The 2026 Voter Advice Column
What happened to the business minded Republican Party ? In my lifetime, a republican is supposed to be hyper efficient and no nonsense when it comes to problem solving in Congress. Classically, a republican has no time for the slow drudge of government and the tentacles of regulation. But in 2026 that has been turned on its head by Trump and his steroid pumping leadership. Trump has sought control of every facet of American life. It is stunning how he turned the entire party on its head. The Republicans have turned against every pillar of their existence, unleashing the military on the voters, allowing for brand new interpretations of very old laws every day and spending the great grandchildren's money. There's nothing left of the party against government intrusion and overreach. The Republicans have learned how to control America by turning America off. In doing so, they have been forced to blow up their own house.
Today, Trump is on the hook for many hundreds of billions that need to be returned to those who paid his tariffs, the ones rejected by his hand picked Supreme Court. The spectacle of DOGE, followed by thousands of court losses, cost the treasury money. It didn't save anything. And the fact that Trump spent his first few months in office destroying Democracy, only to engage in a major war where diplomats and the Dept. of State are most necessary, turns out to be completely insane. The economy is unchanged one bit from Biden's stock market dominant one, yet this is all Trump credits. Trump immediately took credit for Biden's economy and has created this crazy faux golden age persona. Trump is insane. He's been allowed to totally evaporate an entire political party in order to seek personal gain. History will be less kind to the enablers John Thune and Mike Johnson, then Trump. Democracy's guardrails were run over by these career politicians, who knew better.
In NCAA terms, The Republicans ditched their starters long ago. They rely on well paid mercenaries who are out for themselves, not subservient to norms or rules. What fuels this is some cockamaney fear of the future. The Republicans are the ones who truly do not trust in American greatness. They feel they need to seize control in order to implement some kind of Orwellian Project 2025 plan where the state and the elites run everything, as if that's not just some garbage plot line from an awful movie. Americans got where they are from the polar opposite, from believing in Democracy and the power of the individual citizen to guide the future. Trump and the Republicans aren't just repeating their old mistakes in the Middle East, they are committing crimes that the worst regimes in history have committed. Americans will be on the hook for Trump, Thune and Johnson for a generation. These men have bypassed the courts, bypassed Congress and bypassed simple humanity to butcher people in the streets of America, on the high seas, children in school and even people under a bridge in Iran celebrating Nature Day.
It is just too much to excuse if you just go back a little bit. Go back to perhaps the most prosperous economic times, the Clinton years, and find the entire Republican Party neck deep in a moral war against the President of the United States. Then they gave us Trump. Go back to the Benghazi hearings, where many current Republican stars got their stripes. The way in which the Republicans cared so much about each and every aspect of the country's mission in Benghazi is absolutely fascinating when contrasted with Trump's now numerous forays into Iran to assassinate, bomb and lie from day to day, all with a wink and smile from Congress. Go back a little bit and notice who the King of Deportation still is and who did everything the Republicans begged him to do in terms of foreign policy, the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, the guy with the Muslim name. Go back a little to the Republican Party in total and complete denial of the state of the stock market and the wealthy folks in America during the Biden Administration. Go back a little bit to the Republican Party obsessed with what was literally termed, the Biden Crime Family. Meanwhile, the money amassed by the Trumps in one year trumps all the actual crime families in the world combined.
Republican voters have been duped by Trump and the Republicans. The Dems need to slightly adjust their messaging to ensure their victory in both chambers. People know they have been duped. They know Pete Hegseth needs to go to prison, they don't need that to be central to the midterm campaign. The Democrats need to simply highlight how a working Congress and a couple rooms of diplomats can get us out of anything. Soft Power, the use of the State Department, Ambassadors, Corporate America and the promotion of Democratic American Life are the cornerstones of America's world leadership. Despite what the Republicans like Thune and Johnson say, we Americans wrote International Law after we won WW2. The world still looks to us to do the right thing. That will never end. And it is never too late to do the right thing. America will be strong once again, the day after republican control.
Shorecrat
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