GOP

The 2022 midterm elections consumed more than 16.5 billion real American dollars. They featured thousands of candidates and the most expensive Senate race in history, resulting in the election of Democrat John Fetterman from Pennsylvania. Millions of viewers across the country tuned in to watch election-night returns in anticipation of a promised red wave that never came. The 2022 midterms were the political equivalent of the Red Queen’s race — a massive effort, all to end up pretty much back where you started. Post-election recriminations were complicated by how well Republicans actually did. They massively increased their turnout and won the House of Representatives. They saw wide margins of victory by incumbent governors in Florida, Georgia, Ohio and Texas.

The news that Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel is planning on conducting an "autopsy" of the 2022 election brought horrible political flashbacks to a decade ago. That was when the post-2012 election autopsy of Mitt Romney's failure gave the GOP all the wrong lessons about what was making them lose. You might remember that 2012 autopsy. It was the one that prescribed moving left on immigration policy as essential to appealing to Hispanic voters. As a now-infamous three sentences put it: We are not a policy committee, but among the steps Republicans take in the Hispanic community and beyond, we must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our party’s appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only.

The midterm bloodbath conservatives were salivating for devolved into, at best, a red tide. The Democrats held the Senate and have only a seven-seat deficit in the House. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now hoping to grant citizenship to every warm body in the country and perhaps even others on their way here, while Senator Elizabeth Warren is more determined than ever to cancel the student debts of millions of bankrupt liberal arts majors. And an emboldened President Biden is threatening to run for re-election, whether anyone wants him to or not. But amidst all the liberal revelry lies an uncomfortable, little-reported fact: Democrats lost the House popular vote by three points. Remember the popular vote? The popular vote!

After the GOP’s mediocre election performance on November 8, every faction in the party is scrambling to pin the responsibility on someone else. There is plenty of blame to go around, but one person who should not feature highly on that list is Mitch McConnell. Not only has the Kentucky senator been an instrumental force in the GOP’s successes in recent years, he was behind some of the largest funding efforts this past election cycle. It would be hard to find a leader in the Senate more accomplished and effective than McConnell. Having led the GOP’s Senate caucus since 2007, he has always played his hand with cunning and skill.

Elections are an opportunity for us to deliver messages to political leaders most of us will never meet. We can’t send Donald Trump a text, nor can we talk about inflation over an extravagantly expensive Jeni’s ice cream cone with Joe Biden. The best we can do is to vote and hope that in our collective numbers we can make ourselves clear. Yet early indications are that the leaders of both parties are poised to learn absolutely nothing from the midterm elections. Let’s examine some of their delusional reactions. The White House hasn’t commented on whether Joe Biden played the recent $2 billion Powerball drawing (which CNN recently accused of being systemically racist), but if he didn’t buy a ticket, he should have.

With the collapse of Liz Cheney's political career in Wyoming, Donald Trump's supporters are fully ensconced in the vast majority of critical candidacies headed into November. He and his supporters have remade the GOP, at least for the moment, into a party devoted to the Trumpian America First agenda and running on that set of priorities — at least when it comes to the lip service they give to border concerns, trade, anti-globalism and culture war issues. But will this be a Republican Party that actually delivers on these priorities should they receive voters' endorsement in November? That’s a more questionable proposition. The core problem that many traditional GOP forces have with a Trumpian agenda is one of prioritization, not of positioning.

I just went for a stroll down Main Street here in our little blue-collar New Hampshire town, and noticed the telephone polls festooned with Pride flags.  This was odd enough, given that our town had never observed Pride Month (known as June on the Gregorian calendar) before. What was really shocking, though, is that the town is flying the plain old rainbow flags, not the new “Progress Pride” flags. Ours don’t have the new chevron honoring America’s two most hallowed minorities: trans people (white, pink and blue) and people of color (brown and black). Activists claim that the chevron specifically represents trans people of color. Maybe that’s true. What’s infinitely more likely, though, is that gays and lesbians have been passé since Obergefell v.

"I am 'Ultra MAGA'," House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik defiantly told a reporter Wednesday, "and I'm proud of it." Republicans should be embracing the badass nickname Biden bestowed upon them, just like Trump should accept being crowned the "great MAGA king." The only problem is that Stefanik is not "Ultra MAGA." Far from it. Just one day before Stefanik declared herself part of the cool kids' lunch table, she voted with 149 other tone-deaf Republicans to send an additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine. Congress had already approved $13.6 billion in emergency spending after the Russian invasion back in March.

Cockburn finds Madison Cawthorn — the first-term Republican congressboy from North Carolina, defeated in a GOP primary last night — an interesting study. His behavior reminds Cockburn of a Capitol Hill freshman fraternity pledge who just can’t seem to get the rules of the house down. Cockburn never seems to see Cawthorn’s name in the headlines for anything but scandalous reasons: his past is riddled with sexual misconduct allegations, bizarre vacations that involved dressing in lingerie and taking seductive photos with white wine, and dubious claims surrounding his “derailed” career at the Naval Academy (where he wasn’t accepted) and about the aftermath of an accident that led to his paralysis (he’s seeking $30 million in a lawsuit related to the incident).

It’s hard to imagine wanting to be a politician. Listening to people’s problems, being on your best behavior all the time (or at least working hard not to get caught), being in charge of stuff. It’s like the worst parts of adulthood on steroids. Not to mention all the campaigning — exhausted from traveling from one indistinguishable town to the next, feigning good humor, interest and delight in every person you meet and in every small diner’s Local Slop Special you’re forced to sample while telling everyone how great you are. It’s not for the faint of heart. Yet David McCormick, candidate for Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate seat, seems to be made for it. Aspiring officeholders are a type. “Admirable” isn’t the right word, but remarkable, certainly.

The California dream turned into a nightmare for Republicans on Tuesday night after a blowout victory saved the formerly embattled Gov. Gavin Newsom. Instead of licking their wounds in silence, however, Republicans are eating their own. From the day he took office in 2018, conservatives were seeking to oust Newsom. The former mayor of San Francisco's lockdown orders gave life to their efforts. Out of all the scandals in which elected officials broke their own quarantine mandates, Newsom's power meal at the French Laundry restaurant with state lobbyists in Napa Valley was by far the most infamous. It gave Republicans enough ammo to push the recall over the 1.5 million signature requirement, thanks also in part to a four-month extension to the deadline.

Before the bombs and bullets of World War One reshaped life as we know it, for 'the vast majority of Americans, from east to west, north to south, the principal, if not sole, link with the national government was the postal system,' Robert Nisbet wrote. It’s hard to imagine life without the megastate now. Frustration with it will occasionally spark the call for a return to limited government, but there is no going back. The vast majority of Americans are dependent on it to some extent or another, from the loans they use to purchase homes, farm subsidies, and the regulations with which they try to tame corporations and protect small businesses.