The president’s party historically loses an average 25 House seats in midterm elections. Republicans lost about 30 plus House seats and counting, but gained seats in the Senate. Despite constant hype that the electorate would rise up to repudiate Trump almost since he was elected two years ago, it was not really a blue wave, but Democrats did beat the average to regain the House.
Did the split decision expose a bit of schizophrenia in the electorate? How was it that House races across the country were trending to Democrats while Senate races were simultaneously trending to Republicans? The short answer is most if not all politics are still local. Redistricting in Pennsylvania put Republicans at a disadvantage there and Republicans had more than normal number of retirements, but the real unfortunate overall trend is Democrats recruited stronger candidates. Flawed and weak Republican candidates lost in several winnable races.
The other glaring deficiency was House Republicans ran without leadership and a cogent message. The House Democrat message best annunciated by California Congresswoman Maxine Waters was simply impeachment for no particular reason but certainly impeachment, but they had an obvious message. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan grievously failed his party. Who makes themselves a lame duck and then continues to waddle around with no apparent agenda or purpose. It was as if Ryan felt a duty to stick around, so he could apologize whenever Trump was too aggressive or pointed. Ryan should have resigned and left the building.
If House Republicans had had any kind of leadership, they could have crafted an agenda for citizens to consider. You know, like support your party’s president who is wildly successful despite your wobbly support. Thankfully, Senate Democrats overplayed their hand smearing Justice Kavanaugh and President Trump refused to back down. The attempted injury was so outrageous and with Trump’s backbone, the Senate found their spine. Republican Senators finally found common cause to rally around for the election.
Finding themselves in a unified fight against the false allegations against Kavanaugh, Senate Republicans dropped their resistance to Trump. Trump campaigned hard for them; he literally carried the Senate on his back to victory. It is interesting to note Trump demonstrably helped candidates wherever he campaigned and President Obama had no discernible impact.
With nonstop 90+% negative media coverage of Trump, it is nothing short of miraculous that he commands so much influence with the voters. It is his strong albeit brash leadership and distinct record of results. While conservatives and Republicans comfort themselves with Senate gains and shrug off Speaker Pelosi as a suitable foil for Trump’s reelection, there is a very troubling trend in the electorate.
Generally reliably conservative states had very close, too close, elections with wild eyed leftists on the ballot. Unabashed socialists should not be getting close to the governor’s mansion in Florida and Georgia; and Senate races in Arizona and Texas should not be competitive. Pollsters will call it changing demographics and that is perhaps how to identify the areas where conservatives fail, but that is not the problem.
There is a slow but steady ideological shift for years now. Urban areas continue growing and city dwellers being inherently dependent are more receptive to government doing more, but the real problem is a majority of millennials think capitalism is bad and socialism is preferable. We have ceded decades of education to leftists, so now that steady diet of anti-American inculcation is bearing fruit.
The epitome of capitalism, Trump may be unable to help with millennials. Most of them do not understand capitalism or basic economics; they are convinced a benevolent government will be a better steward of wealth. They think wealth just exists; they don’t understand prosperity is created not just distributed by government. Hopefully, the growing economy will bring more young people into reality, but in places like California where the middle class is being decimated, millennials may be left out.
Republicans certainly need to do better job recruiting candidates, selecting leaders, and supporting their President, but if conservatives cannot find a way to reach millennials ideologically, the roaring Trump economy may not be enough.
“But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.” Mark 12:7
