Well, it’s Friday the 13th. Which doesn’t scare me one bit, since I’ve already been through the nightmare of Tuesday the 3rd, which was far scarier than Jason Voorhees murdering a gaggle of teenagers at Camp Crystal Lake.
I’d like to start this time by complimenting a Democrat who won in a surprise upset, and has so far been very classy in victory.
I know what you are thinking. “Martin, you roguishly charming master of sarcasm, get to the punchline. Because we know that no Democrat has even approached classiness since Harry Truman died. Or possibly Daniel Patrick Moynihan. So hit us with the kind of brilliant comic rejoinder we’ve come to expect from your day-brightening columns that make our lives worth living.”
But no. I’m serious. The Democrat in question is Scott Colom, who narrowly defeated Cindy Hyde-Smith for Senator in Mississippi. If you’re like me – and wouldn’t the world be a much better place if everyone was? – you’ve never heard of Cindy Hyde-Smith or Scott Colom. Because Mississippi is a ruby-red state, and no one has paid any attention to that race, which wasn’t supposed to be in close at all.
So yes, that was one more painful loss in a dark day full of them. But I just read an article about Colom’s father, who said this after his son unexpectedly won: “In victory you want to not be critical of other people. Cindy Hyde-Smith is a person who’s been in service for many years, and she’s our competitor, but she’s not our enemy. Scott’s going to be her senator and her neighbor’s senator, and he’s not going to offer any criticism of her.”
Scott Colom posted a link to his dad’s interview, adding, “This is one example of the values my parents passed down to me. I thank Cindy Hyde-Smith for her service to our state. It was never personal to me. God bless her.”
Holy Moses! Are we sure he’s a Democrat? Is it possible that he’s a deep-cover plant by the GOP, in a brilliant plot to create a Plan B in case the nominal Republican unexpectedly lost?
No, what am I saying? The GOP hasn’t done anything brilliant since Reagan left office.
Anyway, good on you, Scott Colom and dad. You’ve already shown more decency and civility in one day than your entire party has over the last half century, at least.
Now, PLEASE don’t go to DC, get sucked into the politburo/coven with the other Democrats, and vote like an America-hating Squad member, making me regret ever complimenting you.
Which brings me to one of the more interesting political questions to shape the next two years: How will all of the Dems who won in reddish or even deep-red states act and vote between now and 2028?
Often, after huge swing elections like this one – in which the GOP made huge gains in blue areas, or the Dems made huge gains in red areas – there would be a correction back toward the mean over the next cycle. For example, after the huge GOP wins in 2010 – caused mostly by Obama’s revealing himself to be far more left than he had pretended to win in 2008, and then ramming through Obamacare without majority support in the electorate – the GOP held 240 House seats and 47 Senate seats. But they gave back 6 House seats and 2 Senate seats two years later.
The theory would be that blue voters might get temporarily mad at their own party’s pols or performance, and either vote red or stay home. Once. But if they really are a majority blue state, they’d revert to their (boneheaded) priors and vote blue again next time. The same pattern would happen in the opposite direction, as it did last week: voters in red states voted much more blue or stayed home, producing a catastrophic blue tsunami.
Independents – ever more important, as more and more voters become unhappy with both parties – are naturally even more likely to swing back and forth from one cycle to the next, depending on various factors.
But if the red areas we just lost in are still basically conservative – and in a temporary foul mood over gas prices, feckless congressional Republicans, and disapproval of Trump’s erratic actions, handling of Iran, or tariffs – one might expect them to return to form in 2028 and swing at least some of the lost House seats back to the GOP. Especially if we have a stronger presidential ticket than the Dems in 2028.
That thought would usually comfort me. Except that in the wreckage after last week, I’ve been entertaining the nightmare scenario that we may be looking at an electorate in which the long-term percentage of conservatives and common-sense-driven independents might be shrinking, while the percentage of leftists might be growing.
There’s plenty of support for that grim idea, especially in the big swings among younger voters. First, most of them have been badly educated and strongly indoctrinated in our public schools and universities, and too many of them have come to believe leftist propaganda: America sucks, white people are evil, Israel is the problem in the Middle East, and socialism is compassionate, and works better than the free market capitalism which has made us the strongest, richest and most successful nation in the history of the world.
Second, putting aside the aforementioned leftist propaganda that has been foisted on them, they are facing some real economic and life challenges, especially if they are living in big blue cities. Housing, taxes and the cost of living are very high, many of them have huge college debt, and their job prospects in the fields they majored in are dicey. Add to that the fact that rates of getting married and starting families have plummeted and you’ve got a recipe for hard times ahead.
Which is frustrating for those of us in CI Nation, since we know that leftism and leftists have caused the huge majority of those problems. But right now, way too many young people are ignorant of that fact. And they’re angry, and they’re being attracted to the disastrous socialism and disdain for America that the Dems have been selling, which will only make things worse.
Putting all that aside, I think that one unknown wild card that might shape the race for 2028 is how the newly elected Democrats govern. I think the smart money is on them acting very badly, primarily because most of them are a toxic brew of terrible, ignorant, or both. Many are already showing their true colors, turning on a dime from all of their BS campaign talking points – “we’re all about affordability, we are very fond of Jews, we don’t hate America at all, and we want to improve things for average Americans” – and throwing off the mask.
To the extent that the whole Democrat/DSA party has shifted far left, they will focus mainly on letting their hate flag fly. The especially repulsive loons – Rashida Tlaib, the California contingent, Mamdani and the Jihadettes, etc. – will double-down on their repulsive looniness, which is unlikely to wear well. They’ll continue to reject working with Trump in any way. (Which I’m actually a little glad about, since his non-conservative and erratic willingness to give up way too much to make deals with his opponents – whether the Iranians or the Democrats – should trouble all consistent conservatives.)
And they’ll go full witch-hunt-and-show-trial, doing their best to charge, convict and jail every member of the administration they can, from Trump down to the ambassador to Lichtenstein.
All of that will likely give most red state voters and reasonable independents buyer’s remorse, and lean them back toward the GOP, especially if Trump can stay focused and we can put up strong nominees.
The Dems also have one more thing working against them that is common to both parties after a wildly successful election: they tend to wildly mis-read the results as evidence that the electorate loves their own agenda, and have given them an overwhelming mandate to aggressively push their pet policies.
Many of us did the same thing after Trump’s wins in 2016 and 2024. Those victories were so improbable and impressive, and pulled off despite such fierce and dishonest resistance from the MSM and the Establishment, that we disregarded the narrowness of both victories. Hillary won the popular vote, and the shifting of only around 100K votes would have given her the election. 2024 wasn’t that close – Trump won the popular vote, and swept all 7 swing states – but it wasn’t by Reagan-in-’84 margins. Trump won AZ, GA and NV by 4-5 points, but he squeaked by in each of the other 4 swing states by 1.3% or less. Once again, a shift of only a few hundred thousand votes would have given us President Que Mala. (shudder)
So the Dems who won in red areas are facing an especially tricky needle to thread. Their insane far-left colleagues from safe blue seats will be pressuring them to go far left themselves, which will hopefully lead to them being one-termers. But if they can act as classy as Scott Colom did right after his victory, and vote moderately and represent the views of their reddish constituency, they might not piss off their voters and be thrown out the first chance they get.
I’ve got to admit that as optimistic as I generally am, I’m not real confident that they’ll do so. The Democrat party has gone so crazy that it’s hard to imagine even a small rump caucus of non-lunatics surviving in Dem circles in Washington. The only Dem senator who would roughly fit that bill now would be Fetterman, thanks to a stroke that damaged the stupidest part of his brain. And even he still votes with the Dems 88% of the time.
So I’m basically a wise old man who has seen too much to be very certain that the Dems can help themselves from riding the crazy train to Commie Town.
How old and wise am I?
Old and wise enough to remember when embracing communism/socialism, cheating in elections, having kids with your cousin, marrying your brother, and strangling your children were all widely frowned upon.
Nowadays they’ll get you elected on a Democrat ticket, and/or a new trial.
Hamas (and the DSA) delenda est.
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