The 2022 midterms are giving me a very familiar feeling, one that would be creepy if it weren’t so elating.
Before we get to that, it isn’t easy being a Democrat these days with a Red Wave approaching.
They got all they wanted, and to keep it, all the had to do was not be f****** crazy, as I reminded you last month:
Democrats’ already dismal election hopes are fading like Shane riding off into the sunset, only in their case, the fatal gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
It’s a party that less than two years ago seemed to have it all: the White House, both houses of Congress, and, most importantly to them, Orange Man Gone.
Yet here we are, 21 months after the January 6 “insurrection” was supposed to have soiled the GOP brand, and Democrats are looking at a Deep Impact tsunami of a red wave.
When I wrote that, it looked like the GOP had a middling chance of capturing the Senate by maybe one seat after the midterms. Some projections now show them securing perhaps as many as 53 or 54 seats — a real Red Wave.
EDIT: Daily Mail’s intern really screwed up the color coding on the map I’d had here, and since I’m out to lunch and enjoying a martini, I’m pulling it for now. Will try to replace before today’s ‘Five O’Clock Somewhere’ live chat.
As for the House, every serious person wrote that off for the Dems months and months ago.
Trust me, I’m not getting cocky. I’m just trying to relate to you the existential dread that Democrats are feeling right now.
They won’t be able to process their grief, not even long after the last ballot has been counted.
For Washington Democrats, the Five Stages of Grief are:
- But Orange Man Bad!
- But Orange Man Bad!
- But Orange Man Bad!
- But Orange Man Bad!
- But Orange Man Bad!
They have the press, the schools, social media, Hollywood — all of it on their side, pushing their message. What they won’t have come January is the House and maybe even the Senate. All they have in the White House is a radical cabal of wreckers hiding behind a sad, mean old man.
I might feel some compassion for their situation if cancel culture and mutilating and grooming children in the name of trans “rights” hadn’t wrung most of the compassion for lefties right out of me.
They called us bigots if we raised concerns about putting on explicit drag shows specifically for the under-ten crowd so, seriously, just screw these guys.
But enough about this election, because I have to tell you about the mirror-image deja vu I’ve been enjoying, if that’s the word, for the last week or two.
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I was finally able to put words to this odd feeling after seeing a CBS News poll showing that 80% of likely voters say that the country is “out of control.” CBS News being CBS News, it put the best spin on the numbers as it could, but the dread is real and it’s almost universal.
Do you remember what the 2006 Blue Wave felt like?
It felt dreadful, that tsunami of bad ideas, ruinous policies, and the annoying politicians bearing them.
But the Washington GOP had earned it.
Criminally untrue reporting on Hurricane Katrina had kneecapped the Bush Administration, which had never been as effective as we’d hoped — especially at countering false press narratives like Katrina. Bush had this “the truth will out” attitude, and it killed his administration.
The economy entered a slowdown that Washington — mired in war, up to its ears in debt, and interest rates already at zero — was powerless to affect.
Topping it off, we all watched helplessly as the Bush Administration did nothing as Iraq slipped into civil war.
The country then felt as it does now: out of control.
Karl Rove, super-genius, (and his ilk) assured us that the GOP’s fundraising advantage would stop the midterms’ Blue Wave, but those of us who actually live and talk to people outside the Beltway knew better.
We spent that summer and fall shouting at a lot of Washington GOP clouds, but they didn’t listen.
Independents broke hard for the Democrats during the 2006 midterms, setting the stage for Barack Obama just two years later.
I’m sure there are millions of non-radical, registered Dems who have watched in similarly helpless horror as their party unfurled the freak flag, raised it high, and kept a 24/7 spotlight of media attention on it.
I’m sure at least a few of them will join the independents and break for the GOP during these midterms. The Red Wave feels just as real as the 2006 Blue Wave; only this time we won’t be the ones getting swamped.
It’s a giddy feeling, this reverse deja-vu.
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