The Red Wave That Wasn't

OK, it's Monday and normally the Monday post is for me to rant about some damn thing or another going on in the world or politics or some damn shit.

I suppose some commentary on last week's mid terms may be in order.  

Here's something we do know. Whatever gains the Republicans made last week, it fell short of their expected "red wave". 

For weeks leading up to election nights, Republican pundits were on Fox News and other right wing outlets touting how the Republican Party was not only going to win in November, they were going to win SO BIG like a big honking red wave sweeping over America. 

To be fair, there were some things working in their favor.

1. Historically, the party in power in the White House and Congress tends to get its butt kicked in the mid terms. 
2. Voters tends to not be kind to the party in power when things are rough on the home front.  Run away inflation was a major head wind for the Democrats.
3. CRIME! Crimes rates have ticked up a bit. Except in Republican political ads where crime rates have SOARED into the stratosphere! You're probably being murdered RIGHT NOW and it's a Democrat's fault! 
4. The fix is in! Look, Republicans have been redistricting and gerrymandering like crazy for years and thought they had things pretty well locked up.  They would win big because they simply couldn't lose. 

Despite all those advantages, the red wave was more of a red trickle. 

Yeah, the Republicans may take the House but it's gonna be close. So why didn't the Republican Party win big? 

1. FEAR!  Republicans have usually had a lock on motivating people with fear (CRIME is OUT of CONTROL! If you do not want to be MURDERED by DEMOCRATS, you better vote for us!)  But the Democrats had their own message of fear.  With the overturn of Roe V. Wade and Republican efforts to restrict abortion rights, Democrats could point to the very real possibility of a dystopian theocracy that would change The Handmaid's Tale from fiction to documentary. Nothing less than the fate of democracy and freedom were at stake.
2. STUPIDITY! A lot of Republican candidates were in races that easily could've been slam dunks for the Republican Party. Those races turned into slim margin wins or losses simply because the Republican candidates were... stupid.  Of course these candidates were there not for their skills or talents in leadership but for their devotion to Donald Trump and his big lie of 2020 election fraud.    

The stupidest of Trump's handpicked candidates was Hershel Walker who in a typically red state like Georgia was came up short to Sen. Raphael Warnock. 

Unfortunately, the mid term election nightmare is not over because neither Warnock nor Walker crossed the 50% mark needed to avoid a run off.  

So there is that to look forward to. 

It should be an embarrassment that the Warnock vs. Walker race was as close as it was given just how distressingly poor a candidate Walker was. Oh God he is so stupid! 

Speaking of stupid... Donald Trump. 

The guy whose biggest insult is calling someone a loser and whose biggest fear is being a loser is a loser again. 

Under Trump, Republicans lost control off the House in 2018 and lost the Senate and the White House in 2020. Whatever gains Republicans make in 2022, they will fall short of expectations under Trump.

There are some Republicans now openly voicing the idea of hitching the fate of the party to a petulant, unintelligent, unstable man child may have been a mistake.

Oh, you think?  

As I write this, the political landscape in Washington is still in flux. Maybe by the time time this posts on Monday, that will change.  

Whatever happens, Republicans did not get what they were expecting. And it's on their dumbass to not have seen this coming.