Trump’s midterm losses reveal his fraud
Could it be that a sliver of sanity, like a ray of sunlight after a blustering storm, is peeking through the political clouds? After a midterm election that almost felt — well, normal — could it be that normality is returning to this stressed self-governing democracy? Think about it: Wild-eyed election deniers did not storm polling places. Losing candidates did not cry foul and refuse to accept results (so far, at least). Voters across the country rejected most candidates on the Pluto fringe of the political solar system.
Traditionally, the midterm election is a referendum on the sitting president, and in something of a perverse way, it was this time, as well. We don’t mean Joe Biden. We mean the sitting president in the eyes of several million MAGA-besotted Republicans. Two querulous years after Donald Trump left office — he actually did leave, you know — more than two dozen candidates he endorsed or candidates who tried to be bloviating mini-Trumps lost across the country. Positions that Trump and his acolytes trumpeted — election-denial and abortion restrictions in particular — were repudiated.
(The fact that Texas is a sad, soupyskied, beclouded exception matters not for the purposes of this editorial. We’re choosing to focus on the light. Go toward the light.)
Across the country, voters, in essence, defended democracy. Anxious about inflation and higher gas prices, concerned about crime and a porous southern border and in no way enamored of the president, they voted their concern about the fate of their nation.
At last, it seems — and we write this with some trepidation, given Trump’s nine-plus political lives and his threat of a “big announcement” in the coming days — GOP officeholders, candidates and party leaders, if not necessarily the base, are beginning to acknowledge that the former president is a drag on their party, not to mention a drag on democracy itself. This is the deeply flawed man who lost the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million ballots, whose blinkered political perception — call it narcissistic astigmatism, if you will — cost the GOP the House in 2018 and the Senate in 2020. This is the man who lost the White House to Biden by 7 million votes and who stymied whatever “red wave” Republicans might have envisioned would drown Democratic dominance in 2022. Republicans are beginning to acknowledge — tentatively, to be sure — that those Trumpian defeats just might continue in ’24 if they don’t escape his stranglehold on the party.
With Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis coming into focus as a viable alternative, the GOP is beginning to contemplate a Trump-less future and Trump is beginning to contemplate silly nicknames such as “Ron DeSanctimonious” for his would-be rival, drawing the ire of many in the right wing.
Whatever early misgivings we have about the gloomy governor from the Sunshine State, we have no doubt that the nation, not just the Republican Party, will be better off if Trump, like an old sit-com that has run its course, gets canceled in a GOP ratings war. Imagine that the post-Trump party looks less like, say, Mr. Obsequious, our own Ted Cruz, and more like his senior colleague, stolid John Cornyn, as conservative as they come, to be sure, but serious and dependable, a lawmaker interested in governance, not Cruzian gamesmanship. OK, it might not be great TV but it could be decent government.
Speaking of Texas, we remain a locked-in, one-party state, and that’s unfortunate. Every electorate needs viable choices, competing ideas about governance, candidates on their toes and open to challenge. We don’t have that in Texas. Even though Democrats running statewide were credible candidates this time, Republicans maintain their own stranglehold, one that’s lasted nearly three decades. If you want to really discourage your Democratic friends, remind them that their party held on for a hundred years before succumbing to the GOP; they only have 70 to go.
Actually, it’s not quite that bad. As Texas demographics continue to evolve, as the state becomes ever more urban, its politics will more closely resemble Harris County, where Democrats enjoy an edge but have to work for it. (Ask County Judge Lina Hidalgo.) Long-suffering Democrats will become more competitive across the state. Someday.
As we begin the week after the election, control of Congress is still undecided. Democrats are likely to hold on to the Senate, narrowly, while Republicans are likely to take over the House. Or Republicans could end up controlling both. Trump, no matter his recent bad bets, is still the dominant force in the Republican Party and he apparently plans to announce a 2024 presidential run soon. MAGA lives, and the nation is still siloed into political tribes.
Texas Democrats post-election can look forward to another season of playing masa to GOP tortilla makers when the Legislature convenes in a few weeks. Three-term Gov. Greg Abbott will cast his eyes toward the White House (particularly if the former president appears to be losing his hold on the party). Three-term Attorney General Ken Paxton will be focused on criminal indictments (his own) and corruption investigations (also his own.)
We’ll stop before depression sets in. We’ll keep reminding ourselves that, yes, things are better, closer to normal than we feared pre-election. Aren’t they?
The former president is a drag on the party.