The Morning After Pill

Time for a little self reflection

About last night:

Well, we still don’t know what’s going to happen in the House and Senate. One thing is obvious, there was no “red wave”. I, along with a hell of a lot of other really smart people, was wrong. Very wrong, actually.

Let’s get into it. I have some thoughts.

Autopsy

We are watching several things die in real time. Let’s cut them up and peek inside and try to learn something.

Donald J. Trump

The first and most obvious takeaway from last night; no matter what ultimately happens in the House and Senate… Donald Trump needs to go. It is crystal clear. His “stop the steal” nonsense, his incessant need to attack fellow Republicans who don’t bend at the knee to him, his pettiness, his dishonesty, basically just all of him… it has lost its luster. In short, none of it is cute anymore.

Here’s the truth about The Donald. He beat Hillary Clinton in 2016. For that, we are all grateful. But in the aftermath of that win, a myth was born… a myth that was never true. The myth was that Trump was unique in that only he could have slayed the dragon lady. That by nominating Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush, the GOP would have lost to Clinton.

The truth is that any of those men could have beaten Hillary (Well… maybe not Jeb). Hillary was a historically weak candidate in 2016. She was almost universally disliked. Trump was bombastic and unafraid and he did, in fact, get that job done… in spite of himself and his best efforts to lose that race.

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much the last good thing the man ever did. Under his toxic leadership for the next 4 years the bureaucracy was allowed to run amok. His own staff undermined him. His administration was a revolving door of both competent and incompetent people coming in, looking around, and running as fast as they could manage for the exit.

Then came Covid. I will be writing more about his leadership failures on Covid, but the short version is this: Don’t like Fauci? Thank Trump. Don’t like that they shut down small business? Thank Trump. Don’t like how the virus became political and partisans on both sides acted badly? Thank Trump. He talked a big game, instilled zero calm, and like with everything else… gave the bureaucracy carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. Everything that happened after that was a repercussion of what started in March of 2020, under the feckless leadership of an egomaniac without enough political capital left to lead.

Then we had the 2020 election and its aftermath. Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani giving that unhinged press conference. Trump demanding that mainstream Republicans claim that the election was stolen. It was disgusting. It was unAmerican. There was no excuse for it. As for Jan 6th… I still think that was overblown by the Democrats, but lord knows Trump gave them the room to do it.

Look, I am tired of beating around the bush over Donald Trump. The man was a bad President. Fine, we’ve had them before. But his behavior since November of 2020 has not only been unbecoming and toxic, it has been so harmful, we can never forgive him. He intentionally sabotaged the GOP for the US Senate in 2020. He did that on purpose because he was having a temper tantrum. That alone should be enough to dump him. But no, not satisfied with simply ruining the GOP’s ability to keep the radicals in the Biden Administration in check… he decided to rig primaries in favor sycophants and crazy people whose only qualification were their willingness to kiss his orange ass all over the country.

Donald Trump wasn’t even on the ballot for 2022, but he had some inane scheme to stack congress with his loyalists, party be damned, so that he could run again in 2024 and be surrounded by “yes men”.

Well how did that work out? They all LOST. Again. Even that idiot Boebert woman in Colorado is going to lose. That’s a deep red district, people. She’s just that awful… and so is her master, Donald Trump. I blame him for all of this. He is a cancer. He must be destroyed.

I was never “never Trump”… but I am sure as hell NEVER AGAIN

Abortion Ban

Fact: As of this writing, every single abortion ballot initiative in the country has fallen on the pro-choice side.

A national ban on abortion? Are you serious? Did we have mainstream Republicans actually floating that? Honestly… it takes some real talent to go up against blue haired screaming activists wanting to show porn to children and cut their breasts off and then lose on social issues.

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but this is a pro-choice country. You can feel one way or another about it, and I am all for people debating the issue. I even wrote a whole article about it. However, what you can’t do and shouldn’t do is make people feel like you are going to take a position that only about 9% of the electorate holds, i.e. no abortions ever unless to save the life of the mother, and make that law from sea to shining sea. That is forcing your will on people who don’t want your will forced on them. Not only is it wrong… it’s politically suicidal.

There was a lot of evidence that the abortion issue wasn’t going to be a driving motivator for voters this year… and frankly it wouldn’t have been, if the GOP hadn’t signaled at every turn that they would push for a national ban in 2024 if they took both houses and got the White House back in 2024. Exit poll data is showing that in the rust belt and in other swing states and districts, abortion was absolutely a driving factor for Governor races, state houses, and US Senate races. It just was… so deal with it.

In politics, if you want to win, you must go to where the voters are on issues and make your case for gradual, incremental change. You do not make them think you are going to singlehandedly mandate something they don’t want. DUH!

Offering no vision and no leadership

Kevin McCarthy might be one of the single most uninspiring politicians in the country. His sad little “Commitment to America” was nothing more than a store brand version of Newt’s “Contract with America” from 1994. It was neither pushed nor received with any fanfare. I follow this stuff pretty closely, and honestly, I couldn’t tell you what’s in it.

While I would like some oversight on the DOJ and redress of conservative fears that they are operating in a political matter… some investigation into Hunter Biden and finding out if his corruption does actually involve his father and to what extent… Covid failures, etc… I have no faith that McCarthy will follow through on any of it.

Assuming the GOP does take the House, which is more likely than not as of this writing, Keven McCarthy will reign over a tiny majority which will be held hostage by Trump sycophants like Gaetz and that horrible Marjorie Taylor Green. Nothing good is going to happen under GOP leadership, save one small caveat, that they will be in a position to obstruct the worst excesses of the Biden Administration.

As for the Senate, it’s completely up in the air as to whether or not the GOP can win it. Again, it should have been a lay up. Bad candidates in PA, GA, AZ and elsewhere just floundered… and frankly acted as a weight both up and down ballot. If the GOP takes the Senate, Mitch McConnell is a master at manipulating that body. Having said that, with a 1 seat majority and no national mandate, and several GOP squishes… it will be a Herculean task to keep the coalition together.

Uninspiring leadership met terrible candidates and the ever present looming of Trump to simply destroy what every indicator said should have been a red tsunami. Instead we are left holding our breaths to see if there will even be a pink trickle.

The good news!

There is some good news in all of this. From the landslide in Florida to the wins in Georgia, it’s not all bad out there. So let’s talk about it!

Ron DeSantis is the new leader of the GOP

I almost wanted to say that a star is born… but that star has been around for a few years now, and his name is Ron DeSantis. Do you want to know what the GOP could look like without Donald Trump? Just look at Florida.

DeSantis’ detractors say that he’s like a mini-Trump and that he modeled his style after him. Nothing could be further from the truth. When DeSantis speaks, he seems large, Trump seems small and petty. When DeSantis spars with the press, they walk away looking like dishonest fools. When Trump spars with the press, he walks away looking like a dishonest fool. When Ron DeSantis says he’s going to do something, he does it. He gives credit and takes responsibility. He has a vision for his state and his country. He has deeply held values that he lives by both professionally and personally. Donald Trump is the polar opposite of any of that.

The results couldn’t be more clear. DeSantis took Florida from a purple state, which he barely won in 2018 to a deep red stronghold with down ballot wins across the board. How did he do that? By making Florida one of the most successful states in the country. He did it by welcoming people into his sphere. He did it by making it okay to be a conservative.

Florida voters don’t have to apologize for being a DeSantis supporter. They don’t have to explain themselves. They don’t have to cringe every time DeSantis shows his face. They don’t have to ignore a million disqualifying ugly facts. They can proudly and easily say, “I think he’s doing a great job and I am proud to have him represent us!”. If you think that is true of most Trump supporters… you are out of your mind.

The results in Florida are truly astonishing. Both DeSantis and Rubio vastly outperformed the polls and more telling they vastly outpaced conservatives from around the country.

The GOP has a damn strong bench and a bright future if we can coalesce behind leaders like this.

Beto and Abrams lost

You can’t understate the importance of that. Both of those people are awful and they both lost handily. We need to take the wins where we get them… and this is a win. Hopefully they will go be commentators on MSNBC or something so I never have to see them again.

Ta-ta! See ya never!

It’s a new day

Assuming the GOP can get one or both houses of congress, it’s a new day for America. A divided government is good for a country that has extremists in the bases of both sides. That is objectively good for both our party and the country if we can manage to pull it out.

It’s time to take a little stock in ourselves. We need to look ourselves in the mirror and stop ignoring the ugly parts. We, as conservatives, have done some things incorrectly over the last 6 years:

• We stopped focusing on limited government and individual rights

• We allowed ourselves to cede the moral high ground

• We allowed ourselves to by hypnotized and held hostage by a fraud

• We ignored extremists in our own base who don’t have the best interest of the country at heart.

• We haven’t been effective in stopping the Democrats from forcing damaging legislation on our country.

In the end we haven’t been the sensible, trustworthy, brave, patriotic, strong Republican Party of Ronald Reagan that I grew up with and chose to follow.

Everyone strays at one point or another. We all sometimes lose our way. We can get back on our path. We can atone for our sins and begin to rebuild trust. We can act like the men and women we want to be… and one day that is all anyone will see.

It’s a new day in America. In this new day I am thankful to God for the great country we have. I am thankful for our right to voice our will at the ballot box. I am hopeful and optimistic about the future.

I don’t mean to sound Pollyanna, either. Donald Trump has no intention of going gentle into that good night. It will be a fight and he will rage and threaten to run third party and try to send his dwindling masses against us. It will be a knife fight… but most things worth fighting for are. The soul of our country and the heart of the GOP are certainly two of them.

I say, bring it on!

— Virgil

If you’re going through hell, keep going. — Sir Winston Churchill