I’m tired of losing elections! Even worse, I’m tired of losing elections to people who aren’t qualified to serve as a dog catcher, much less serve in our Congress or the United States Senate. And unless Republicans pull their heads out of their nether regions and begin to fight for elections as hard as Democrats do, and as is equally important, to start to understand the changing electorate, Republicans will continue to be on the losing end of a major league butt kicking.
If anything is to be learned about the 2022 election results it’s that professional pollsters are about as worthless as a spare tire on a jet ski. Pollsters make millions of dollars supposedly gauging the mood of the voters and then selling that information to politicians and political parties. Hopefully so that politicians can have an understanding of what they might expect in any given election. Obviously considering how wrong they all were about the expectations for a Republican drubbing of the Democrats last Tuesday, all the money paid out to pollsters in the 2022 midterm elections was not money well spent.
So what happened? Well for one thing the continuing claims of a stolen 2020 election have gone stale for most Americans, and hearing that still two years later just wasn’t selling. Whether they believe there was enough voting fraud committed in 2020 to actually sway the election over to Joe Biden and the Democrats or not, most Americans just wanted to move on. They were tired of hearing about what happened in the past. The case has yet to be convincingly made in a way that most people can easily understand anyway, that enough fraud occurred to change the 2020 results. Since the evidence isn’t clear, the case hasn’t been made, and Americans have lost interest. How’s the old saying go, “what have you done for me lately”?
Far too many Republicans have forgotten that old adage. Especially those staunch supporters of former President Trump. Prospective voters wanted to hear about how politicians are going to make their lives better, not keep bringing up excuses why they lost the last election. The constant rehashing of what took place in 2020 was a turn-off for a lot of people. It was long past time to ‘get over it’.
If the evidence is there but simply not being recognized then it’s time to change the message, and more importantly, you change the messenger. If you want good, hard evidence of election chicanery in 2020 to get the attention it deserves then you better win elections so that you can control the narrative and be able to conduct the thorough investigations necessary so that you can make your case to the American people. That didn’t happen in 2022. Republicans, and the Trump supporters didn’t win. Again.
This isn’t a diatribe against MAGA. I happen to believe that Making America Great Again is a noble and worthy effort. I believe in America and what it stands for. I’ve spent forty years of my life in service to and in defense of America. And it pains me to see what Democrats and these new ‘woke extremists’ are doing to the last great hope of mankind on planet Earth.
Democrats will lie, cheat, and steal to stay in power and control our lives. They have proven through word and deed that they are more concerned with maintaining power than with doing what’s best for Americans.
That being said, if Republicans want to prevent another embarrassment as happened on November 8th then they better recognize that it’s time for change. Starting with party leadership. Mitch McConnell serves no useful purpose anymore. He did good work getting judges through the confirmation process, but it’s time for new direction and leadership in the Senate. McConnell has outlived his time. The same must be said about Kevin McCarthy in the House. He’s simply too much of a ‘politician.’ The Republican Party needs to get away from the navy blue suits and power ties, and get people in leadership positions who can communicate to voters, especially younger Americans.
The RNC needs a housecleaning as well. When you have the weakest opposition that you’ve had in decades, and you can’t do better than a tie in the Senate (maybe, yet to be determined), and a tiny majority in the House (also yet to be determined), then your message and your messengers are weaker than the other side. The RNC leadership failed to control either, the message or the messenger.
There’s no other way to put it. Republicans got their butts kicked. And they likely deserved it considering how poorly they performed. I’m only hopeful that lessons will be learned, and changes will be made. The nation cannot survive another butt-kicking in 2024.