By Brigitte L. Nacos
Although the GOP will likely become the majority party in the House of Representatives and perhaps in the US Senate as well, the results of this week’s midterm election were the first signs of hope that the leader of the MAGA movement is not invincible. That there are limits to contemporary extremism and pure craziness in American politics. That enough Americans have not succumbed to rhetorical and actual political violence.
Of course, hope is not reality. Perhaps signal changes to come.
Donald Trump and his minions were not the only ones to predict a landslide victory for the Republican Party and their hand-picked line-up of far-right candidates. Pollsters and pundits and reporters in the field confirmed the coming shellacking of the Democratic Party and their candidates.
They all were wrong. Again.
Their predictions were far removed from what actually happened and still unfolds in undecided races in three states and two dozen congressional districts.
Democrats won clear victories in a number of swing states, among them Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire. And they won against GOP candidates who were so extreme that they were rejected by enough Independents and even some Republicans. The Democrats’ unexpected good showing included gubernatorial victories and majorities in state legislatures matched finally previous sweeps of the GOP in state-wide elections.
If the senatorial races in Arizona and Nevada are ultimately won by the Democratic candidates, the Democrats would remain in the driver's seat in the US Senate because Vice President Harris would break likely 50-50 ties. If the Republicans end up winning the senatorial seats in those two western states, they will be in charge in the upper chamber of the Congress. In either case, a win in the run-off in Georgia on December 6 between the sitting Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and the Trump-handpicked former football star Hershel Walker would be gravy for either Democrats or Republicans.
Today, the big question is this: Can this week’s mid-term election results finally derail the Trump MAGA train?
Rupert Murdoch’s far-right New York Post celebrated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on the front page of its Wednesday edition calling him “young GOP star” and “DeFuture”—a slap in Donald Trump’s face and plan to announce his third run for the presidency next week. Worse yet, on Thursday, the New York Post’s front page showed “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” and the following verse:
"Don (who couldn’t build a wall)
Had a great fall—
Can all the GOP’s men
Put the party back together again?"
Perhaps it does not take “all the GOP’s men” but only some courageous GOP men and women a la Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to “put the party back together.”
Comments