Iron Bru › Forums › Non Football › Republicans v Democrats › Reply To: Republicans v Democrats
Well, those results do upset the narrative.
Of course it’s not ideal (from my perspective) that it’s close, especially given how I view the current Republicans to be a damaging party to democracy and women’s rights. However, these are the best midterms for a sitting president for quite some time and the losses are nowhere near as severe as the ‘very measured’ people were predicting based on their narrative about Dems losing touch with the salt of the Earth common man.
There have been some historic gains for the Democrats. Michigan’s state house is now in Democrat control for the first time in 40 years. Republicans have made very little progress in their promised red wave, from those ‘very measured’ pundits with their fingers on the pulse of what the ‘common man’ truly feels against the metropolitan liberal elite. Red wave? More like red puddle.
This is the second time they have got it wrong, they were assuring us that Biden would likely lose the presidency in 2020, they were assuring us that the Democrats would struggle more in the midterms because they are out of touch with woke issues and whatnot. The likely truth is that while this current mob of Republicans have some ardent fans, their conduct in democracy and on abortion has motivated many more to vote against them. They are significant in number and can’t be written off as some elitist fringe. They are enough for Democrats to do better than the self-assured pundits predict.
Moreover, with Trump and DeSantis potentially locked into battle for the 2024 Republican nomination, things could get ugly. DeSantis has some momentum and has carried votes in Florida, but doesn’t have the charisma or cultishness of Trump, who is unlikely to step aside without a fight. 2024 could (emphasis on could) be a bitter civil dispute between candidates, which could cause a huge rift. DeSantis is polling quite well and may be a harder opponent for Trump than his previous Republican opponents.
None of this means I think everything is rosy or foregone for the Democrats by a long stretch. However, with the narrative failing to come to fruition twice now for the ‘very measured’ pundits, I’d hope there’s some self-reflection and less of the simple interpretation of “Democrats need to win over the Trump supporters and nothing else needs to be done” narrative which has plagued US political discourse for too long. This should be an indicator to Republicans that they need to look at their own party to win over those motivated to vote against them.
Fat chance of this happening. The usual suspects will still groan on, as if it’s only the Democrats who need to address concerns, as if it’s only them with agency.
