Donald Trump has stopped caring about the midterms
But the Democrats — and the rest of us — still hope to make them count
This entire presidential administration is off its leash. Let’s recap: So-called border czar Tom Homan recently predicted more bloodshed and violence because of ICE operations — unless we all sit down and shut up. The entire Republican Party is on a delusional rant about communism, and Donald Trump spent Wednesday afternoon in Georgia telling us that he has a fat, rich friend who found cheap Ozempic in London. “He’s great at making deals and eating,” Trump said.
Hmm, that sounds vaguely familiar. I wonder if Trump was staring at his “friend” in the mirror.
Future historians, should we survive our current existential crisis, will look back and identify Trump as the most corrupt and dangerous president to ever test the elasticity of our democracy. The devil may have gone down to Georgia looking for a soul to steal, but when he wanted more, he sent Trump to make the deal. Hopefully, the resonance of that Charlie Daniels song will outlast the cancerous Trump regime.
On Wednesday, we got to see the old Donnie energy. He spoke for an hour before a friendly crowd who cheered and booed as if eagerly prompted. He had surprise guest speakers — so surprised they were called upon to speak that they nearly forgot their prepared notes as they got on stage.
This is Donald Trump’s windup going into the fall midterms. I won’t even mention the “Pinky Herman” moment. It’s too easy.
Trump’s midterm message is an echo of who he has always been, and who many more people now know him to be. He denounced his political opponents as communists and socialists, speaking of them with more vitriol than he shows the leaders of Iran. He may be at war with that nation, but also claims its leaders are “dying to make a deal,” while the “Dumbocrats” embrace communism and threaten our way of life.
News reports this week suggest that if you are an American who works at Walmart or Amazon, you are disproportionately likely to be on Medicaid and using SNAP benefits, because you don’t make a living wage. That certainly threatens our way of life. Trump’s response is that he won’t tax your tips. He isn’t asking the billionaires to pay you more. He wants you invest in “Trump savings accounts” for your children, even though you can’t afford healthcare, education, rent or groceries. He wants housing to be even more expensive so the wealthy can become wealthier. When a reporter asked him on Tuesday whether Iranian actions in the war would impact the midterms, Trump said, “Probably. They won’t have any impact on me. I’m just going to do the right thing. I don’t view it as, ‘Gee, we’re having an election.’ I think people are very impressed.”
I’m not sure what exactly we’re supposed to be impressed with, and apparently neither does he. He just wants your worship. On more than one occasion Trump has dismissed the midterm elections as inconsequential. That could be a deflection, an attempt to keep everyone’s mind off of a variety of other issues. But some members of the Republican Party believe him. You can tell by their actions. At a recent gathering of elected Republican officials, Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson warned his colleagues that if the Republicans lose this fall the Democrats will likely indict and investigate “many of the people in this room.”
Trump began his Wednesday meeting with the families of U.S. military service members recently killed in the war against Iran. He said we owe them our respect. He is right. No argument here, but a few hours later he once again called the war a “skirmish” and claimed that Iran is still eager to make a deal.
At the very least his reverence for the dead could have lasted a bit longer. They didn’t die in a “skirmish” outside a local bar. The dead gave their last breath in the belief they were serving their country — in a war the president hates to admit he can’t end.
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Trump still hasn’t released the Epstein files. He has arguably committed war crimes going after alleged drug dealers on the high seas. He’s responsible for rising prices everywhere. Where Canada sent firefighters to help us out when we were suffering from wildfires, Trump has sent tariffs up north because the Canadians apparently don’t know how to manage acts of God.
Members of the MAGA faithful are fleeing from him because of the war he started, the Epstein debacle and the economic stress Trump swears doesn’t exist. The rich are doing fine. The rest of us? Not so much.
With all that said, you would think that the Democrats are shoo-ins to take back control of the House and the Senate this year. Thing is, they’re not. I must remind everyone that the Democratic Party has only defeated Donald Trump once out of the three occasions it has put up a candidate to challenge him. We all know the Democrats are the best at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Every day we see how corrupt, unhinged and laughable Trump and his perennial sideshow of circus freaks are. The natural question is “how in the hell could anyone lose to him?” All you need to win, it would seem, is a decent human being who adheres to the Constitution and can embrace sanity and a majority of people who actually vote. It’s not an especially high bar.
Yet two out of three times, the Democrats failed. These midterms might be their last chance. Three strikes and you’re out.
So once again our two political parties are embroiled in a gutter fight to control the country, sponsored by political action committees and rich donors who only want to pacify a restless and numb nation.
The Democrats recently ran into a debacle in Maine, supporting a U.S. Senate candidate so poorly vetted they didn’t even know he had racist tattoos, although he often showed them off in public. Never mind the accusations of sexual abuse and rape. That would have required conducting a mild, shallow investigation. What does it say about a political party when it literally can’t bother to open its eyes?
“If my new party isn’t careful, we’re going to make a big mistake this fall,” former Tea Party congressman Joe Walsh recently said.
Fred Wellman, a congressional candidate in Missouri’s 2nd district, said on my podcast, “Just Ask the Question,” that the party needs better leadership. “I haven’t seen much of them,” he said of the current leaders. Internal polling, he claims, gives him a great chance of not only securing the Democratic nomination in the August primary but potentially defeating the Republican incumbent, Rep. Ann Wagner, in the fall. Wagner is best known for her love of the banking industry — and for refusing to hold town hall meetings in her district.
A primary victory will likely spur party involvement in Wellman’s race. But he’s skeptical of the experience of some Democratic leaders, who come across as arrogant without cause and ignorant about how things actually work. I recently traveled to Austin to see James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate who’s running against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. On paper, this race should be a blow-out. A Christian minister (that would be Talarico) running against a corrupt politician (Paxton) who helped a convicted pedophile serve less than a month in prison after raping a young boy. “This is a perfect storm for the right Democratic candidate,” Walsh explained. “Talarico should win. It’s definitely within our grasp.”
Yeah, it should be a no-brainer — especially in Texas, where they praise “family values”. But Paxton has taken a page from the Trump playbook and mocked his Democratic opponent with a bunch of,derogatory nicknames, including “six-gender Jimmy,” “tofu Talarico” and “James Talafreako.” Paxton’s campaign even released a TV ad ending with an image of Talarico next to the words: “Radical Talarico: too low-T for Texas.”
I do not know what it is with Republicans and their obsession with testosterone.
Polling shows that the Talarico race is close. When I walked into a hotel to see him speak, I was greeted by a very young communication team. “Is this your first race?” I asked one staffer. “No. My second,” I was told.
Talarico’s team had a hard time deciding where to place a podium for their candidate. They didn’t have lights, relying on the press (some 12 cameras showed up) to provide the lights and advice on how to stage the news conference. It looked like a high school production.
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After 40 years of reporting on political campaigns, I can’t say I was surprised, though I had anticipated a more experienced comms team. “You don’t win the World Series with a Little League team,” Wellman said. “This is the U.S. Senate we’re talking about.”
The midterms have never been more important, and there are many potentially winnable races for the Democrats that could tip the scale of leadership in the House, and potentially even the Senate. But with so many races to run, resources are scarce, and you can’t ask experienced campaign managers and staff to work for free — unless they’re independently wealthy, and those people don’t usually vote for Democrats.
The Democrats definitely need to up their game. Watching Trump stumble his way through speeches while avoiding and misrepresenting the facts — only to have those fake facts amplified by a “free press” that has been subjugated or threatened — is at the core of an existential crisis unlike any I’ve seen in my lifetime.
A word of advice from an old reporter: You need key lights, perhaps a backlight and an indoor podium placed where people can be somewhat comfortable. Throw in some snacks, and every reporter within a 30-mile radius will attend.
The Democrats need to be schooled up quick. As Walsh says, we may be witnessing a perfect storm that will help Democrats win no matter how incompetent they are because Trump is even more so. But that’s not a reliable recipe for a successful midterm election, let alone a viable democracy.
Personally, I can only take so much more of a government that preaches freedom by telling us to sit down and shut up. It is disheartening to see that the difference between victory and defeat for both parties, at least potentially, is a matter of money — the only god that Donald Trump worships.
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on the imploding Trump regime
How can we get this message to ALL aspiring Dem candidates, at every level, wherever they may be? Maybe there needs to be a (blue) company that can offer these elements (and set-up) conveniently, at a nominal price, if local/state/national party infrastructure cannot. They need to figure out that “media relations” isn’t just mastering the socials.