being such a problem by 2030, maybe 2032. Well, then the Democrats can keep winning. Whereas if prices don’t stop… oh boy. Speaker-in-waiting Jeffries tells us the people want “dramatic change” and the Democrats will give it to them. Luckily he can point to five working groups focused on issues pertinent to affordability. The groups have been working for months and nobody knows what they’ll come up with. In general, The Washington Post tells us, Democratic leaders “did not specify measures they would pursue to lower costs.” I don’t blame them because I can’t think of any myself. See you in 2030.