The midterms exposed deep frustration with war, fuel costs and executive overreach – leaving the party’s post-election path uncertain
On the same day that he led his Republican Party into a midterm electoral slaughter, US President Donald Trump told Fox News that he would move to Israel to “become Prime Minister” if Americans “got tired” of him.
This sounds like one of those “I’m moving to Canada if I lose”things. Except that he can’t actually threaten to move to Canada. Because even some of the most populist right-wing Canadians hate him for being unable to shut up about annexing their country.
He and his apparently unquenchable thirst for colonization could head over to Israel and spend his retirement fighting with Iran from right next door. It would last about 20 minutes when Democrats cut all funding and support. Think their voters are upset about paying for Bibi’s wars? Imagine how tight-fisted they’d be with ‘Trump’s Israel.’ Iran wins, opens the Strait of Hormuz, global fuel prices stabilize, and Trump finally gets a Nobel Peace Prize for single-handedly regime changing two of the biggest global pariahs.
Barely a few hours after the midterms, Trump was already warming up to the idea of just vetoing anything that the Democrat-majority Congress tries to do. Sources close to him say that he’d also resort to executive orders. All of which would leave Congress to prioritize spending their time impeaching him and hauling his enablers and sycophants in front of congressional hearings. Great plan!
Trump doesn’t much see himself as the problem in this election, suggesting that it was the GOP candidates who weren’t up to par. Of course they weren’t – they had to be tailored to his personal satisfaction to even survive the primary process, thoroughly disqualifying them in the eyes of everyone else.
He did recognize that Americans don’t like high fuel prices, but nonetheless considers that they just need to deal with it as he suicide bombs the American economy to assuage Bibi’s perpetual fever dream of Iran getting nukes. But more probably because his family and cronies are wheeling and dealing with Israel and the checks won’t clear until the dirty work is done.
But here’s what we know about how Americans really feel from exit polling that surveyed about the same percentage of Republicans and Democrats. Most of them (60%) considered their Congressional vote little more than a Trump performance review. Most of them (53%) strongly disapprove of the job that he’s doing. Only 37% believe that he’s been fighting for people like them – the average American – with 62% feeling that he prioritizes his own personal interests over the nation’s, and made the economy worse (65%). They don’t even particularly like the Democrats (35% “strongly unfavorably”), and admit to being hardcore capitalists (57%), but they still think that the Democrats would do a better economic job than Trump at this point.
Americans across party lines feel overwhelmingly (71%) that the Republican-majority Congress abdicated its constitutional duty to exercise checks and balances on Trump’s executive powers.
The top voting issue was the domestic economy (39%) with cost of living a major consideration for 89% of voters. Their last priority was foreign policy at just 4%. In other words, by starting an economy-crushing war with Iran for his Israeli donors, Trump was literally doing the polar opposite of what Americans wanted him to focus on.
Three quarters of voters even cited the Iran war as a major factor in their electoral choice. But Trump wouldn’t know that from watching Fox News’ neocon slop all day long. Or from consulting with the ego fluffers who surround him and obviously only tell him what they think he wants to hear. Or from obsessively scrolling in the algorithmically-controlled echo chambers rife with nutjob influencers and bots, curated by the tech broligarchy more interested in government contracts and influence than the priorities of the average American.
At least in Israel, his policy passions actually might have a shot at aligning with those of the electorate. Because in the US, where a whopping 3% of the voters are Jewish, two-thirds of them still voted Democrat.
So what’s next for right-wing populism in America? For now, it’s homeless. No one within a mile of Trump has any appeal.
