Saturday, November 19, 2022

A Liberal Dose, Nov. 17, 2022 "Taking a Deep Breath After the Midterms"

 


A Liberal Dose

November 17, 2022

Troy D. Smith

“Taking a deep breath after the midterms”

 

Well, that went better than I expected it to.

As of this writing (Sunday), Democrats held onto the Senate and may actually pick up a seat in a few weeks if Hershel Walker loses in Georgia; the ballyhooed “red wave” Republicans were predicting for the House fell through, and at this point it is not even guaranteed they will take it at all. It’s down to the wire, and if they do it will only be by a handful of seats.

Also at this point, my worst-case scenarios have not materialized. I was fearful that Trumpy, election-denying candidates would win secretary of state races in swing states, putting them in a position to overturn legitimate voting results in those states in 2024. I was fearful that election-deniers in general would sweep into power all over the place, taking us one major step closer to the collapse of democracy, which rests on the assumption people who lose elections will admit it and go home. Almost half of the roughly 300 election-deniers running for office lost -including all those swing-state secretary of state candidates. With a handful of exceptions (such as J.D. Vance in Ohio), almost every candidate Trump had strongly endorsed lost, leading some to believe that the public is getting tired of Donald J.

My other fear was that there would be a huge uptick in political violence after the election. That hasn’t materialized, but it’s only been five days. I hope it does not. As I have been saying on here, I feel like we’ve been sitting on an increasingly combustible tinder-box for the last seven years. So far it seems like most of the Republicans who lost actually admitted it and conceded -which has always been a fundamental aspect of American public life, but after a few years of Trump feels like the good old days from some distant, bygone era.

I’ve seen multiple headlines stating that GOP party leaders blame Trump, and people’s fatigue with him and his wacky supporters, for them having one of the worst midterm performances in decades. There is speculation they are finally willing to risk his displeasure by shifting their future support to a possible presidential candidate with less baggage, namely Ron DeSantis. Perhaps feeling threatened, Trump has been escalating his online attacks against (as he calls him) “Ron DeSanctimonious.” DeSantis is a mixed bag. On one hand, he is not as mentally unstable, volatile, and openly corrupt as Trump -he seems less likely to order a military coup or start a nuclear war if someone made fun of his hair. On the other hand, he has all the worst and most dangerous policy goals of Trump and might be more competent at achieving them.

Here’s my take, at least for now. Donald Trump has been prematurely declared politically dead a dozen times, and every time it has proven to be wishful thinking (on the part of progressives and mainstream conservatives alike). Nothing that has happened in the last week changes the fact that a solid 30% or so of the American public are hardcore Trumpers no matter what he says or does. There is something about him (judge for yourself what it is) that speaks to them in a way normal politicians do not, and I don’t see them shifting their allegiance because party leaders say they ought to.

I believe Trump will run for the nomination -to stay out of jail as much as anything -and win it. DeSantis will fall by the wayside as surely as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio did. And, once that happens, a Democratic win is guaranteed -because there is another 70% of the American public, half of whom despise Trump and another chunk of whom are finally getting embarrassed by him or, at least, tired of his drama. And once he loses, we will be right back to “Big Steal” conspiracy theories.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

 

You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE

A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE

Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com

The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE

 


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