It could have been worse!

What happened?

Fantasy vs. Reality. It turns out that there are a great many voters who don’t care much about what traditionally have been considered decisive issues: inflation, crime, illegal immigration, lousy schools, etc. Many millions of Democrats, confronted with these facts, didn’t conclude that they should consider voting for someone else. Rather, they seem to have thought, My team is in trouble! All the more reason why I need to support my team. This was an election in which, to an extraordinary degree, issues were subordinated to party loyalty.

Abortion. While Dobbs was plainly right as a matter of constitutional law, Justice Alito and his colleagues probably cost Republicans control of Congress. I thought the Democrats were wasting their money when they spent countless millions over the summer, pounding Republicans on abortion. The conventional wisdom, which I shared, was that the issue would likely help to drive turnout, but wouldn’t win over any undecided or middle of the road voters. But driving turnout was decisive: liberals trooped to the polls, while in many areas Republican turnout was not what it should have been. …

At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States. He has teased a “big announcement” in the next few days. I hope he announces that he is moving to Bulgaria.