“Either take your fight to the minotaur or be devoured by him,” writes David Frum in The Atlantic, the morning after The Former Guy announced that he wants to be The Future Guy in 2024. Republicans have a tough choice—to fight or to yield. Trump has 100 mllion in a war chest and plans to use it in the next two years to regain the seat of power he was unceremoniously ejected from in November 2020. Donald Trump isn’t going away, although for millions of Americans (like me), we wish he would.
The midterm elections were held eight days ago. Pundits, critics, poll takers, journalists collectively decided that a red wave would wash over the country, that Republicans would regain both the House and the Senate in large enough numbers to herald a return to the greatness they’ve promised and failed to deliver for countless elections. So what happened? Those that Trump endorsed in major races all lost. The Democrats not only took the Senate, but after the December 6th runoff between Raphael Warnock and the dumb-as- a- rock Herschel Walker, may have gained a seat. The Republicans will probably take the House, but eight days after the election they are still one seat away. A red wave? No, more like a pink ripple, which, as Steven Colbert noted, “is what you get when you wash a MAGA hat with a Klan robe.”
The political party that loses the White House often wins the mid-terms in huge numbers. Biden’s popularity has been dismal, and Republicans seized on the trifecta of inflation, crime, and the porous border between the US and Mexico as fodder for the anticipated sweeping victories. Didn’t happen. Trump endorsed. and the Republicans supported, election-denying, inexperienced, flawed candidates that the famous “Silent Majority” rejected.
So what’s in the future? Republicans failed to act before when Trump’s countless criminal behaviors were overlooked, ignored, or supported. Will they do that again? The trombone player in the Stanford band who was overrun by the CAL football player in The Big Game forty years ago said, “It was a terrible time to be me.” It’s a terrible time today to be a Republican.