Totally agree, Richard..! Volatility is the name of the game right now and if the lefty loonies turn protests violent and destructive Americans will not be voting out the Trump agenda of law and order..
Midterms don’t hinge only on models. They hinge on mood. The wild card is whether spring and summer unrest explodes again in deep-blue cities the way it did in 2020. If crime spikes, protests turn destructive, and governors hesitate while mayors equivocate, suburban persuadables will not parse turnout spreadsheets — they’ll react viscerally. Law and order still moves swing voters. If blue-state leadership appears unable or unwilling to maintain basic civic stability, that becomes a national referendum. Prediction markets can price probabilities, but televised chaos rewrites them overnight. The X factor isn’t polling. It’s whether America sees another summer of burning storefronts.
Your answer seems correct to me, a rational human. Two things make me equivocate. 1. There is a scary number of people whose facility with logic goes this far: “If there’s burning and looting during Trump’s presidency, the solution is to go back a party who had no burning and looting”
2. Many Republicans are feeling like spanking the Senate for their poor production, especially the outright intransigence on the Save Act.
I fashion myself more rational than the people in #1, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold my nose and vote for some republicans who are counterproductive.
Not holding your nose for a stinky Republican is tantamount to just voting for the Democrat. That’s BITING your nose off to spite your face. Waiting for the perfect candidate is simply not an option.
I will vote for the Republican on the ticket no matter how stinky they are because the alternative is deliberately choosing national suicide.
Apathy in these midterms by Republican voters will kill this country. This is no time for anyone to think they can sit this out.
I almost used that metaphor in my post to say “I’ve followed the logic of ‘don’t cut off your nose to spite your own face’ too many times.” I won’t sit home because I always vote, but I’m not so quick to vote a straight Republican ticket anymore. Sometimes we may have to let an entrenched Mitch McConnell acolyte like John Cornyn get defeated by a Democrat so a real America First Republican has a chance in the next republican primary. Also, when you can almost count on John Fetterman more than John Thune to represent your interests, you have to question conventional logic.
Assuming there’d be a “next time” should the Dems ever regain power. You underestimate the depths and breadth and lengths they will go to make sure Republicans are destroyed if they ever get back in. They’ve come right out and said as much, like Susan Rice just did the other day.
I hear you Suzie. The original post was about predicting what will happen in the midterms. I’m making the point t that I am not crazy, I have voted straight republication from the first time I was old enough (Reagan 2) and I’m questioning continuing that conventional wisdom. What does that tell you about republicans and independents who are less committed? Our Republican representatives don’t give a crap about winning anything but their jobs. Many prefer to be in the party out of power so all they have to do is blame Democrats. How do we pry them out of their seats? Maybe not by voting a straight Republican ticket.
We are up against a so-called political party that has gone totally rogue, trampling on the Constitution at every opportunity until they get their chance to tear it up altogether.
Yes, our so-called representatives have failed us time and again, but its WE THE PEOPLE who hold the Real Power. We are the very foundation of this Republic. If we prevail in this election, and I mean resoundingly, it will send a message in no uncertain terms, that we are in this battle for the long haul, and refuse to allow our country to be plundered and turned into a socialist nightmare.
Voting Republican in this election is not about the candidates themselves. It is about a commitment by each and every one of us that we will do whatever we can do to support our President in his heroic effort to save this country from utter ruination.
As unpalatable as many Republican candidates may be, the alternative would be just too horrid and tragic a thing to even contemplate, and only serve to hasten the destruction of all we hold dear and precious for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.
That is the moment we are living in right now. Literal life and death.
Voting Republican is the very least you can do to help keep us in the fight.
Never forgetting, of course, James Carville’s, “It’s the economy, Stupid.” We need the Trump tariff rebates.
Totally agree, Richard..! Volatility is the name of the game right now and if the lefty loonies turn protests violent and destructive Americans will not be voting out the Trump agenda of law and order..
Midterms don’t hinge only on models. They hinge on mood. The wild card is whether spring and summer unrest explodes again in deep-blue cities the way it did in 2020. If crime spikes, protests turn destructive, and governors hesitate while mayors equivocate, suburban persuadables will not parse turnout spreadsheets — they’ll react viscerally. Law and order still moves swing voters. If blue-state leadership appears unable or unwilling to maintain basic civic stability, that becomes a national referendum. Prediction markets can price probabilities, but televised chaos rewrites them overnight. The X factor isn’t polling. It’s whether America sees another summer of burning storefronts.
Your answer seems correct to me, a rational human. Two things make me equivocate. 1. There is a scary number of people whose facility with logic goes this far: “If there’s burning and looting during Trump’s presidency, the solution is to go back a party who had no burning and looting”
2. Many Republicans are feeling like spanking the Senate for their poor production, especially the outright intransigence on the Save Act.
I fashion myself more rational than the people in #1, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to hold my nose and vote for some republicans who are counterproductive.
Not holding your nose for a stinky Republican is tantamount to just voting for the Democrat. That’s BITING your nose off to spite your face. Waiting for the perfect candidate is simply not an option.
I will vote for the Republican on the ticket no matter how stinky they are because the alternative is deliberately choosing national suicide.
Apathy in these midterms by Republican voters will kill this country. This is no time for anyone to think they can sit this out.
I almost used that metaphor in my post to say “I’ve followed the logic of ‘don’t cut off your nose to spite your own face’ too many times.” I won’t sit home because I always vote, but I’m not so quick to vote a straight Republican ticket anymore. Sometimes we may have to let an entrenched Mitch McConnell acolyte like John Cornyn get defeated by a Democrat so a real America First Republican has a chance in the next republican primary. Also, when you can almost count on John Fetterman more than John Thune to represent your interests, you have to question conventional logic.
Assuming there’d be a “next time” should the Dems ever regain power. You underestimate the depths and breadth and lengths they will go to make sure Republicans are destroyed if they ever get back in. They’ve come right out and said as much, like Susan Rice just did the other day.
I hear you Suzie. The original post was about predicting what will happen in the midterms. I’m making the point t that I am not crazy, I have voted straight republication from the first time I was old enough (Reagan 2) and I’m questioning continuing that conventional wisdom. What does that tell you about republicans and independents who are less committed? Our Republican representatives don’t give a crap about winning anything but their jobs. Many prefer to be in the party out of power so all they have to do is blame Democrats. How do we pry them out of their seats? Maybe not by voting a straight Republican ticket.
The time we are living in is no ordinary time.
We are up against a so-called political party that has gone totally rogue, trampling on the Constitution at every opportunity until they get their chance to tear it up altogether.
Yes, our so-called representatives have failed us time and again, but its WE THE PEOPLE who hold the Real Power. We are the very foundation of this Republic. If we prevail in this election, and I mean resoundingly, it will send a message in no uncertain terms, that we are in this battle for the long haul, and refuse to allow our country to be plundered and turned into a socialist nightmare.
Voting Republican in this election is not about the candidates themselves. It is about a commitment by each and every one of us that we will do whatever we can do to support our President in his heroic effort to save this country from utter ruination.
As unpalatable as many Republican candidates may be, the alternative would be just too horrid and tragic a thing to even contemplate, and only serve to hasten the destruction of all we hold dear and precious for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren.
That is the moment we are living in right now. Literal life and death.
Voting Republican is the very least you can do to help keep us in the fight.