Does It Take One TO KNOW ONE?

 NOVEMBER 10, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN DONALD TRUMP

DEMENTIA DON

Earlier this afternoon, Donald Trump sent out this email to his supporters:

NewsCorp, which is Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and the no longer great New York Post (bring back Col!), is all in for Governor Ron DeSanctimonious, an average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations, who didn’t have to close up his State, but did, unlike other Republican Governors, whose overall numbers for a Republican, were just average—middle of the pack—including COVID, and who has the advantage of SUNSHINE, where people from badly run States up North would go no matter who the Governor was, just like I did!

Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017—he was politically dead, losing in a landslide to a very good Agriculture Commissioner, Adam Putnam, who was loaded up with cash and great poll numbers. Ron had low approval, bad polls, and no money, but he said that if I would Endorse him, he could win. I didn’t know Adam so I said, “Let’s give it a shot, Ron.” When I Endorsed him, it was as though, to use a bad term, a nuclear weapon went off. Years later, they were the exact words that Adam Putnam used in describing Ron’s Endorsement. He said, “I went from having it made, with no competition, to immediately getting absolutely clobbered after your Endorsement.” I then got Ron by the “Star” of the Democrat Party, Andrew Gillum (who was later revealed to be a “Crack Head”), by having two massive Rallies with tens of thousands of people at each one. I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart. I was all in for Ron, and he beat Gillum, but after the Race, when votes were being stolen by the corrupt Election process in Broward County, and Ron was going down ten thousand votes a day, along with now-Senator Rick Scott, I sent in the FBI and the U.S. Attorneys, and the ballot theft immediately ended, just prior to them running out of the votes necessary to win. I stopped his Election from being stolen…

And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, “I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.” Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.

This is just like 2015 and 2016, a Media Assault (Collusion!), when Fox News fought me to the end until I won, and then they couldn’t have been nicer or more supportive. The Wall Street Journal loved Low Energy Jeb Bush, and a succession of other people as they rapidly disappeared from sight, finally falling in line with me after I easily knocked them out, one by one. We’re in exactly the same position now. They will keep coming after us, MAGA, but ultimately, we will win. Put America First and, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

This would be an embarrassment coming from a twelve-year-old. Time to get Trump off the stage before he does further damage to our party and our country.

Officials in Arizona told CNBC today that they are “prepared to work through Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas”

Tucker Carlson: Why Did Republicans Underperform In The Midterm Election?

Posted By Tyler Stone
On Date November 10, 2022https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZbPvWZ-cumI

FOX News host Tucker Carlson reacts to the results of the 2022 midterm elections looks at where Republicans went wrong on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight:’

TUCKER CARLSON: What exactly happened in yesterday’s midterm elections? Well, we wish you could tell you with some precision. That’s our job, but we can’t, because in a number of key races around the country, we still don’t have a vote total. In Arizona, for example, there is no declared winner in the Senate race or in the governor’s race. At this point, it seems likely that both Kari Lake and Blake Masters will win. We’ll be speaking to Kari Lake in just a minute about that, but according to news reports, the official results may not be in for more than a month. A month!

Officials in Arizona told CNBC today that they are “prepared to work through Thanksgiving and possibly Christmas as well.” That means results by New Year’s in a race that was held in early November. That seems late. How late is it? Well, by comparison, the results of the 1862 midterm elections, which were tabulated by candlelight without machines or even electricity in the middle of a raging civil war, were clear before the end of the week. That was the entire country. Arizona is a single state, which, by the way, is a fraction of the size of Florida, which, as you may have noticed, counted its votes in less than a day—so did Brazil, an entire country.

That seems embarrassing, if not like a full-blown emergency. Counting the votes isn’t some added extra you get from government if they have a surplus, like fighting climate change or bringing equity. Counting the votes is a core function of government, along with law enforcement, maintaining the roads and keeping the border secure. Efficient elections are the reason you pay taxes, but Arizona doesn’t seem to have them. Why is that? Don’t ask, commands CNN. If you’ve got questions about this or any other election, no unauthorized questions. Instead, watch CNN or if you don’t have cable, simply trust your local officials.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You see, that’s our first votes and that’s the wonder of democracy, whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican and I wanted to point that out to be a little bit of the crank in the room following Brianna there. Stay off social media, people, if you’re trying to figure out, “Are there really issues with voting?” Trust your local officials. Trust us here. Trust a news source that you know and trust to be honest about this. They’re doing their job and they’re doing it right.

They’re doing their jobs. They’re doing it right. Really CNN? Can we get a little more reporting on that? How right are they doing it? It’s pretty funny, but we digress. The state of our election systems in many places is indeed pretty embarrassing, but so, honestly, were the results of last night’s elections. Republicans swore they were going to sweep, a red tsunami. That’s they told us and we, to be honest, cautiously believe them, but they did not sweep, not even close to sweeping.

The Republican Party in the end, may take control of the House and the Senate, but only by a tiny margin at best. That’s great, but it was not the plan. The plan was really simple. It seemed easy a week ago, an unpopular president, a faltering economy, an open border, the looming risk of nuclear war (How about that?) put all those together, how could there not be a massive Republican win nationally? Wins everywhere?

Well, there weren’t—some exceptions—but overall, there weren’t. Joe Biden was not punished back. He was out there bragging about himself today. Pretty frustrating. You want the Republicans to win not simply because they’re so great, but because Democrats are so very bad and that’s not an overstatement. What happened? Well, before we give you our theories as to what happened, one obvious point is the people whose job it was to win, but did not win should go do something else now.

We’re speaking specifically of the Republican leadership of the House and the Senate and of the RNC. There’s nothing personal. Some of them are no doubt nice people, but they took hundreds of millions of dollars to paint the map red and they didn’t. It doesn’t mean they’re evil. It doesn’t mean they should be jailed. It does mean they shouldn’t be promoted. No one should ever be rewarded for failure. If there’s a truly conservative principle in life, it’s the principle of the meritocracy. You reward excellence. You do not reward mediocrity and when you do, things fall apart.

Democrats kept promoting Tony Fauci despite his obvious ineptitude. What is that? That’s corruption. Republicans should never do anything like that and if they do, what’s the point of voting for them? They’re no different. The question is, why did Republicans underperform last night? You’re hearing a lot of people saying it was about abortion. Suburban ladies were mad about Roe. That’s certainly plausible in some places, probably true. On the other hand, a number of resolute, pro-life Republicans thrived statewide. They would include Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Brian Kemp in Georgia, Ted Budd in North Carolina, a pro-life result. Abortion may have been a factor, but it’s not the whole answer.

Many others are saying that Donald Trump is the reason Republicans didn’t do as well as they thought they would. That’s a more complicated question. The truth is, we can’t really see the entire picture this early. The truth is, Trump has always been a mixed blessing politically. The downsides are marbled in with the upsides, but in this case, he’s certainly not the single cause of anything. Republicans last night suffered a fair amount of down ballot losses in races that had nothing to do with Trump, in Michigan, for example. Whether you like Trump or not, and many don’t and a lot do, it’s a lot more complicated than just him.

Then there’s the most amusingly stupid explanation of all: bad candidates were the problem. That’s all over Twitter. All the Twitter pundits are telling you now the candidates were subpar and that was the problem. Candidate quality matters. Well, of course, strictly speaking, that is true. The quality of a candidate does matter, but really, how much does it matter? Well, let’s see. Joe Biden got elected president two years ago from his basement. John Fetterman became a U.S. senator last night. Does anyone think John Fetterman was a quality candidate? Is that why he won, because they had quality candidates on the left? Do the voters of Pennsylvania really want a brain damaged candidate who’s never had a real job? Did they think he was more impressive than the guy who spent his career doing heart transplants? Probably not.

You’ve got to give them credit for at least knowing who they were voting for and they voted for John Fetterman. He won anyway. What does that tell you? It tells you that in some cases, candidate quality is not actually the most important thing. What is? Well, the mechanics of an election. They matter. In fact, they matter sometimes more than any individual running in the election. The way people vote makes a big difference to the outcome and so, by the way, does access to channels of communication. Why does that matter? Well, because you can say whatever you want, but if no one hears you, you’re not really speaking and that’s the case for Republicans so often, as if Republicans can communicate their message unencumbered on a single cable television channel and a handful of relatively low traffic websites. That’s it.

The rest of the American media amounts to a gigantic filter designed to distort what Republicans are saying. It’s a campaign apparatus and only the Democrats have it. Now you can whine about that (“The media are liberal!”), but it’s not about liberal or conservative. It’s about winning elections and Democrats can win because they have that. If Republicans want to win elections, too, they might spend some money to fix that, to achieve parity.

To restate, as of tonight, Democrats have far more control of the election machinery and almost total control of the American media and Republicans don’t. These are not ideological problems. It’s not a question of who’s right on the issues. That’s settled, certainly in our mind, but probably in the minds of even people who would vote Republican if it occurred to them, but it doesn’t because they don’t know what they stand for.

These are questions, again, not of who’s right and who’s wrong, but of who makes it into elected office, of who wields power and many on the right don’t seem to understand this at all. They don’t care about the details. Two and a half years ago, the last administration, its Republican allies in Congress, watched passively, seemingly in glassy eyed sedation as the Democratic Party used the pretext of COVID to rewrite election laws around the country in order to get its own candidates into office. They didn’t do it by accident. They knew what they were doing. Last night those laws, many of which are still on the books, paid off generously. John Fetterman bombed in his one public debate. You saw it. He humiliated himself. He made a mockery of the election, but it didn’t matter by that point.

Thanks to early voting, Fetterman’s margin was already in the bank. Nearly 70% of Democrats had voted early in the Pennsylvania races. Only 20% of Republicans did. It’s over, but it doesn’t need to be repeated. These are fixable problems. You can get your message out. You can force the other side if you try hard enough to agree on fair election rules, but you can’t do any of that unless you acknowledge these problems exist. Those are probably the real problems, but enough for the depressing recap. There were bright spots last night. There were, as dispirited as you may have been, and we think it’s important to enjoy them always.

The good news is worth savoring. The first piece of good news is actually the flip side of the worst piece of news, which is that John Fetterman won in Pennsylvania and not only did John Fetterman win, but he won without speaking a single, coherent sentence for the entire campaign. Now, you may be appalled by that, but in some sense it’s an achievement. John Fetterman, in winning, shattered the thickest of all glass ceilings, which for centuries has prevented the unapologetically brain damaged from winning statewide election. So, John Fetterman is not just a U.S. senator now. He’s a pioneer and there’s nothing the Democratic Party loves, reveres and elevates more quickly than a pioneer. Take a look at the White House press secretary.

The question is, given his inspiring achievement, how can John Fetterman not be the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination in 2024? We can’t control that. We want him and Kamala to fight it out, but in the meantime, expect a huge amount of uncomfortable entertainment value from Senator John Fetterman. Savor every moment.

The second piece of good news for Republicans that they really should celebrate because it’s great: sometimes watching your enemies get vanquished is a virtue in itself. The D.C.C.C. congressional chairman, Sean Patrick Maloney, lost, probably the oiliest, slipperiest and by far not the stupidest member of Congress on the Democratic side. Maloney lost to a man called Michael Lawler in a race that nobody thought a Republican could ever win.

In a moment, we’ll speak to Lawler and ask how he did it, but it seems like Lawler won for a couple of reasons. The first is that Sean Patrick Maloney, like so many other Democrats, spent the last year and a half huffing and puffing about January 6. They’re going to win on January 6! Unlike most of them, clever as he is, Maloney seemed to actually believe it. He’s the one who claimed that Officer Brian Sicknick “was killed” on January 6. Last night after his defeat when he once again invoked, can you guess it? January 6.

MALONEY: A short while ago, I spoke to my opponent, Michael Lawler, and congratulated him on a good win. We hope the high watermark of some of the anger and the division that we have dealt with this entire cycle from January 6 on through, and we hope for something better for our country because that’s what all Americans deserve.

We mentioned he was clever. What seemed like a gracious concession (and we’re all in need of those on both sides) was, in fact, another attack on January 6, the insurrection. What’s interesting is that Maloney’s district is fairly upscale and includes the north suburbs of New York City. It went for Biden by five points just a couple of years ago and that support collapsed last night. Now, if there’s one group Republicans have had trouble winning recently since the inversion of 2016, it’s upper income white-collar voter, but in that district, they went Republican. Republicans should study what happened there and not just there, all over New York.

Democrats lost several seats across the Hudson Valley, in Long Island, in very blue areas and that means that Democrats (this is their base, upscale suburban voters), are more vulnerable than they believe they are and again, Republicans should study how exactly that happened. One race that will be studied for quite a long time and enjoyed for at least six years is what happened in Ohio last night.

Republicans in Ohio stunned the Democratic Party. Now they’ll tell you, “Oh, it was a Republican state,” but even by the standards of a so-called Republican state, Republicans dominated in Ohio last night. No Democrat came within ten points of any Republican in races for executive positions or Supreme Court races. Now, in the now famous race for Senate in Ohio, Democrats spent tens of millions of dollars more than the winner did. That would be JD Vance, but JD Vance won and then why did he win? He won as a decent person and that’s rare in any legislative body and he won on the right message. Watch this.

VANCE: Now, the people of Ohio have given us a job and what we need to do over the next couple of years, over the next six years for the full length of this Senate term, whoever is in the majority, whatever the president looks like, we have a very simple job to do. It’s to go to work every single day and fight for the people of Ohio, fight for our workers, fight for our families, fight for the people struggling with the opioid addiction problem, fight for the people, the single moms struggling to raise babies just like my mom raised me. We have got a great state. Whether you voted for me or not, the things that I promise to do is go to the United States Senate and fight every single day for the people of Ohio. Thanks to you, we get an opportunity to do just that.

We’ve lost more than 100,000 Americans in the last year, mostly young people from drug ODs. That’s just the last year. Many hundreds of thousands over the past five years and yet, when was the last time you saw someone mention it in a victory speech? I will fight for them, their families, the people left behind from this epidemic from China through Mexico, destroying huge parts of America. JD Vance said that and he clearly means it and he won by a lot, despite being outspent by a lot.

That is really good news. Almost as good, we will not see for quite some time the likes of Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams again because they lost yet again. How many offices have these two run for? How much money have Democratic donors spent to get them elected? A lot. Hundreds of millions of dollars and both are unemployed because it doesn’t matter how much you spend on the advertising campaign for the dog food. If the dogs don’t like it, they won’t eat it. That’s an old saying from political consultants and in this case, it is true. Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams rejected thoroughly in favor of people who are not professional politicians in a number of cases on the Republican side.

Now the last and probably biggest piece of good news, as you already know, is what happened last night in the state of Florida. Put bluntly, Ron DeSantis absolutely killed it and the closer you look at the numbers, the more interesting and revealing and heartening it is. Voters of every education level supported Ron DeSantis over Charlie Crist. That has not happened typically in elections statewide. Ron DeSantis even won among post grads by 7%. If you think that sounds normal, go look at the past five elections.

Republicans do not win statewide among people with post-graduate degrees, but DeSantis did. He won all but five counties in Florida. To the astonishment of MSNBC and the entire Democratic political establishment, DeSantis even managed to flip Miami-Dade County. Now, Miami-Dade is, by definition, a Democratic county, but he was not the only Republican who won there. Another did as well. Miami-Dade went for Hillary Clinton by 30 points in 2016. Listen to the audible gasp at MSNBC as they realized Hispanic voters had betrayed their lesson instructions.

KORNACKI: I’m told we just got Miami-Dade. This is a big one in Florida. Let’s take a look at this.

OFF-CAMERA PANELIST: Wow.

KORNACKI: Yeah, so let’s put this in some perspective. Miami-Dade County has two and three quarter million people. In 2016, this was a Democratic county by 30 points. Hillary Clinton won this county by 30 points. Miami-Dade is 70% Hispanic and look at this. In the mail-in and early vote, which again tends to be more Democratic friendly, Marco Rubio, the Republican, is outright leading in Miami-Dade County by seven points.

Exactly and good for them for being honest about what happened. Really no lying about it and again, it wasn’t just Ron DeSantis. It was also Marco Rubio. No Republican has won in Miami-Dade County in 20 years, but Ron DeSantis did it. Marco Rubio did it. In the end, DeSantis won by nearly 20 points. Things were so bad for Democrats in Florida that CBS went looking for Charlie Crist supporters and couldn’t find any in public. Watch.

DOKOUPIL: By the way, I got to point out that once we started digesting our food and digesting the day, we realized that on that day long trip, we spoke to dozens of people up and down the coast of Florida, all in precincts, by the way, that voted for President Biden in 2020, but to our surprise, we did not run into a supporter of Ron DeSantis’ Democratic opponent. That would be Charlie Crist.

Poor Charlie Crist, but this… I mean, of course, Charlie Crist was the lamest possible candidate the Democrats ever could have run, probably because they knew that DeSantis was going to win. This is one of those rare elections in which voters were, of course, rejecting the other side, but in this election, a lot of those voters appear, and the polling shows this, to be affirming the side they voted for. They weren’t just voting against. They were voting for. They’re voting for Ron DeSantis. Pretty amazing, actually. According to DeSantis, this is a realignment. Here he is. You know, over these.

DESANTIS: Past four years, we’ve seen major challenges for the people of our state, for the citizens of the United States, and, above all, for the cause of freedom. We saw freedom in our very way of life in so many other jurisdictions in this country wither on the vine. Florida held the line. We chose facts over fear. We chose education over indoctrination. We chose law and order over rioting and disorder. Thanks to the overwhelming support of the people of Florida, we not only won election. We have rewritten the political map.

As disappointed as you may have been by the results last night, what happened in Florida is legitimately a big deal. It will probably a while before we know exactly what it means, but we know for certain that it was out of the ordinary, unexpected and profound and as we told you a minute ago, the other thing that happened that was kind of great that we’re enjoying is that the guy in charge of getting Democrats elected to Congress himself lost. His name is Sean Patrick Maloney. He represented the Hudson Valley. He was beaten by Mike Lawler who is now the congressman elect.

DID JOHN HINDERAKER BECOME A DEM FASCIST?

NOVEMBER 9, 2022 BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN 2022 ELECTION, DONALD TRUMP (AGAIN!)

GOODBYE, DONALD (say fascist GOP Hinderakers?)

A consensus is emerging among Republicans that it is time for Donald Trump to get off the stage and stop damaging his party and his country. It is reflected in tomorrow’s New York Post cover:

In the same paper, John Podhoretz, never a Trump fan, writes: “Here’s how Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms.” Trump’s record is bleak.

Liberal fundraisers actually put money behind Trump-endorsed candidates in GOP primaries all over the place to help them prevail so that Democrats could face them in the general election. It was transparently cynical and an abuse of our political process. But it worked like gangbusters.

As Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post noted on Wednesday afternoon, when a Michigan Democrat named Hilary Scholten was finally declared the winner of her House seat against a raving lunatic named John Gibbs: “With this race call, every single Republican who won their primary with help from Democratic meddling has lost in the general election.”

The Democrats played Trump like a violin, and he joined in enthusiastically because his megalomania blinded him to political reality. He is a loser.

Earlier this evening I was on the Bolt Report with Andrew Bolt on Australia’s Sky News. Offline, Andrew asked what I thought about his view that Donald Trump contributed greatly to the Republicans’ midterm failure. He knew my answer because he had already read this post. Our on-air conversation was mostly about how Trump has become a liability to the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Trump is toast. He has a few fanatical followers, most of whom were never reliable Republicans or even consistent voters. They can go down with his ship if they want to. But the rest of us need to look ahead and begin the process of choosing a vastly better candidate in 2024. That will be a low bar……..

Dear Readers at Hinderaker studio: Collecting all of the above ‘noises’ listed by SIR John Hinderaker, Dems defeated President Donald J. Trump with a mere violin and/or crooked counts. This President Trump was thus so-called “horror” or another destroying GOP midterm dreams apparently.

President Donald J. Trump would have won his second term election if fascists hadn’t sabotaged a per cent of sour puss GOPers hither or thither that November, 2020. Or perhaps Dems DID sabotage the election in fact…..we don’t know.

I have been a ‘conservative’ nearly all of my political life which began in the late 1940s. But, I really liked Harry Truman….he reminded me of my Mother’s wonderful grandfather. (My dad’s grandfather was born before the American Civil War began in 1861 so I never did have a chance to meet him!) ghr

Dear Sir Hinderaker: I like your political closet anyway….

If you like today’s GOP, would you support positioning Republican President, Donald J. Trump for President again in 2024 if he is still healthy and moving Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis as Vice President with President Trump, and then moving into the Presidency for more years to secure Presidential influence to STRENGTHEN OUR USA of TODAY?

May God Bless America!

And Then There Are Those Republican Fascists WHO DICTATE TOAST!

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN 2022 ELECTION, DONALD TRUMP

GOODBYE, DONALD

A consensus is emerging among Republicans that it is time for Donald Trump to get off the stage and stop damaging his party and his country. It is reflected in tomorrow’s New York Post cover:

In the same paper, John Podhoretz, never a Trump fan, writes: “Here’s how Donald Trump sabotaged the Republican midterms.” Trump’s record is bleak.

Liberal fundraisers actually put money behind Trump-endorsed candidates in GOP primaries all over the place to help them prevail so that Democrats could face them in the general election. It was transparently cynical and an abuse of our political process. But it worked like gangbusters.

As Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post noted on Wednesday afternoon, when a Michigan Democrat named Hilary Scholten was finally declared the winner of her House seat against a raving lunatic named John Gibbs: “With this race call, every single Republican who won their primary with help from Democratic meddling has lost in the general election.”

The Democrats played Trump like a violin, and he joined in enthusiastically because his megalomania blinded him to political reality. He is a loser.

Earlier this evening I was on the Bolt Report with Andrew Bolt on Australia’s Sky News. Offline, Andrew asked what I thought about his view that Donald Trump contributed greatly to the Republicans’ midterm failure. He knew my answer because he had already read this post. Our on-air conversation was mostly about how Trump has become a liability to the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

Trump is toast. He has a few fanatical followers, most of whom were never reliable Republicans or even consistent voters. They can go down with his ship if they want to. But the rest of us need to look ahead and begin the process of choosing a vastly better candidate in 2024. That will be a low bar.

The DeSantis Push Begins!

To Win Polarized Elections, Republicans Need More Than Weak Opponents — They Need Strong Leaders

BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND at the Federalist:

NOVEMBER 09, 2022

Relying on Democrats’ failures is not enough to bridge the partisan divide, and the 2022 midterms proved it.

MARGOT CLEVELAND

Tuesday’s anticipated red wave broke — in the kiddie pool. Yes, Republicans appear poised to regain control of the House and may also wrestle the Senate from Chuck Schumer’s hands. And those victories should be appreciated. But conservatives cannot help but be disappointed that the expected red tsunami never hit.

Nor can Republicans chalk the lower-than-predicted pickups up to cognitive biases causing conservatives to overestimate their midterm fortunes. Democrats also forecasted a routing last night and must be ecstatic that not only did a massive red wave not hit, but the ripple, at first glance, barely upset the baby.

The Line of Thought

The rationale was simple. Joe Biden is an incredibly unpopular president, with only 39 percent of the public approving of his performance, according to a Monday poll from Reuters. And 72 percent of voters believe our country is on the wrong track. The economy, which voters cited as their No. 1 concern, is in shambles. Gas prices are still high, and with limited supply remaining in the strategic oil reserves, OPEC’s resurgence in light of Biden’s weakness, and the far-left’s unrealistic green demands, they will continue to increase over the coming months. 

Skyrocketing interest rates and high inflation — which will only intensify as gas-price increases flow downstream — made kitchen-table issues a key concern heading into Tuesday’s vote. Parents’ anger over schools’ closures and continued efforts to indoctrinate students on trans ideology or critical race theory provided another sign that Democrats, responsible in the main for both, would face a reckoning. 

In short, the landscape mirrored the scene in Virginia in November 2021 when Republicans shocked the country by sweeping the statewide elections and regaining control of the House of Delegates in upset victories up and down the ballot. Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares all defeated their Democrat opponents in the races for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, respectively, notwithstanding polls and pundits giving the Republicans little chance of winning.

After Virginia’s sweep, the political post-mortem on Democrats identified Biden’s unpopularity, the wrong-track numbers, the struggling economy, and parents’ fights with school boards over gender and CRT ideology as responsible for the Republican landslide. Since that time, Biden’s popularity decreased further, with more voters viewing the country as being on the wrong track. Economic conditions are worse, and parents are outraged over the harm inflicted on their children under the Covid excuse. Spiraling crime rates added a new concern for voters since the 2021 Virginia test run. And even without this bleak backdrop, the president’s party almost always loses midterms. 

The confluence of these factors gave Republicans and Democrats alike reason to believe Republicans would wash Democrats out of several governors’ houses, in addition to flipping dozens of House seats, and giving Republicans a two- or even three-seat majority in the Senate. While the Republicans will likely win back the House and still have a chance to regain control of the Senate, the spread of the former is nowhere near what political types expected, and the latter is in no way assured. Republicans also failed to regain the governors’ mansions in Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York, and lost two to Democrats in Maryland and Massachusetts. 

Democrats would be right to rejoice in the fact that they aren’t as big of losers as they and everyone else thought. Retaking the House, however, remains a win for Republicans — assuming it materializes. Likewise winning the Senate seat in Ohio against a formidable Democrat candidate and without a strong red wave propelling J.D. Vance to victory represents an accomplishment. 

A Pattern for Success

But while here and there a few Republican victories might merit celebrating, the only monumental achievement from Tuesday came with the quick calling of Florida for Sen. Marco Rubio and his fellow Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. And it is those victories, particularly DeSantis’s win, that, when considered in conjunction with the phantom red wave and particularly Democrat John Fetterman’s win in Pennsylvania, expose the new American political reality: America’s politicized electorate will vote party over nearly everything other than clear, undeniable positive results.

That Pennsylvanians could elect Fetterman to the United States Senate in light of his obvious cognitive incompetence shows the “D” in front of his name mattered more than anything else. Likewise, that the electorate ignored the perfect storm of conditions that previously justified sweeping the in-control party out of office suggests the Democrat-Republican divide is more deeply entrenched than at any other time in our country’s recent history.

But that both Rubio and DeSantis slaughtered their Democrat challengers in races that were polling much closer provides the blueprint for success in this new era of political polarity. 

Just four years ago, DeSantis squeaked out a victory in the contest for governor against Democrat Andrew Gillum, 49.6 percent to 49.2 percent. Tuesday night, DeSantis garnered nearly 60 percent of the votes compared to his Republican-turned-Democrat challenger Charlie Crist’s share of 40 percent. Rubio likewise had a decisive victory, 58 percent to 42 percent, over Democrat Val Demings. 

As DeSantis said during his victory speech, the outcome of the election showed that he had earned the trust and confidence of many voters who had previously cast ballots for his Democrat opponent. In fact, so successful has DeSantis been, he has made Florida a go-to destination for Americans disgusted by their local governments. 

That Republicans were mainly the ones fleeing the destruction wrought by Democrat-controlled states might explain part of the wide margin of victory on Tuesday, but DeSantis’s leadership, as most recently demonstrated in the aftermath of hurricane Ian, is indisputable. And DeSantis’s popularity likely propelled Rubio to a stronger finish too.

If wise, then, Republicans will not merely focus on Florida to uplift their spirits after Tuesday’s expected red wave never materialized. Rather, Republicans will see DeSantis and his leadership as the answer to the electorate’s polarity that helped get a candidate like Fetterman elected.

Verifiable success is the best way to bridge the partisan divide. Democrats’ own failures are not enough — midterms 2022 proved that.

“Hispanic voters are moving toward the Republican Party in large numbers…”

November 9, 2022

Why the red tsunami seems to have hit only Florida

By Thomas Lifson at American Thinker:

As vote counts continue to be posted, it is clear that Republican hopes and dreams of a huge wave election have been dashed.  Instead of a large House majority and solid control of the Senate, Republicans will be lucky to have small majorities in each chamber, and even that outcome is not secure at this moment.

But in one state, Florida, Republicans have triumphed in tsunami-like proportions.  With 98% of the vote counted, Marco Rubio has a 16.4% landslide lead over Senate challenger Val Demings, and Governor Ron DeSantis has a 19.4% lead, a gigantic increase over his fraction-of-one-percent squeaker victory four years ago.

It’s going to take some time to figure out why the rest of the country isn’t behaving like the Sunshine State, but three factors suggest themselves.

Ron DeSantis displayed gutsy leadership in confronting COVID, enduring taunts as “DeathSantis” and far worse as he refused to cower before the might of Dr. Fauci, the medical establishment, Big Pharma, the media, and Democrat politicians.  As a result, Florida prospered as other states closed down their businesses and schools.  (The other governor who resisted the panic, South Dakota’s Kristi Noem, won with an even bigger margin: 26.8 points with 97% of the vote counted.)  Note the sign on his podium as he addressed supporters at his campaign headquarters in the wake of his victory, with his cancer-survivor wife at his side:

He similarly stood up to Disney, one of if not the state’s largest employers, when it pushed homo- and trans-sexual indoctrination for schoolchildren.  And his handling of Hurricane Ian demonstrated great competence.

It’s worth noting that he supporters began chanting, “Two more years, two more years!,” obviously encouraging him to run for president.

Hispanic voters are moving toward the Republican Party in large numbers, and there are lots of Hispanic voters, especially Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Venezuelans, in Florida, groups that may be in the forefront of this movement.

Voting integrity systems were put in place in Florida after the state became a national laughingstock in the wake of the 2000 presidential election, and “hanging chad” became a symbol of questionable vote totals.  Florida permits any registered voter to request an absentee ballot, but the request has to be received by the office of the local supervisor of elections by the close of business ten days before the election.  Only the voter or an immediate family member can make the request.  There are no mass mailings of vote-by-mail ballots.

Armed with more data, there will be refinements to this explanation of Florida’s unique red wave status in the coming days.  But it is a phenomenon that Republicans must closely examine before 2024.

Correction: At the time of writing this, results were not available from South Dakota on RealClearPolitics, so I mistakenly said that Governor Noem was not on the ballot.

COMMUNIST CHINA BEGINS ITS DRIVE FOR THE WORLD?

November 9, 2022

The Coming Invasion of Taiwan

By Mike Phelps at American Thinker:

Most observers of the rising tension between Communist China and Taiwan do not believe that an invasion of Taiwan is imminent.  However, it seems increasingly clear that China is arming and planning for such a campaign.  President Xi Jinping is moving toward becoming a dictator for life, and the “reunification” of the island nation of Taiwan with Communist China would be the crowning achievement of his reign.

But not all is well in the Middle Kingdom, as there is growing opposition to Xi’s destructive zero-COVID policies.  A banner hung off an overpass in Beijing recently read: “Say no to Covid test, yes to food.  No to lockdown, yes to freedom.  No to lies, yes to dignity.  No to cultural revolution, yes to reform.  No to great leader, yes to vote.  Don’t be a slave, be a citizen.”  What would be a routine demonstration in the U.S. is a stunning act of defiance and courage in China.

A military adventure would be an effective distraction from growing unrest.  And if China were to occupy Taiwan, it would give the communist country undisputed control of the South China Sea, which has some of the most important sea lanes on the planet.

Ever since Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists fled to Taiwan, known as Formosa at the time, the mainland has wanted to bring the wayward island under its control.  At the recent 20th Party Congress, Xi used the phrase “independence forces,” referring to Taiwan.  He went on to declare, “Complete reunification of our country must be realized.”

Elon Musk’s recent proposal to treat Taiwan like Hong Kong as a way of solving the dispute has to make one wonder if the eccentric billionaire has been paying attention to what’s been going on in Hong Kong over the last couple of years.  Musk’s proposal would be good for his own business interests, but not so good for Taiwan’s 23 million residents.  We know what Musk wants, but what do the Taiwanese want?  Most opinion polls that explore these questions find two consistent attitudes.  First, a majority of the people wants to maintain the status quo when it comes to the relationship between China and Taiwan.  Second, more than 70 percent of them consider Taiwan an independent and sovereign country.

Taiwan is a democratic republic with a successful free-enterprise economy.  Like every other country, it is far from perfect, but the island nation deserves support from the United States.

The U.S. has been selling weapons to Taiwan for decades…to what end?  Were these weapon sales just for deterrent purposes and to help defense companies?  Are the weapons evidence that the U.S. intends to defend Taiwan if China attacks?  Does the Biden administration know the answer to any of these questions?  What does Taiwan’s government really know about U.S. plans?  These are difficult questions, but the U.S. government and national security experts have had a long time to think about them.

Perhaps the most important question is, what do the Chinese believe about U.S. intensions?  Strategic ambiguity can be a legitimate approach, but it cannot be allowed to become a cover for indecision and weakness.

Some experts argue that in the event of an invasion, China would try to implement an “integrated operational concept.”  This is a sort of “all hands on deck” approach that would include everything from cyber-attacks to sabotage.  Everyone recognizes that Taiwan’s seaports would be crucial objectives for the Chinese and would almost certainly be the focus at the earliest stages of an invasion across the Taiwan Strait.  Amphibious operations have to be a part of an IOC, but exactly what form they would take is up for debate.

The Chinese navy has amphibious assault ships, but the communist regime embraces a doctrine of military-civilian fusion, which essentially means that civilian industry, technology, and equipment are subject to use by the military.  One example that has been discussed is massive car carrier ships being used to ferry troops and equipment into unsuspecting ports.  Light infantry and special operations forces — — even tanks and armored fighting vehicles — could be in position to seize ports before Taiwan knew it was under attack.

There are analysts who think a blockade of Taiwan might precede an invasion, but this would take away China’s chance to achieve strategic surprise.  Tactical surprise would still be possible, but much more difficult with even just a weeks-long blockade.

While the likelihood and efficacy of a blockade are up for debate, it is beyond debate that China has been busy forming a no-go zone in the South China Sea and especially in the Taiwan Strait, the 100-mile body of water that separates Mainland China from Taiwan.  Admiral Michael Gilday, chief of U.S. naval operations, recently gave an interview, and he made a point of saying he believes that China could invade Taiwan in 2022 or 2023.  Presumably, this analysis isn’t news to anyone in the Biden administration, but that the admiral said it in public as China’s 20th Party Congress was unfolding is interesting timing.

There is never a perfect time to take on the risks and uncertainties that come with launching a major military operation, but the next 12–24 months might be the best window of opportunity President Xi is going to have.  It seems he is preparing China for conflict for several years as it continues to modernize and expand its military, stockpiles, food, and raw materials and cultivates an ally in Russia.  He has solidified his rule with the recent 20th Party Congress, so now he is free to focus on what the CCP sees as an existential issue: putting Taiwan under its yoke.

The “reunification” nonsense is crude, but probably effective propaganda to many ears, both in China and in the West.  But the island nation was never controlled by China, so there can be no reunification — only an invasion and the destruction of a free and sovereign nation.

The U.S. government has to learn from its Ukraine mistake, which was to show weakness and indecision leading up to Russia’s invasion instead of a policy of unequivocal deterrence.  Deterrence has a chance of working only if President Biden and the Pentagon can convince the CCP that the U.S. really might intervene in the event of an invasion.  Unfortunately, time might be running out.

Michael Phelps is a freelance writer and the author of the book, A Short History of the Long War: The Global Struggle Against Militant Islamism.