The Red Wave that Really Wasn't: Last Week in Liberty 11/13/22
Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Last Week in Liberty! Every week we look at the top news stories of the past week and examine them from a liberty-minded perspective. The U.S. midterm elections just took place and there are a lot of aspects of it I would like to cover, so this week will be an “Oops, All Politics” edition. Lots to get into, so let’s jump into it:
Midterm Results
I don’t want to spend too much time just going over the results, as you can find those anywhere, but I will briefly go over the basic facts of what happened on Election Day (and a few days after, as well):
While not yet confirmed, the GOP will probably have a small majority in House (maybe 3 or 4 seats), and will not gain control of the Senate. Depending on how the Georgia run-off goes, it could be the case that the Democrats actually pick up a seat, but that remains to be seen.
Notable races: Ron DeSantis wins the governorship of Florida by 1.5 million votes (about 15%), John Fetterman beats out Mehmet Oz for the Pennsylvania Senate seat by about 4.5% (which, coincidentally, is also the amount of brain function he still has left), and Blake Masters loses the Senate seat in Arizona to Mark Kelly.
Exit polls showed that older generations tended to vote Republican, while younger generations tended to vote Democrat. Married individuals tended to vote Republican, whereas unmarried individuals, especially women, tended to vote Democrat.
RIP “Red Wave”
The “fundamentals” of this election all showed that the GOP should have dominated these midterms with victories all across the board. A bad economy, botched Afghanistan pullout, increased crime, border crisis, and little-to-no legislative accomplishments for Biden all point towards big gains for the GOP. A “Red Wave” we were promised, but there was no delivery. Despite the fundamentals, favorable polls, and political momentum, the GOP will only come away with a slim margin of control in the House and not being able to gain any seats in the Senate. Ouch.
The million-dollar question that everyone has been asking since election day is: why? The Republicans should have given the Democrats a smack-down for the ages, and they ended up with one of the worst midterms for the out-of-power party in the past 40 years. What happened to the “Red Wave”? Here’s a few of the principal reasons for its absence:
Reason #1: An Abortion-Based Backlash
With the Dobbs v. Jackson overruling of Roe v. Wade this past June, Abortion became a prominent national issue. In particular, Democratic voters were especially energized by the overturn, as it ensured that states would not have to guarantee the availability abortion in some form. A pro-choice stance of abortion is one of the few issues that can unite nearly the entire Democratic party, so the backlash that Dobbs created against the pro-life Republicans shouldn’t be particularly surprising.
Reason #2: Bad GOP Candidates
There were quite a few Republican candidates this election cycle that, to put it mildly, were less than optimal from an electability standpoint. Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania, was far too cozy with the Q-Anon crowd. Hershel Walker, the Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, has had one scandal after another through the entire election cycle. Mehmet Oz, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania Senate, has lived in New Jersey for the vast majority of his life. Pile on top of this numerous Trump-loyalist complaining about how the 2020 election was stolen, and you get a slate of candidates that voters just won’t find appealing at all. This is confirmed by the surprising amount of split-ticket voting we saw in places like Pennsylvania.
Where the Republicans did have strong candidates, like Ron DeSantis in Florida, they won in convincing fashion. While true that Florida is more red than purple these days, DeSantis winning re-election by 1.5 million votes after winning his first election by only 30,000 is a testament to his popularity. Brian Kemp in Georgia, another fairly strong candidate, also beat Stacey Abrams in convincing fashion. Ditto for Greg Abbott in Texas as well. Republican candidates who were serious and had good track records did well on election day, while the GOP’s weaker offerings suffered greatly
Reason #3: Lackluster GOP Messaging
The Republicans lacked any real message to the voters this election cycle beyond just talking about how terrible Biden is. Sure, Biden might be terrible, but you can’t just be a critic. You have to pitch to the voters why you are the better alternative and what solutions you bring to the table. Most Republicans didn’t try and make that case, probably because they didn’t think that they had to. With the election environment favoring them as much as it did, they might be forgiven for making that mistake, but a mistake it was.
How Did the Polls Get it So Wrong?
Despite no “Red Wave” in 2022, the majority of the polls indicated that’s what would happen. As I noted in the last LWIL, RealClearPolitics had estimated 54 Senate seats for Republicans. To be clear, not all the polls were bad. Several of those released around election day did give fairly accurate predictions of the election day results, but there still was a majority consensus that showed the GOP doing much better than they actually did. How then, did they get it so wrong?
While there are probably lots of smaller factors, the biggest one is that pollsters were trying to adjust for something that no longer exists: Shy Trump-Voter Syndrome. In 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump generally outperformed polls and expectations. This was especially true in 2016, and it was what carried him to the presidency. The reason for this is that there was a minority of people that thought Trump was the better option, but were unwilling to say so because of the social stigma. The result is that those individuals would vote Trump at the ballot box, but wouldn’t tell friends, family, or pollsters about it.
Pollsters need money and funding, and if they keep pumping out inaccurate polls like they did in 2016 and 2020, they aren’t going to get it. As a result, some pollsters started adjusting for this “Shy Trump-Voter Syndrome”, seeing as how many of the GOP candidates were endorsed and backed by him. On top of this, I think they were also shifting a point or two right on the basis of pure momentum and hype as well. The result was polls that didn’t reflect the election outcomes at all. This time however, the polls were too far right as opposed to too far left. Opposite mistake, but the same outcome.
However, this begs the question: why doesn’t the “Shy Trump-Voter Syndrome” exist anymore? That leads us to the following…
The Death of Trumpism
I’m not one to make broad, sweeping statements or predictions. That is because they have the habit of making one look first like a genius, and then like a fool. However, I will make the prediction that the 2022 midterms represent the death of Trumpism as a political movement. To be clear, I’m not saying that populism, or even nationalist right-populism is dead. I think that political movement is very, very much alive. However, the specific Trumpism brand of politics is now dead.
To understand why this is the case, we have to make the often-neglected distinction between MAGA and KAG. Now I am sure that all of you are familiar with the infamous “MAGA” acronym by now, but those of you who just gained internet access via Starlink on your deserted island, MAGA, or “Make America Great Again”, was the campaign slogan for Trump’s campaign in 2016. This messaging of an America that was once great (at some undefined point in the past) and its fall from grace resonated with a lot of voters, especially blue-collar workers, and netted him the Republican nomination for president in 2016. Hillary Clinton was seen to be so unpalatable to American voters, and Trump was a relatively unknown quantity. The “Shy Trump-Voter Sydrome” first took place here as voters decided to roll the dice on Trump on the chance he might be a decent president.
In 2020, Trump was running for re-election. His campaign slogan, however, was not MAGA, but KAG, which stood for “Keep America Great”. Mind you, his re-election campaign was taking place in the middle of a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, with a ravaged economy, fractured culture, and skyrocketing political tensions. For him to look around and tell voters not only that America was now great, but that they should ask for more of it didn’t resonate at all in the same way that MAGA did in 2016. The “Shy Trump-Voter Syndrome” still showed up in 2020, mostly as a result of policies from the Trump administration that people liked, but it was too weak to give him the presidency.
Ever since, KAG has become increasingly toxic to the voter base. The January 6th riots were about as bad PR as you could ask for, and continued claims from Trump that he actually won the election have left a bad taste in many American’s mouths. Trump has also been exiled from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, leaving him only to petulantly brood on his own Truth Social about how unfairly he was treated and how everything was stolen from him. Trump, the big winner, now just looks like a loser. The result is that the appeal that Trump had to voters, especially independents, just isn’t there any more. As a result, the shy trump voter is no longer shy, nor a Trump voter.
And thus, the polls were doing their best to adjust for those voters who were shy about voting for Trumpian candidates, but those voters no longer exist. This, along with the toxicity of KAG and Trumpism, is confirmed by the fact that the most Trumpian candidates preformed the poorest in the election cycle. Lauren Boebert will probably keep her House seat in Colorado, but only by a few thousand votes. That seat was never supposed to be flipped. The aforementioned Doug Mastriano was blown out by 15% while Mehmet Oz only lost by around 5%.
What Does the Future Hold?
What conclusions can we take away from all of this madness? I’ll give you a few:
Conclusion #1: The GOP Really, Seriously, Massively, Completely, Totally Blew It
This probably goes without saying, but it is truly impressive how unimpressive the GOP was in these midterms. With everything going their way politically, all they could muster was a slim House majority and possible control of the Senate with one seat (depending on how the Georgia run-off goes). That is just terrible, no two ways about it.
Conclusion #2: Biden’s Agenda is Probably Dead
As I stated in the previous LWIL, the outcome of the midterms might not really matter all that much in the end. Even with Democrat control of the House and Senate, Biden was unable to pass any serious legislation in his first two years (nobody is cares about the infrastructure bill). If the GOP wrestles even a small majority in the House, as it looks like they will, then any hope Biden has of accomplishing anything in his last two years is effectively DOA (and not the Department of Agriculture). Whether or not the GOP has 54 Senate seats or 51, 230 House seats or 220, the next two years shake out the same way.
Conclusion #3: Trumpism is Dead, Long Live “DeSanteria”
As stated above, I believe this election represents the death of Trumpism as a viable strategy in American politics. For Conservatives, the way forward is to take the positives of Trump and leave the narcissism and idiocy behind. The personification of that strategy can be found in Ron DeSantis. He goes after the enemies of the GOP (Wokism, mainstream media, etc.) and does so in a smart and intelligent way. Trumpism is dead, and if Republicans want to win on a national level, they should adopt shed their Trumpism and adopt “DeSanteria” instead. Trump and DeSantis are probably on a collision course for the 2024 nomination, which will make things all the more interesting in the coming years as well.
Conclusion #4: Government Overreach Was not Punished
One positive result that would have come with a “Red Wave” is that some of the governors who implemented the most draconian and anti-freedom COVID policies would have been voted out and punished for their crimes. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Gretchen Whitmer won re-election to her governor seat in Michigan and Kathy Hocul managed to hold off Lee Zeldin to keep her governor seat as well. These people deserve to be cast out of their offices, but also publically mocked and shamed from now until the end of time. However, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice so I have hope that these cretins will get their just desserts in due time.
A few things that I found interesting from this past week that you might as well:
A school without smartphones, and the students prefer it that way.
An illustration of what will happen when the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies collide in several billion years.
Quote of the Week: “It is our view that a flourishing libertarian movement, a
lifelong dedication to liberty, can only be grounded on a passion for justice. Here must be the mainspring of our drive, the armor that will sustain us in all the storms ahead, not the search for a quick buck, the playing of intellectual games or the cool calculation of general economic gains” - Murray Rothbard
Its been a big week, but I’m sure we will have more to discuss next week. I’ll see you all then, folks. Bye for now.
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