After President Donald Trump‘s magnificent State of the Union opus last week, the national component of the 2026 midterm campaign is now underway, and it’s pretty clear how this is going to go. It’s going to be a clash of visions: Trump’s vision of American awesomeness, and the Democrats’ vision of American awfulness. He was positive while they were Agnewian nattering nabobs of negativity. The only way it could have gone worse for the Dems is if their extremely white hope, Abigail Spanberger, started off her robotic response with a land acknowledgement.
Here’s the thing: Trump came out and told us that America is great and that our greatest times lie ahead of us. Then he proceeded to prove it, including shoutouts to hero after hero. And the Democrats hated it. They despised it. The ones that weren’t off cavorting with the weirdo dressed as a giraffe covering Bob Dylan at their alternate State of the Union event – I’d love to have sat in on the Dem brainstorm session where somebody ran “How about a singing furry in a giraffe suit?” up the flagpole and everybody saluted – eagerly wandered into Donald Trump’s trap. “Everybody who loves America, stand up! Everybody who doesn’t like Third World invaders raping and murdering our citizens, stand up! Everybody who loves puppies, stand up!” And they all sat there with their arms crossed, like old school rappers, glaring and bitter, with faces that will launch a thousand Republican attack ads.
In simple terms, Donald Trump’s going to be positive. He went in there, disciplined and focused, a guy who is fun to be around and cool and who showed you cool things and told you about cool things that he was going to do as well as cool things that he had done. And the Democrats? They were a giant pain in the tush, America’s collective bitter ex-wife. America beats the igloo jockey in hockey? Boo! Hard-working families get a tax break on their tips and overtime? Boo! Incredible stud out of central casting who probably could’ve ripped his uniform open to display the giant “S” on his chest gets the Medal of Honor for kicking commie keister? Boo!
Everything that’s good is bad because if it’s good, it might be good for Trump, and that’s bad. And there, that’s the theme for the Dems’ 2026 midterm campaign! As the man said, it’s a bold strategy, Cotton – let’s see if it pays off for them.
And it might not. They might manage to break the precedent of midterm losses for the incumbent, but if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s the guy who broke precedent for non-consecutive terms. Walking into the State of the Union, Donald Trump had been declared a lame duck, and the regime media was reading the Republicans their last rites. History was already against them, and the conventional wisdom was that they were going to get crushed in November. But when Donald Trump walked out of there, a lot of people weren’t so sure. The Democrats are going to run on a platform of Trump is bad and so is America, and the Republicans will take the “con” position, and for normal Americans, the choice is pretty easy. Do you want to align yourself with a bunch of people who are angry because some party-hardy dudes who play hockey celebrated their crushing victory over the Great Sanctimonious North? How dare men be happy about something? Normal people hearing that there’s somehow supposed to be mad about it simply think the Democrats are insane. And then they hear more about what the Democrats want, and everything they want is crazy – something Trump made absolutely clear. That was part of the beauty of the address – it made a vivid distinction between the Republicans and the Democrats. The Republicans want things that make Americans’ lives better, and the Democrats want to ruin everything by catering to criminals, freaks, weirdos, and Third World invaders. Somebody needs to high-five the cameraman who flashed to the dorky dude who pretends to be an ugly chick when Trump started talking about trans deviants, and to that shrieking foreign harpy, U.S. Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-5) when Trump mentioned Somali pirates who were looting the public purse in Minnesota.
Who would you rather hang out with? Happy Trump or the sullen, America-hating whiners? And they do hate America. Literally. A recent poll shows just 36 percent of Democrats are proud of America, compared to 92 percent of Republicans. “Our country sucks, and if you elect us, we’re going to make you pay!” is hardly an inspirational campaign theme.
Let’s look at it in military strategy terms. The Democrats have chosen poorly. When you’re fighting a campaign, you have to decide what you’re going to focus on in order to defeat the enemy. You need an objective, something where you put your main effort. You can seek to take and hold certain territory. You can target enemy supply and logistics resources. You can focus on destroying enemy forces. In this case, the Democrats’ main effort is Donald Trump himself. They want to win by focusing on him. They are not offering an agenda of things they want to do. It’s all Donald Trump all the time. They are against him. There you go. That’s the platform. That’s the strategy.
Now, you can see the problem with that – for it to work, Donald Trump has to cooperate with them by being awful in order to allow them to portray him as awful. But the State of the Union address gave us a sneak preview of what he’s going to do, which is be awesome. If your entire strategy is based on the notion that you’re going to make America hate this guy, you’ve got a problem if he’s not being hateable. One problem for the Democrats is that they can’t conceive of anybody not hating Donald Trump because they hate him so much. It never occurs to them that somebody might look at Donald Trump and not freak out. So, basically, all Trump has to do is curb some of his most Trumperiffic inclinations. No tangents about the perfidy of Rosie O’Donnell, no long discourses on his prowess on the golf course. All Trump has to do to totally discombobulate the Democrats’ 2026 midterm strategy is, as Duane Patterson has written, be normal.
And that’s just what Donald Trump did last week. He came out and was Orange Man Good. He was funny and affable and positive, and even when he chided those who annoyed him, it was pretty gentle. He told the Supreme Court he didn’t like its decision, but didn’t go overboard. Even when he was responding to the Democrats and their braying and hooting, it was more in sorrow than in anger when he called them “crazy” and wondered aloud why they wouldn’t stand up to honor a little girl recovering from dreadful injuries inflicted when one of the Democrats’ pet Third World invaders drove a big rig into her, thanks to their boy Golden State Patrick Bateman giving him a commercial driver’s license.
For the next nine months, including through the Olympics, the World Cup, and America’s 250th birthday bash – the Democrats are just going to hate that flag-fest so much – Donald Trump is going to be America’s number one cheerleader. You won’t get tired of all the winning, on the economy, on public order, on international villains getting gacked. Things are getting better, but while Americans are not fully sold on that yet, there’s no better salesman than Donald Trump.
And against him? The sad, bitter, angry, clown car that is the Democrat Party. As Trump puts awesome win after win up on the scoreboard, the Debbie Downers will be arguing, “No, things are awful, America sucks, and you’re actually miserable, plus something-something Epstein!”
My money is on awesome over awful in November.
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