After … the Election

Barring a 3 A.M. multi-million ballot dump, the Republican Party is set to take control of both the House and the Senate. From this result, I foresee two scenarios unfolding.

First, there is the reaction of the Left, which will be not to form a circular firing squad, but rather an infantry square, firing at anything outside their insulated box. Since the Party can never err, it must be the fault of saboteurs, hoarders, kulaks, former Republican presidents, and those insufficiently devoted to the cause.

First and foremost, they’ll blame their Useful Idiot, and before 2024 they’ll use promises of ice cream to lure him into the group home lounge to watch The Price is Right to make way for a more cognizant sock puppet. They’ll blame Big Tech for not sufficiently censoring “misinformation.” They’ll blame suburban white women. They’ll blame nonexistent voter suppression. They’ll blame white supremacy, transphobia, and ableism.

They’ll blame the voters’ priorities, such as Chris Cillizza pooh-poohing concerns about crime by explaining to us that “perception often matters more than reality.” The documented increase in aggravated assaults, burglaries, robberies, and motor vehicle thefts is just your perception, poor child.

They’ll borrow from the Obama playbook, like Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) did, and lament that they again did a “poor job of communicating” their grandiose vision to the unwashed masses. Use smaller words, fellas, smaller words.

And they’ll flat-out bare their seething contempt for the citizenry, as David Frum did when he wrote this that “voters can’t be expected to apprehend the longer-term consequences of the votes they cast.” Frum attributes 2014 Republican election gains to fear of Ebola, and claims that Putin’s threat of nuclear war “excites” conservatives, but don’t let that sully your appreciation for the burden he carries of thinking for the rest of us.

The Left will blame everyone and everything other than their own putrid ideology. They’ll continue to plow forward, full steam ahead, without moderating their agenda an inch.

Second, I fear that, having won a majority, congressional Republicans will comfortably settle into doing what they do best: keeping the chairs warm for the Democrats. Republicans have held majorities in both chambers simultaneously with the presidency from 2003 to 2007 and again from 2017 to 2019. This is a cumulative total of six years they’ve had free rein to enact their agenda. What do they have to show for it? Other than a couple tax cuts and trade deals, nothing.

Did they reform education or break the teachers’ unions? Nope. Bush gave us No Child Left Behind. Did they reduce the bureaucracy? Nope. They expanded and empowered it, with the grotesque Department of Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, and star chamber FISA courts (now weaponized by the FBI to target American citizens on behalf of the Democrats). Did they secure the border and begin seriously deporting illegals? Nope. When they do discuss immigration, they push “comprehensive” reform (i.e., amnesty) alongside their Democrat counterparts. The last Gang of Eight four Republican representatives were Marco Rubio, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Jeff Flake. Need I say more?

We haven’t had a true conservative speaker since Newt Gingrich. Dennis Hastert was a sexual predator. John Boehner was a literal crybaby. Paul Ryan was beyond useless, and is one of only two adults ever to have been alpha-maled into obscurity by Joe Biden. At least Corn Pop fought back.

Mitch McConnell is the leader of the RINO Old Guard. Yes, I know, he has been instrumental in getting federal and Supreme Court justices appointed. Give credit where credit is due, even if it’s the bare minimum we should expect. But other than this, what does he have to show for 36 years in the Senate?

When Donald Trump unexpectedly won in November 2016, along with a majority in both houses, Republican leadership had over two months to draft legislation (or, better yet, dust off legislation they should have already drafted) that they could have had on Trump’s desk on January 21^st. By February, they could have had the wheels in motion to secure the border, repeal ObamaCare, drain the bureaucracy, reform education, and forward a myriad of solutions that they’d been campaigning on for the entire Obama presidency. Instead, they had absolutely nothing ready to go.

Trump’s many accomplishments were achieved despite the Republican Congress. The wall construction, Middle East peace deals, deregulation, energy independence, destruction of ISIS, Operation Warp Speed, strangulation of surrender to Iran, and Paris nuttery were largely done via his constitutional authority as President. He also singlehandedly converted more minority voters than any other Republican in living memory.

But nothing enrages narcissists like exposing their utter uselessness. McConnell opposed Trump not because of policy or ideological differences, but because Trump publicly humiliated him by displaying his expendability on live TV for the nation to see. McConnell never forgave him for this slight. Trump has been out of office for nearly two years, but McConnell continues to nurse his grudge by pulling money from any Republican candidate deemed too “pro-Trump.”

In Alaska, McConnell is backing attack ads against candidate Kelly Tshibaka, a conservative running to unseat the swamp creature Lisa Murkowski (who, like Liz Cheney, now endorses Democrats running against Trump-backed Republicans). In Arizona, he pulled nearly $10 million in ads from the hotly-contested Senate race because Trump-backed candidate Blake Masters publicly criticized him. In New Hampshire, he cut $5.6 million from Republican candidate Don Bolduc for stating that he would not support McConnell as Senate leader.

Arizona and New Hampshire are down to the wire, and if we lose, we can reasonably attribute these losses to McConnell’s decision to not support our candidates. He has proven that he is more concerned with his ego and his retention of power than the protection of our constitutional liberties. He’d make a great Democrat.

What gives me hope that I am wrong is that McConnell (along with Romney who, in a 51-49 Senate, could emerge as the Democrats’ new favorite “maverick”) is among the last of this Old Guard. The Bushes and the Cheneys, along with most prominent RINOs like Ben Sasse, Jeff Flake, and John Kasich, have been relegated to fiddling alongside Nero.

Assuming they win, newly-minted senators Masters, Holduc, and Tshibaka will be in no mood to take marching orders from McConnell, nor likely will Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, or J.D. Vance. Facing original Tea Partiers Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee, and other true conservatives like Tom Cotton, Joni Ernst, and Josh Hawley, the RINO clingers must realize that a steadily growing permanent class of younger senators are edging them out the door.

But we have to be on them like white on rice. The Left is willing to lose a Joe Manchin or Krysten Sinema in one election if it means possibly electing a True Believer the next time around. They play the long game well. We are gradually learning to do the same, but we need to keep up the pressure.

In the meantime, Joe Biden’s veto pen shouldn’t be an excuse for our new majority to do nothing. For the next two years, the Democrats should be up to their eyeballs in congressional subpoenas. Investigations should be launched against Alejandro Mayorkas, Anthony Fauci, Mark Zuckerberg, Merrick Garland, the Dobbs leaker, and everyone who had any operational-level decision-making with Russiagate, the Hunter laptop coverup, the COVID lockdowns, and the Mar-a-Lago raid. They should subpoena the release of all security video from January 6th, so the American people can see for themselves what happened.

Republicans should withhold funding for the FBI, IRS, and DoJ until after they’ve removed political weaponization from their procedures and provided transparency to prove it. They should withhold Pentagon funding until it reprioritizes battlefield readiness over political witch hunts and pronoun lunacy.

And Joe Biden should be impeached. Twice.

Our representatives need to be periodically reminded that their authority is temporary, conditional, and exists not by birthright, but as the privilege of a private citizen. We have the power to ensure that they earn, and continue to earn, what we’ve given them.

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