it’s now or never

I think a lot of people are completely wrong about what caused this midterm "blue tsunami." I also believe that much of the hyperbolic, misguided analysis is coming from people who have hated Trump for a long time and who have been eagerly waiting with bated breath to declare the end of Trump and MAGA. "It was obviously the Iran War. Trump didn't put America first. He betrayed America. It was gas prices. Only a fool would think otherwise." Ok. Fair enough. Allow me to present a hypothetical scenario. Let's pretend that Trump #2 never started the war with Iran. Imagine if the price of gas was not around $4.00 a gallon but instead, let's say something low, assume $2.70 a gallon. Pretend inflation was at a near perfect 2% for the year and GDP was cruising along at a 15 year high. Assume wages were up and unemployment was at about a 50 year low. No war. Great economy. That would have won Republicans the midterms right? That would have prevented Democrats from flipping 41 House seats and 5 Governorships? Those hypotheticals I listed above are what was happening in 2018 before the midterms. And yet, Democrats flipped 41 House seats and 7 Governorships during the midterms. The Senate races turned out differently because Democrats were defending races all around the country in 2018. Republicans took back a couple red states. But the 2018 midterms were considered a massive blue wave for Democrats. No Iran War, economy booming, and still, that's how the midterms turned out. Here's a fun fact. There were approximately 35.5 million Democrat votes during the 2014 midterms. There were approximately 61 million Democrat votes during the 2018 midterms. 25 million more Democrat votes during a booming economy. Do the current criticisms of Trump's second term explain that? Trump went from 63 million votes in 2016, to 74 million in 2020, to 77 million in 2024. During each of his three midterms (2018, 2022, 2026), the Republican vote has increased substantially. But those increases do not compete with the additional 20 million Democrat vote bumps that happened in 2018, 2020, and 2026. The question for Republicans becomes why do these gigantic Democrat vote bumps happen. How are they doing it? Is it because people hate Trump? They hate his policies? If those things were true, he would not continually gain support for himself and for the Republican Party. Without even touching voter fraud, I believe that there is a clear, multi-faceted strategy that Democrats employed in 2018, 2020, and 2026 to drive insane amounts of people to polls, regardless of economic conditions. It's not difficult to identify, but Republicans don't talk about it and certainly don't have an answer for it. And Democrats can do it at will when needed. Yes Trump won in 2024, but he was the only Republican that would have won and his win was helped by some unprecedented circumstances. Democrats were caught off guard. They did not make that mistake this time around. Trump's second term has been far from perfect. Lots of mistakes and unforced errors. And once again, many terrible personnel choices by Trump. That being said, I also believe that things could have been close to perfect right now and Republicans would have still gotten crushed during the midterms. Look at 2018. Perception is everything. Republicans are not prepared or even willing to step on to the field with Democrats in this regard. The Democrats are a cohesive, well oiled, united machine working in perfect harmony with the MSM. Together they can create and push any narrative they want to push. Republicans not only have no answer to this, they instead spend their time fighting each other. Democrats don't argue about policy. They create mass hysteria and fear. It's all emotion. It's their entire platform. Most Americans don't like their policies. But they are playing a game in which policy and ideas and reality do not factor into the equation. And there are very clear strategies that they use to create this mass hysteria and to drive voter turnout. Republicans are just going to keep helplessly watching this happen over and over again. They learned nothing from Trump's first term. The exact same lies, smears and hoaxes were used again, except this time around they replaced Russia with Epstein. Same game plan to the tee. For example, they created the same immigration hysteria that they did in 2018. Everything happened again. Democrats were doing No Kings/Fight Fascism protests back in 2018 over immigration. People don't remember this but they were. I've posted videos about it. Bernie proudly declaring "No Kings." The immigration hysteria is especially effective at getting women riled up. People don't remember Kamala Harris taking a ladder to climb a fence to break into an ICE facility in 2018 or Rachel Maddow fake crying on TV, AOC crying at the fence, or Oprah holding her book club at the border. Protesters literally glueing themselves to the ground in protest (over nothing). A Time Magazine cover with Trump menacingly towering of a crying migrant child. The audio recording of a baby crying that the MSM played on repeat for weeks before the midterms. The British PM Theresa May publicly condemning "kids in cages" (the same cages that Obama built and used). Republicans just sat idly on their hands and watched it happen all again, making no attempt at rebuttal. Democrats are on TV every hour of every day. Republicans politicians can't even bring themselves to post on social media in defense of enforcing the law. No matter who the next Republican President is, if he or she attempts to enforce immigration laws, Democrats will turn it into a midterm win. Guaranteed. And that's just one weapon in their playbook. Republicans don't even know how to deal with the sabotage coming from their own side, let alone unite in a perception war with the Democrat Party. Before the 2022 midterms inflation had reached a 40 year high, gas was above $5.00 a gallon, more people died from Covid in 2021 than in 2020, the botched Afghanistan withdrawal happened, the border was wide open and Biden was struggling to walk and talk. Still, Democrats only lost a few House seats and even picked up a Senate seat. With all that happening, why didn't 20 million more Republicans vote during the 2022 midterms than in 2018? If economy matters so much, why was there no red wave? Have an election "expert" answer that one. People who are playing Monday morning quarterback and criticizing everything Trump has done this time around are so not prepared for or even aware of the war that is being waged. They most likely care. They are ok with losing and many just want to declare all things Trump dead and buried. Maybe next election they will decide to fight back against the incredible machine Democrats. Good luck with that. The Republicans who are so joyfully celebrating the end of "Trumpism" are in for a rude awakening when he's gone. Trump has increased his support and Republican support in every Presidential and midterm election he has been involved in. I'm going to lay out in another post some detailed thoughts on the strategies Democrats have used to turn out massive amounts of votes and what Republicans might consider doing in response. It's nothing genius but there is a clear, detailed method to the Democrat madness and nobody seems to be talking about it or even care about it. Granted, I'm just a guy on X who doesn't know much, but it doesn't hurt to post my thoughts so I will.