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Maybe Not So Dead
I see lots of stories in the rightosphere telling us Democrats are in dire straits and committing electoral suicide by doubling down on unpopular positions. This seems at odds with the observation that the GOP House majority hangs by a thread and Democrats are currently winning off-year state and local elections.
If politics were about making sense, nobody would espouse communism nor vote for posturing loons and thieves.
A scary possibility is that after their 2024 debacle, Democrats may feel relieved that they no longer have to pretend to be committed to limited government, honor, sanity or respect for the values and best interests of the normal majority. Why else allow commie buffoons on the Hill to become de facto leaders and spokespersons?
The Soviets failed to crush Solidarnosc and did not control appetites for Western goods and privileges, and the USSR collapsed. In contrast, the Chinese Communists sent tanks into Tiananmen Square and dispatched the army all over the country to crush dissent, and they are still in power. If Democrats were to pretend that they really cared about the border, voting integrity, color-blind opportunity, constitutionally protected liberty, fiscal sanity and transparent government, then their entire edifice would fall as surely as did the Berlin Wall. Trump and DOGE have made them more aware of that vulnerability than ever.
European leftists know they are intellectually and morally bankrupt and are thus reduced to silencing and jailing critics. That would be happening here right now but for Trump’s incredible resilience.
Wisconsin will enforce electoral cheating. It will be gerrymandered to the fullest extent possible. They will demonize the opposition in whatever terms and to whatever extent necessary to protect the lie that they represent anything other than raw power. They will not be outliers among blue and purple states in that regard.
If economic shocks from tariffs, international turmoil, or some other events cause economic setbacks that permit the Democrats to retake the House in 2026, then all legislative and fiscal progress will end. They used Russiagate and COVID to crush out any semblance of good news during the first Trump administration — and it worked. The MSM, the tenured left, the deep state, the grifter class and the hordes of troubled suckers and zombies mobilized under the rubric of identity politics will soon come at us as surely and as fiercely as blackflies and midges in a Canadian spring. Just as certainly, those two million Biden-issued illegal alien SSNs will be turned into mail-in ballots before DOGE can cut finally them off.
It was easy to get off the couch to reject Biden and his idiot replacement. But voting to protect and affirm existing good policies seems to be hard for many people, and that inertia may prove to be fatal. The outcome of 2026 and 2028 could either secure the foundations of a golden age for the USA and the entire West or let 2024 be just a forgotten speed bump on the road to a post-constitutional, unfree, fiscally gutted America.
Published in General
And without Trump himself on the ballot, recent history suggests it will not go well. There is a substantial “Only Trump” vote out there and one way or another, they need to be brought into the larger Republican tent. Maybe the Republican tent needs to change its shape to cover them. Maybe the “Only Trumpers” need to need to be woo’ed inside. Either way … without EVERYONE who voted for Trump in 2024 things look grim.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?&q=everyone+movie+quote&&mid=B792029CB5ACD55A6DE8B792029CB5ACD55A6DE8&&mcid=E960D7D247AB48DB9C1978F93EE70AFF&FORM=VRDGAR
Remember the long thread we had after the 2024 election about whether or not Trump had a “mandate?’ I tried to point out that votes are both affirmative and negative and that most politicians’ inability to tell the difference is what gets them in trouble.
Just as Biden got himself in trouble by believing he was FDR 3.0, Trump & Co. may be overreaching with some of their anti-judge rhetoric and their lack of communication in respect to what the administration is doing and how they’re doing it.
MAGA actually showed up yesterday in Wisconsin. The losing candidate got almost 232,000 more votes than the last GOP candidate for that race. But the swing voters do what they are want to do – swing. The voter ID amendment passed overwhelmingly. And yet, the issue of ballot drop-boxes in 2020 did not save the MAGA candidate.
Swing voters sent a message yesterday, the question is, “Is anyone listening?”
I disagree. MAGA stayed home. 6 short months ago Trump got 1.6 Million votes. Yesterday, the Trump-supported candidate garnered only about 1 Million and the Progressive won with 1.2 Million. 600,000 thousand Trump voters sat on their hands and it cost us.
I don’t think the battles with judges will have much electoral sway. Voters either think that every dubious injunction is “saving our democracy” or just another reason why the establishment needs to be struck down and most don’t care.
You are spot on that communication is critical. How many people know any of the details of the horrific misuse and fraud-adjacent spending DOGE has uncovered versus the number convinced that Elon is gutting social security to send the money to the rich in tax cuts?
This crop of GOP leaders is far better at not deferring to the gotcha journalism of making GOP apologize for every alleged offense and setting the terms of the dialog. But neutralizing that only makes it a tie. They have not yet forced the media to accept their terms for defining the issues.
If you get your news from just the headlines and first paragraphs of Yahoo and Google news blurbs, you would be told that an innocent family man was wrongly deported (actually a 10-year gang affiliation and rap sheet) that the GOP is deserting Trump (not a flicker of change in approval ratings) and that the courts think that every act by the entire administration is illegal. The negative drumbeat will continue shamelessly barring some change in tactics or events.
Trump did very well with low propensity voters in 2024. These are voters who don’t vote in primaries and mid terms. He did a great job of getting these voters to the polls in 2024 but the pool of dependable Republican voters who vote in every election has shrunk.
As I pointed out on another thread, Trump won Wisconsin by only 0.8%. It’s quite possible that a number of Democrats voted for Trump – and for voter ID – but continued to vote Left on other matters. So it’s not MAGA, or the “Only Trump” people, that are to blame here.
As I also pointed out on another thread, in 2008 the black vote in California voted overwhelmingly for Obama. And AGAINST same-sex marriage.
And THAT is a problem
There is also the issue of people leaving Wisconsin. As I read about it, Wisconsin is one of the states expected to lose a House seat after the 2030 census. If they lost TWO seats, the gerrymandering-away of the two current Republican seats in the House becomes largely irrelevant. Those two Republican positions would switch to a different state.
Here are the numbers:
2024 Trump 1,697,000 Harris 1,667,000
2025 SC Rep 1,063,000 Dem 1,301,000 TOTAL = 2,364,000
Voter ID YES 1,435,000 NO 852,000 TOTAL = 2,287,000
600,000 People who voted for Trump 6 months ago stayed home. 300,000 people who voted for Harris 6 months ago stayed home. And yes … about 400,000 Dems voted for voter ID. But it’s ABSOLUTELY true that over 35% of the Trump vote just failed to show up.
Remember when Wisconsin was a completely solid Blue state? The GOP never had a chance in that state and Madison was and is still as radically Left as Bazerkely?
Ron Johnson? Scott Walker? Not exactly deep blue. A DOGE-like deep dive into registrations in Milwaukee might be salutary.
I remember 3 of the last 5 governors of Wisconsin being Republicans. Two out of the last three Class 3 Senators have been Republicans and Ron Johnson is still there. The GOP has held the State House majority since 1995, except for brief periods in 2009 and 2011. So, no, I don’t remember much about a solid blue Wisconsin.
Here’s a fun well-within-the-margin-of-error stat: In 2024, 40% of Trump voters in Wisconsin weren’t casting their vote for Donald Trump, they were casting their vote against Kamala Harris. So those dyed-in-the-wool MAGA voters very much showed up yesterday.
To repeat my reply to this that you also posted on another thread,
Notice from your own numbers that about 80,000 more people voted in the SC race than the Voter ID one.
But in total, about a million fewer people in total voted, than for President last year. And you really don’t know who they all were, or how they would have voted for SC or ID.
The numbers are what they are. I think the fix is better candidates and better GOP organization. I think the issues of prosperity, freedom, and common sense are good enough to win, but people need prodding from the GOP to show up.
The language we use to describe elections can be misleading. “The people have decided…” True. But that doesn’t mean there’s unanimity. “We” elected Trump. Republicans and conservatives did, and so did independents and a number of disgruntled (but still registered) Democrats. Be proud of that.
And be aware of how tenuous this still is. Trump got elected on stopping illegal immigration, toughening law enforcement, less reckless wars, and don’t screw up the economy. We’re only two months in. The verdict is not in yet. If he accomplishes these things, the GOP brand is gold.
Don’t kid yourself, though. If the economy tanks, the symbolic stuff won’t save us.
Are you assuming all Trump voters are Republican? It could be that much of Trump’s voter base in Wisconsin was Democrat support, but they still prefer leftist local politics . . .
Either 600,000 people who voted for Trump in NOV didn’t show up in APR … which is bad…
or WORSE … lots of those 600,000 DID show up and voted for the progressive
Then the GOP failed dramatically in their job of explaining the National implications of this WI election. And unless that changes then 2026 is going to be unpleasant indeed.
The tariffs will revitalize the Democrat party. The results of the tariffs will be hated, and the Democrats will have something to run against that people actually hate.
If people are that short-sighted and foolish, there might be nothing that can be done to save them from themselves. But even in that case, it still won’t be “Trump’s fault.” In large part because, again, the status quo was not tenable. And it won’t be tenable in the future either.
Cut Regulations, Spending and Taxes ( including tariffs) and the economy will be so good the Democrats will have nothing to run on. Boost unemployment and prices by levying tariffs, and the Republicans deserve to lose. I don’t want a long term progressive dynasty either. The short-sighted and foolish thing is tanking the economy with tariffs. You keep saying the status quo was not tenable. Please explain what wasn’t tenable — saying it is not tenable does not make it so.
I’ve already explained it. More than once. Importing so much, just because it’s “cheaper,” is not tenable. No matter how much expensive high-tech stuff we might produce and export, it doesn’t support enough jobs and other economic activity to support a large population, very little of which is engaged in high-tech production.
There’s also problems with education, not having enough children, etc, that need to be addressed. Telling people to buy more cheaper imported stuff with money they don’t have, isn’t a solution.
I’ve seen estimates that as much as 20% of Republicans refused to vote for Trump, meaning that the gap was filled mostly by Democrats.
And those people might very well vote for the voter ID thing, so blaming “Trump voters” for “not showing up” is bogus.
I can think of another factor in play. Republicans have been in Euphoria since Trump won the election and blitzkrieged his way to making swift reforms and changes. I think many of them lost their sense of urgency because of this and just figured that things will take care of themselves from now on, hence a lackluster motivation to vote. As powerful as Trump’s re-election may have seemed, many forget that he won by a very small margin. We are only one or two-percentage points away from losing it all back.
Except its been tenable for 80 years! The U.S. has prospered as no nation ever has on Earth. You’ve got to do more than just “claim” that it is untenable to convince anybody.
We have the lowest unemployment in practically all of our history. There is absolutely no shortage of jobs! We’ve had so many jobs that there has been a shortage of workers for the past 15 years.
What does that have to do with trade??
We’ve been trading big with China for 80 years? That’s news! You have a scoop there!
“Jobs” aren’t the end of it. Can people afford to actually buy things, including homes?
Quite a lot, even if ancillary. People not being able to afford homes etc, even if they have A Job – or perhaps more than one Job – means they’re having children later, if at all, and not as many. On top of everything else, we don’t need a demographic collapse TOO.
I was referring to U.S. global trade which was what i thought you were talking about.
Sure they can. I see them everywhere.