Further Reflections on the Election

According to exit polls, 63% of voters ages 18 to 29 voted for the left in the 2022 midterm elections. I don't think these younger voters actually favor most of the policies (inflationary spending, open borders, covid restrictions, higher taxes, defunding the police, repression of free speech, racial division, and late-term abortion) they voted for, but I do think they were venting their dislike of Donald Trump, the Dobbs Supreme Court decision, and anti-abortion absolutism.

Democrats have become the party of the educated elite and Republicans have become the party of the less educated working class. Republicans used to be associated with big business, but that's no longer true. Union leadership is still Democratic, but rank and file blue-collar workers are moving toward the GOP.

The same is true of black and Hisapanic voters. The Democratic Party can no longer take their loyalty for granted. A large minority of them are thinking for themselves and realizing that the Democratic Party has abandoned the values they hold dear.

David Brooks at the New York Times states that both parties are fundamentally weak. The Democrats are weak because they've become the party of the educated elite. The Republicans are weak because of Trump. If Republicans get rid of Trump, they could become the dominant party in America. If they don’t, they will decline.

It's certainly true that they're in decline now. A party that can't pick up seats in a mid-term election when the incumbent party has produced record inflation, chaos at the border, shortages of consumer goods, a refusal to address crime, hugely unpopular covid restrictions, "cancel culture", racial animosity, and a failing education system, is a party that has achieved peak impotence.

Some are blaming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for not spending more to help Republican candidates, but this blame is largely misplaced. As The National Review editors note:

All this said, even by the harshest reasonable evaluation, McConnell’s midterm performance isn’t in the same universe as Donald Trump’s.

The former president chose poor candidates based on their fealty to him and his fevered and destructive 2020 delusions, spent hardly anything, made himself the center of attention to the extent he could, and conducted himself with his characteristic selfishness and lack of judgment.

For him to turn around and blame McConnell requires chutzpah even by his shameless standards.

Imagine a professional football team that has a marquee player on their roster. He excels at the sport, but he's constantly bad-mouthing his teammates in public. He behaves like a spoiled brat on the field and his presence in the locker room is corrosive to team morale.

Consequently, the team, which is loaded with talent, nevertheless fails to defeat even mediocre opponents.

Would not the management unload that player as soon as they could? Is not Donald Trump just such a player?