You have read many articles--all true--about what a mess the Democrat Party is in. 

Beege wrote a great one earlier today, and I endorse the idea that Democrats are self-immolating before our eyes. That's not even a controversial opinion. Democrats, the Pravda Media, and every sentient human being on Earth knows this to be the case. 

But the 2026 midterms are not in the bag for Republicans. Not by a long shot. Not only does historical experience tell us that the party out of power almost always gains seats in the off-year elections, but a simple look at the 2024 election should be seen as a warning to Republicans that enough Americans don't care about anything but their hatred of Donald Trump and retrograde people like you and me. 

Pick any 80-20 issue you like, and Democrats will be on the wrong side of it. Men in women's sports? Yep, they see it as the Civil Rights issue of our times. Open borders? Go for it! Protecting violent foreign gang members? Are you kidding? Of course, they side with the murderers. Shooting innocent people on the street for political reasons? They feel "joy!" Vandalizing the property of people you dislike? Totally justified. 

You would think that would matter, especially since so many of the Democrats' voters are well-off, comfortable, educated professionals who do quite well in an orderly society and would be horrified if their kids had to roam the streets of a Blue American city. 

But no. They hate Trump, and that Trumps everything. They will get angry about the Tren de Aragua killers getting deported because Trump. They will watch a man beat a woman up in the Olympics to own the cons. They will support children getting mutilated and sterilized because conservatives oppose it. 

Trump defines their entire moral universe. Trump is evil, so opposing him and his supporters must be good. 

This is not a small group of people. Despite the fact that Kamala Harris was an unpopular moron, she came relatively close to winning, and Democrats got within a hair's breadth of winning the House of Representatives. It was a close run thing. 

A plurality of the country understands that the negative coverage of Trump is concocted out of thin air. By that, I don't mean that Trump should be above criticism--no one, especially nobody in power, should be above criticism. But come on, man. When the coverage gets asymptotically close to 100% negative, it's impossible to deny that this is pure propaganda worthy of Baghdad Bob. 

But elections are won by margins. Almost everybody who goes to the polls has their vote determined by the letter after the candidates' names, so elections are really decided by two factors: how excited the respective parties' bases are, and what a small slice of the "undecided" electorate thinks. 

All that negative coverage exists to keep the Democrat base furious and to move the needle just a bit in the middle. And, as we know, relentlessly pounding lies into people's heads, even when they know the propaganda IS propaganda, works with some people. It's the "where there is smoke, there is fire" impression that can stick. 

The outcome of the next Congressional elections will be determined by a relatively small slice of the population, and most of those votes will be determined not by issues but by feelz. Look at Canada--by any objective measure, Pierre Poilievre was a shoo-in, but a large chunk of people were angry that Donald Trump was insulting them. They literally voted for policies they hate just to own Trump. 

Stupid, but people can be stupid. 

I expect a lot of people who hate what Democrats stand for to vote for them anyway. If the economy is humming along and Trump has a string of wins so obvious that they enter the public consciousness, he will be able to carry Republicans across the finish line and maintain majorities in Congress. 

But the 2026 election is not in the bag for Republicans, and not by a long shot. A lot of Republican legislators know that and will, unfortunately, do exactly the wrong thing: be cautious and do little. 

That is wrong, both because it means that if they lose, many of Trump's triumphs will be temporary and they will have blown our best opportunity to save America, and wrong because the only way to ensure victory is to have some big wins that have real results, and do it as fast as possible. 

Congress could be our savior or doom us. If they rush to put in place Trump's reforms through legislation, they will make victory in 2026 more likely, and more importantly, they will have made a great stride toward putting America back on a sustainable trajectory. 

I have my doubts that they have the courage. Because, again, legislative victories are won by small margins, and there are a lot of spineless Republicans.