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I remember Republicans checking out on elections back in 2018 because they bought hard into the Trump "elections are rigged" propaganda. The GOP lost seven Senate seats that year as conservative turnout plunged.
I wonder if Democrats will make the same mistake in 2026.
That makes no sense at all. 2018 was two years after Trump won in 2016, and he rarely claimed elections were rigged in 2016, because he won.
In 2020, however, he was gloating about how elections were rigged, and republicans did okay in the midterms later in 2022.
He was highly outspoken in 2016 straight up until the elections closed, then did a number of interviews after the fact where he insisted he could have won in states like California and New York if the vote hadn't been rigged against him. There was also a big wave of "RINOs are undermining the party!" discourse, particularly after McCain spiked the Senate vote on repealing Obamacare that lead to a ton of internal GOP drama.
The J6 riot was the product of four years of Republican discourse, insisting elections were rigged. Once Trump was out of office and banned from Twitter, his ability to amplify conspiracy theories was diminished. The Republican media machine was able to pivot back to a "We're the majority! We're going to flood the polls! Red Wave!" exuberance and away from the internalized defeatism post-2016.
No, I don't think Democrats are ready to make new mistakes yet. They still won't abandon their devotion to the old mistakes.
Shouldn't be hard. All they have to say is "Remember the townhalls, and how they mocked you while you paid for them to make your lives worse? We'll put it back." They don't even need to add anything, just try to rebuild. Anything would be a positive change when you're sliding into the negative side of the scale (and in two years, it'll be far far far to the left)
Not sure about rigged, but honestly, depending on how the next few years go, it may be straight up dangerous for non-republican Americans to vote. While that's by no means a certainty, people should keep an eye on any electoral changes made in their state.
If Republicans experience a route like they suffered in 2018, it will likely be due to the mushy indie republican-when-its-convenient voters breaking ranks in droves, just like they did in prior Dem wave years. That's what Harris was banking on in 2024 when she paraded around her pet RINOs Liz Cheney and Jeff Flake. She just failed to understand that these wishy-washy voters are chasing less war and less disruption and more protectionist economics, something Trump was able to dangle over their heads (twice!) to win the GOP primary / national election.
Republicans don't really seem to get it, either. Which is why they think the midterm after a wave year is the perfect time to put Grade A psychos all over the down-ballots and end up losing statewide in Alabama of all places as a result.
The "we won't be having any more elections" crowd is heavily invested in a theory that Republicans can get their own base to sit down, shut up, and follow orders. But the last eight years of Trump should be an indication of the exact opposite. The party is being lead by the base, which means the prior generation's power brokers like the Bushs and Cheneys and Bloombergs no longer have a place in it.
That's completely wishful and fantastical thinking. By midterms the base will be so propagandized again to just forget about the regime robbing them blind left and right. I want to believe it, but recent history has taught me otherwise.
This line of thinking has preserved whatever is left of my optimism. Let us hope my fellow Americans continue to function predictably.
They made it in 2024. The results of abstaining or protest voting were obvious, and these idiots did it anyway. And here we are.
Absolutely. The current Dem leadership is now wildly unpopular and vulnerable to primary. Just like after 2016, the seeds have been planted for a big anti-incumbent wave.
i really, really fucking hope this doesnt happen, i'm going to fucking lose my shit if it does. Because unless things change, it's not looking great for the trump midterms right now.
The only thing the Democrats failed at was fielding a fat old white male felon narcissist serial rapist with ties to a foreign nation-state. If they can just do that they'll win no matter what.
Sorry if you didn't get a personal hug from America's Mom and Dad but yoire kinda expected to make a value judgement between two options and choose the best. As a group, you did not.
Only blame Dems who voted for a kleptocratic felon. The rest did their best to field the best candidate they could and lost to a traitor -- and those guys need to start with our apology for being stupid, same as all of Ukraine, and next Moldova.
Is that why Obama lost in 2008?