In the aftermath of the election, or as I like to call it, Black Tuesday, we are confronted with a number of truths, and an uncertain future.  Democrats flipped more than 50 House seats, we won’t know the total for sure for some weeks as California will keep counting votes being sent in for some weeks.  In the Senate, Democrats picked up  from 8 to 9 seats.  Alaska is still out there, with Peltola holding a slight lead.   The fake Dan Sullivan scam worked, diverting 3,600 votes from the incumbent.  That, plus ranked choice voting will elect Peltola.

The turnabout was stunning, given massive Democrat victories in Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio.  I’ve been trying to put a good face on Republican chances in this midterm, but I knew it was mostly wishful thinking.

With rare exception, the Party in power loses seats in a midterm election.  Those rare exceptions include the Great Depression. FDR gained 9 House and 9 Senate seats in 1934.  In the aftermath of 9/11, Bush gained 8 House and 2 Senate seats in 2002.

But even depressions and terrorist attacks won’t protect the incumbent Party forever.  Voters simply grow tired of the Party in power, they grow tired of waiting for what was promised, and they grow impatient.  For instance, when economic recovery stalled in 1937, FDR’s 1934 gains turned into losses of 72 House and 7 Senate seats in 1938.  Likewise, in 2006 voters punished Bush, who lost 20 House and 6 Senate seats.

No President is immune from the fickle nature of midterm elections.  In 1910, Taft lost 57 House and 8 Senate seats.  Eisenhower lost 48 and 13 seats in 1958.  Watergate, and Nixon’s resignation, cost Gerald Ford 48 and 5 seats in 1974.

As midterm beatings go, 2026 wasn’t the worst. The 1893 financial panic cost Grover Cleveland 125 House and 4 Senate seats in 1894.  Tuesday’s fiasco is more like Obama’s 2010 loss of 63 House and 6 Senate seats, and Bill Clinton’s 1994 loss of 54 House and 8 Senate seats.

But, however you view them, Tuesday’s results are nothing less than a repudiation of Republicans in general and Trump in particular.  The only thing that could have gotten Trump to drop everything and go on a month-long election rally campaign was the polling that showed Republican weakness.  When the best argument you can make for your side is, “the polls are wrong,” you know you’re in trouble.

The red flags really began waving for me with Trump’s ridiculous promise to sent every adult American $5,000 if they voted Republican.  I mean, even if something like that was legal, who does that?  Only someone who is desperate.

The voters this week turned sharply away from Trump and the Republicans, and as much as I support Trump, I can’t blame them.  Democrats were elected to office, to be sure, but this election was more a case of Republicans losing than Democrats winning.

When people are fed up with hearing the same tired lines, when they’re having trouble paying the bills, when they make their needs known to the elected officials and those officials fail to even try to listen to what they are saying, what choice do they have but to vote for the other side?

And Donald Trump, of all people, should have understood this.  The only reason that he was elected in 2016 was that the Democrats, and the establishment Republicans, failed to listen to the voters.  Had either Party been responsive to voters’ needs, there would never had been a President Trump.

But this latest disaster is not solely Trump’s fault, just mostly.  With the presidency, the House and the Senate in their control, Republicans failed to act in the best interest of the electorate.  After the Big Beautiful Bill, the Congress, and principally the Senate, managed to do exactly nothing.  80% of Americans favor voter ID, but they wouldn’t pass any version of the Save Act.  For God’s sake, this worthless crowd couldn’t even manage to end Daylight Savings time despite 67% support.

The Senate failures stem from the fundamental tension between Trump’s MAGA base and the establishment, Country Club, Good Loser Republicans in the Senate.  These are the people who gave us the Bushes, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, and the people who, but for Trump, would have saddled us with Jeb Bush, and consequently President Hillary Clinton, in 2016.

In 2026, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, John Thune, Lisa Murkowski, and others blocked a number of Trump proposals, and even voted against Cabinet appointments made by the President from their own Party.  It’s no wonder Trump worked hard to see Cornyn and Tillis defeated in their primaries, but that only set the stage for the Democrat takeovers.

Most of the blame lands on Trump because he made the mistake of trying to substitute his judgment for that of the voters.  The war with Iran hurt Republicans because it drove up fuel prices.  Trump keeps saying he had no choice, and I think he did have no choice but to take some action.

It is beyond dispute that we learned early in the year that the Iranians had enough nuclear material to produce 11 nuclear bombs.  A nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable.  If they could tie up the shipment of oil for months using small boats and cheap drones, think what they could do by threatening the use of nuclear weapons, keeping in mind that no one doubts those crazy bastards actually would use them.

In hindsight, if Trump had bombed the nuclear sites, and delayed the larger offensive, at least until after the election, things may have been different.  We’ll never know.  He at least could have made a better case for the necessity of intervention.  He never did.

But Iran wasn’t the most important factor in the election.  Democrats seized on the word affordability.  The necessities of life simply cost too much.  Now, to be fair, apart from fuel, the high prices really have nothing to do with Trump, but politics isn’t fair.  Then again, having cause the inflation problems, driving prices up over 20%, it’s not fair that Democrats gain advantage from it, but again, what’s fairness got to do with it?

In addition, though Democrats benefited from crying “affordability,” they have no plans and no policies in mind that will make the problem they created any better.  That’s the irony of the election.  To express their dissatisfaction with affordability, voters could only vote for Democrats, whose stated policies will only make things worse.  Gasoline too expensive?  Let’s elect people from the Party that wants to do away with the gas and oil industries, the same people who stated that their goal was $10 gasoline.  Beef too expensive?  No problem.  Elect the people who want to ban meat because the cows fart too much.

And since inflation is caused by government overspending, and the Democrat Party is in the hands of the socialists, whose agenda includes spending trillions more a year, inflation can only increase.  There goes affordability.

The real reason for the election results is that voters, much like Howard Beale in Network, are “mad as Hell, and don’t want to take it anymore.”  If today’s Democrats were from the Party of Bill Clinton, that would make sense.  But because 2026 Democrats are socialists who are mad as Hell, and don’t want it to be America anymore, things will not go well.

I really think Trump had a point with his tariff policies which brought more than $20 trillion in foreign investment into the country.  These investments will keep the economy booming, and in the long term, will go a long way toward solving the affordability issue.

The problem is, Trump got caught between the short term pain and the long term boom.  As FDR’s aide Harry Hopkins reminded a Republican legislator who complained that that, “in the long term,” a New Deal relief program would hurt the country, “People don’t eat in the long term.”

That was 1933.  In 2026, facing nothing like the poverty of the Great Depression, Americans feel more entitled, are more ignorant, and are more impatient than ever before.  They want instant gratification.  Their electoral tantrum may be gratifying in the short term.  But I’m afraid that, in the long term, the Democrats, the only alternative available to the voters, will only make things worse.