Newsweek: Republicans Get Bad Midterm News in Two Recent Polls
The polling data that keeps coming out, pointing to massive dissatisfaction with every move Trump makes, should be very encouraging to Democrats for the November midterms, especially for those who are just now getting involved in the process. For more than a year now, two thirds of the voters in this country have been telling pollsters they think the sitting President is an incompetent boob, who lies through his teeth and who is anything but an effective President. On every issue, from his ridiculous startup of a war in Iran to his handling of the economy, to the manner in which he has botched immigration enforcement, to the lies he can't seem to stop telling about non-existent election fraud, it's clear that he's lost almost all of the soft support he got to eke out his win in 2024, and that most of the country is not being fooled by his demagoguery.
I will point out that this information comes from Newsweek, a source with a Trump bias that rarely publishes anything making him look bad. They try to couch his incompetence, weakness, incessant lying and inability to meet the challenges of the oval office as just a political perspective. So when they publish bad news, it's worse than they are making it out to be.
In fact, a lot of his hard core base has lost faith, at least, those who are agenda driven. He seems to forget that there are some among those who have been his most faithful supporters, who can read, write, and are not as bottomlessly naive or stupid as he thinks they are. His addled mind doesn't seem to remember he made promises specifically to them and now is completely ignoring them. To be sure, most of his MAGA base is bottomlessly naive and stupid, but there are some people who have crawled out from under the rock, and are, to use a favorite phrase of mine, have "woke up".
As one of the dissatisfied voters, and in Trump's case, to be fair, I've never been satisfied with his being nominated or elected, and I have always known that for his entire adult life he's been a sexual predator, a rapist, a con artist, grifter, womanizing adulterer and business cheat. The problem I have with him goes well beyond his handling of political issues. It's his total lack of character. He is, without a doubt, one of the most immoral, corrupted, deviant individuals ever to occupy the White House, and that is saying a lot, given the character of many of the men who have previously served. Being worse than Richard Nixon takes some deliberate effort. And I think Trump has used Nixon as a personal example.
It's the lack of character, and the willingness of so many voters to ignore it, that bothers me the most.
The Support System Which Undergirds American Democracy Has Eroded
For a country which still claims the democratic values on which it was founded, and which its white, Christian-influenced majority claims it has some kind of superior moral foundation that is included in patriotic expression, to have elected a demagogue like Trump, who shows no evidence of having any of those values in his business dealings or personal life, is very disturbing. Having that many people who are either completely blind to this man's character, or completely ignorant of the values the country was founded on, or totally willing to compromise their Christian convictions and character to vote for him is, in fact, a sign of weakness. Somewhere, the support system for the politics of undergirding national values and protecting the Constitution and the democratic republic it established has failed. t
What is so disturbing about this is that these social and political institutions have broken down, and there doesn't appear to be anything to fix them. What is to prevent this same segment of the electorate, and the "low propensity voters" who are reactionary and generally driven by misinformation, conspiracy theories, distrust of anything "government", and the influence of white, Christian Nationalism from the pulpit, from putting someone worse than Trump in the White House at some point down the road?
Worse than Trump?
Yes. Look at some of the Republicans who are in leadership now, and have influence, and see that they are not suffering from the dementia that is evident in Trump, and they are learning how the commander in chief is abusing power without consequence. Voters in Ohio, unbelievably, elected J. D. Vance as their Senator, and then he crawled onto the ticket with Trump in a transactional exchange of rank stupidity. Somehow, a sycophantic racist like Mike Johnson wormed his way in to get elected as Speaker of the House. And then there's Marco Rubio, who, though he's generally a whiny-baby and also very much a sycophant, is intelligent enough to learn from Trump's mistakes in order to manipulate political power to force Christian nationalism on this country.
Democrats Are Not Immune to This Problem
We have had our share of politicians tempted by money and tempted to abuse power. Trump has succeeded in getting away with a criminal presidency largely because the opposition doesn't quite seem to be willing to cross some protocol boundaries in American politics and take some risks. The Democrats had the power of government for the first two years of the Biden Administration, knowing what potentially could come about with a second Trump term. They had the evidence and they got the indictments for the crimes he committed in his first term and then dragged their feet, claiming that prosecuting him would "look too political."
Of course it would have. But it would have also saved this country from four years of destruction and dismantling of its Constitution, or at least two years of that if we do wind up winning the midterms. But the way that Democrats have acted in the past, with that power, is hardly convincing evidence that anything of significance to put a stop to what's going on is going to happen after the November elections. There's been a whole lot of "tsk, tsk, tsk," but when it comes to taking the necessary risks that might look political, but would be effective benefits for the American people and in stopping the Trump menace, most Democratic politicians seem content to sit back behind their fundraising operations. The few exceptions to that are being taken by the Democrats who are leading in the Presidential polling, including Mark Kelly, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pete Buttigieg.
That should tell us something about what the voters opposed to Trump want to see.
The Danger of Demagoguery Will Exist Until We Do Something About It
We, as a country, have tolerated far more from Trump than we ever should have allowed. I hear all the arguments about constitutional protections and balanes working both ways, limits which were established to protect the government from the political back and forth that was inevitable. But when we had a chance to do something, we didn't. We had the power, during the first two years of Biden's term, to take steps to prevent a second Trump Presidency, as well as to prosecute him for the indictments handed down for his criminal acts during his first term, and we let that slip right out of our hands.
Are there any regrets about that now? I sure have them. And the equivocating, pearl-clutching, fear that Democrats exhibited when they had the power to stop this from happening doesn't re-assure me about what we are in for once we win the mid-terms. It is, frankly, appalling that Trump has been able to get away with as much as he has without someone getting serious about stopping him.
If the Democrats don't shed their old-school politics mentality now, and give us a "take no prisoners" performance after November of 2026, then we'll never find a way to get rid of the demagogue and restore our democratic republic. No foot-dragging, delberate delays or compromise, it better be full steam ahead. If we don't push ahead with prosecutions, and lay the groundwork to amend the Judiciary act and neutralize the six conservative-appointed justices from the Supreme Court, then this will never get fixed.
Beyond that, we need to figure out how to stop producing generations of kids graduating from school with few reading interpretation skills, no ability to reason or to think critically, and who believe every conspiracy theory that happens to blow by. This is exactly why the GOP is attacking and attempting to destroy the U.S. Department of Education. Education is one of the institutions which makes it possible to preserve democracy. Requirements in government and American History need to be extremely reformed into something that works to protect the American democracy rather than undermine it.
This is a government of, by and for the people. It belongs to us, not to the politicians who fill the office chairs. Very little is being done, in spite of voter dissatisfaction, because the politicians have insulated themselves against accountability. Marches, ralles and protests do have an effect, and the ballot box is an effective means of communication, but only if the politicians who are elected do their job instead of going into immediate fundraising, "How do I get re-elected?" mode.
This is more than just incompetence in office. The man now occupying the White House lacks the kind of humanity and moral character that is an essential part of leadership, and that's why he's failing so badly. We need to hold our politicians accountable to do for us what is necessary to fix this problem.
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