The Midterm Election of 2018
[Follow Clay Jenkinson’s podcasts, his Jeffersonian approach to American history at Jeffersonhour.com. Every program ends with an essay called “The Jefferson Watch.”]
So what did the midterm election of 2018 tell us? I’m going to try to make sense of it from a purely analytical view.
If, as President Trump said repeatedly, he was on the ballot in 2018, the results are mixed. The election was certainly not a ringing endorsement of his character, behavior, policies, and the first two years of his Presidency. But it was not a severe vote of no confidence either. A serious repudiation would have required something like a 50-75 vote swing in the House of Representatives, and a gain of a Democrat or two in the Senate. And endorsement would have required a gain of 10-20 Republicans in the House, and a filibuster-proof Senate, that is, 61-39 or better for the Republicans. Frankly, I don’t think you can conclude much from the 2018 election except that anti-Trump feeling brought about significant Democratic gains in the House of Representatives. I think Trump is right when he declares things went pretty well, considering.
Many people, and I am one of them, saw this election as “the most important of my lifetime,” America’s chance to “take back the country” from Trump and Trumpism before it was too late. If that was the goal, in my analysis, it failed. As soon as the election ended, Trump fired his Attorney General, appointed a Trump protector as acting Attorney General, lashed out at everyone he perceived to be his enemy, including career Republican Congressmen who lost to Democratic challengers, had a journalist banned from the White House press corps for asking an unwanted question, and that was just Day One of the post-2018 “repudiation.” Elections matter. The country has not been taken back. If you were looking at this from Mars or Jupiter you would have to say America seems, on the whole, taking the entire national, state, and local vote into account, to be mostly OK with Trump and his antics. Depressing, isn’t it, unless you are one of the tens of millions who think Trump can do no wrong, those who believe the liberals, progressives, feminists, professors, foundation heads, establishment, and deep state types had and have it coming.
In some ways Trump is a political genius. He found a way in 2016 to neutralize 17 other Republican candidates for the Presidency, some of them very heavily subsidized by the Establishment, and get the nomination. He did this by ridicule, innuendo, character assassination, bullying, and making wild pronouncements that were as entertaining as they were irresponsible. He won the nomination not by appealing to the “better angels of our nature,” as Lincoln put it, but by appealing to our darkest fears and aggressive impulses. It worked. And he has continued to encourage some of the least enlightened energies in American life for the first two years of his Presidency. This has driven the Left and the Establishment to the brink of madness, which of course was part of his plan all along. Donald Trump is the 45th President of the United States, our first Revenge President. His tribe—an angry army of 45 million people—is taking great glee in giving it to the liberals and the deep state types. Every time Trump uses the word “nationalist,” or calls CNN reporters “the enemy of the people,” he is throwing kerosene on the rage of the Trumpites. Trump’s “forgotten Americans” are so tired of being put down by the liberals, so sick of being dismissed by those who say they are rubes out in the heartland clinging to their guns and the Bible, that they are having the time of their life watching the Great Leader break one Presidential taboo after the next.
In the 2018 election Trump knew he was likely to lose the House of Representatives. And he did, though not by some sort of overwhelming repudiation. He lost the number of seats that virtually any sitting president would lose in his first midterm election. My point is that he knew this was likely to happen, so he concentrated his vast demagogic energies on the United States Senate, and gave his time, in the weeks before the election, to Senate candidates in red states like Texas, North Dakota, and Montana. On the whole the strategy worked. The Senate is now more firmly in control of the Trumpites than it was a week ago. There won’t be any more cliffhanger confirmation votes for life-tenured judges and justices.
Trump is no fool. He knows that no President has ever been impeached by the House of Representatives AND convicted by the Senate, not Andrew Johnson, not Bill Clinton, and it is quite possible that Richard Nixon would have found 34 Senators to vote against such an extreme Constitutional maneuver in 1974. Trump knows that the new, moderately-Democratic House of Representatives could impeach him once a week for the next two years and the Senate would protect him. Can any of you think of any scenario under which the current United States Senate voted two to one to remove Trump from the Presidency? We know that it cannot happen, even if Trump did shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue, and Trump certainly knows that. So he is almost daring the House to impeach him—a pointless and important move that would not accomplish its goal and would meanwhile stir up the enraged Trump tribe to carry their AR-15s into the streets of America. I am not trying to be dramatic. I believe that if the House impeached President Trump, we would see widespread militia violence in America. The bombs sent to a dozen Trump critics just before the election were a warning sign.
So what if Trump fires Robert Mueller? He gets away with it no matter how loudly every responsible person in the United States howls. What if he closes the US-Mexican border by executive order? What if he arrests 50 journalists? What if he lobs a few cruise missiles into Iran just to show them we can topple their regime any time we might wish to?
It’s hard to know just what Trump wants for America. He seems to want us to disengage from our alliances throughout the world, to become fortress America, to become a mean-ass monolithic nation state that tells the rest of the world to go jump in the lake. He seems to want to punish all the sophisticates and the liberals who have belittled and shunned him throughout the course of his lifetime. If you want to watch the exact moment when he determined to become President, no matter what the cost, and to use his power to be The Anti-Obama, to repudiate everything Barack Obama did and represented, just watch the clip of President Obama ridiculing Trump (in his presence) at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2011. If Mr. Obama had kept his mouth shut that night, I do not think Donald Trump would be President of the United States.
The Trump coalition has a whiff of fascism about it. Trump is very careful to make pronouncements that could be construed as fascist, and then to pull back just enough to make the anti-Trump alarmists look ridiculous for trying to convince the nation that the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Donald Trump’s greatest talent is for ridicule, and nothing satisfies him, and his angry mob of “forgotten Americans,” more than making Elizabeth Warren go apoplectic.
So let me be very stark in my conclusions. First, it would be a terrible mistake ever to underestimate Donald Trump. Is there a line he would not cross? He has ridiculed the disabled, Gold Star families, a US Senator who spent years in a Hanoi prison camp, a woman who came forward to inform the country that it was about to put onto the Supreme Court a man capable of sexual assault, the people of Puerto Rico. And on and on and on. Second, the midterm election may not be the sign of hope, the triumph of checks and balances, that the left and the mainstream media have posited. Third, I believe Donald Trump has now consolidated his personal power and he intends to use it, not to do good things for America, though he is not necessarily averse to that, but to damage everyone and every entity, institution, ethnic group, or nation state that has dismissed him as a clown and a dangerous buffoon.
Clay Jenkinson
You are entirely correct in your analysis. At least there is some hope. I am curious as to the brown islands on the map, as I am in one now.
As time passes those of us who pay attention observe the cyclical nature of political theater. Conservatives were equally concerned by Obama’s election, the difference being when he turned a blind eye to immigration, weighed in on issues that widened the racial divide and weaponized government in a way that would have made Nixon jealous, they didn’t dress in black, cover their faces and act like hooligans. The pendulum swings; you don’t have to like it, but you’re not going to stop it either. The Senate won’t vote for impeachment, and as long as loons like Pelosi and Ocasio-Cortez are elected and focused on such foolishness, Dems will continue to be their own worst enemy.
So what if Trump fires Robert Mueller??? So what if he closes the border by executive order, arrests 50 journalists and lobs cruise missiles into Iran? Surely, you jest… The slow but persistent whittling away at the Constitution, as well as the permanent destruction to the Earth’s ecosystem, including, but not limited to mass species annihilation, ocean contamination, crop monoculture, chemical poisonings of bees, melting of the Polar icecaps, disappearance of precious water aquifers, global warming and concomitant hurricanes, lands submerging underwater, nukes old and new, robots, science supplanting compassion, et al. are surely the greatest evils faced by Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
Trump was basically as a “strong economy” president, despite all his hype and rhetoric. If and when the economy starts weakening, you just watch those seemingly intractable red and brown states start flipping to purple and then blue quicker than a slot machine spin coming up lemons at a gambling casino. A strong American economy has its perks, but common sense has more.
^electesd
Cynthia,
Oh my….the sky is falling.
Turn on a Sinatra album and relax.
Probably the best analysis of the Trump phenomenon that I have seen.
I think for the most part your analysis is correct, however, I think there is increasing resistance to Trump. Just slower and not as overwhelming as most people were hoping for. The congressional district I live in and the one next to us just flipped democratic and they both went Trump by double digits and have been republican for years. Hang in, change is coming. Hopefully in time.
Agree, the House is the first distillation of the will of American citizens. The Senate lags and will have new faces and ideas similar to the House, in time.
Great post, Clay.
Thanks.
If you are open to it I’d like to bullet point a few things. And I say this as someone who did not vote for Trump in the primaries. He wasn’t even my second choice. I do not approve of a lot of things about him but he is who he is, he isn’t going to change, and he is the President.
First, you said, <> I agree. By historical comparison Reagan lost 26 seats, H.W. lost 8, Clinton lost 54, W. GAINED 8, Obama lost 64. At 27 seats Trump did fairly well.
Second, every election these days seems to be “the most important in our lifetime.” That’s wearing a little thin but it keeps the news cycle elevated.
Third, Jim Acosta was not “banned from the White House press corps for asking an unwanted question”. C’mon Clay. Acosta would not yield the microphone after he asked his question, he was belligerent, disruptive, combative and rude, and should have been kicked out after the second time he was asked to sit down and refused. Denying Jim Acosta a White House press pass is hardly tearing a hole in the first amendment.
Fourth <> Yes he did. There are two people primarily responsible for Trump being the president. The first is Barack Obama and the second is John Boehner. I left the Republican party in December of 2014 because just I couldn’t take it anymore. Obama said “Boo!” and the Republicans all rolled over and gave Him whatever He wanted. I think the people looked at those 17 candidates and said, “Sounds great, but you know, we’ve heard it all before.” No one believed any of them would actually DO anything. They were just regurgitating focus group tested talking points. Then people looked at Trump and said, “You know what, the RNC doesn’t control him and he’ll probably deliver.”
Fifth, you’re probably right about the “revenge President.” The right and the middle are sick of being ridiculed, maligned, mocked and lectured to. After eight years of Obama no one is all that concerned about the Left’s hissy fit. And the irony of engaging in political violence while simultaneously holding signs that read, “Say No to Fascism!” seems to be lost on them. Let me add that during W’s administration we were all told that “dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Remember that? Then during the Obama years dissent was re-defined as racism. All you have to do to be a racist is disagree with Leftist ideology. That’s how they define the term. So, if I have a difference with Mr. Obama it must be because of the color of his skin. People are tired of that Clay. Gillum just said it again in Florida when he said that people were racist for asking about the FBI probe. I guess it makes people on the Left feel good about themselves or something, they like saying it. But it’s losing its effectiveness and, more importantly, it diminishes actual racism. You more than most know about slavery, and Jim Crow, and lynchings, and what the reality of that evil really was –and yes, racism still exists, but to use it as some cheap political card to play is sick.
Sixth, you’re spot-on about the clip of Obama ridiculing Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. That was a pivotal moment in history, but Obama couldn’t help Himself and you know what they say about Karma.
I think the Left needs to ask themselves what their program is because the 2020 election starts right now and so far the only thing they’ve got is “get Trump.” MSNBC just reported that a “senior member” of Ways & Means said they’re going after Trump’s tax returns. That’s their #1 priority. Nadler in Judiciary just said his #1 priority is to impeach Justice Kavanaugh. Schiff said he is going to intensify the Russia probe. I’m not sure these are the top concerns of the American people, but OK, if you think that will work for you. It’s probably best to not draw attention to the economy.
YES! Thank you DEF for making those important points!
I appreciate your points.
D. E. F. Kudos on your well-stated post. I particularly enjoyed one little gem of a sentence toward the end, “After eight years of Obama no one is all that concerned about the Left’s hissy fit.”
I put some quotes from your piece in but they didn’t get included in my post and I can’t seem to edit them back in. Sorry about that. I think you get the gist of it though.
Kindest Regards,
D.E.F.
While I sincerely hope that Trump is an aberration in terms of the character of the President, he is, however, a product of the last 25 years. The advancement of conservative talk radio and Fox news became more and more strident over the years, and they finally found a candidate in Trump who supported their narrow view of America. In fact, they have found a President who only wants to be President of a section of America. Unlike any other President in American history, he doesn’t try to be President for everyone. He hasn’t held a single prime time press conference to explain why his policies are best for America. He is not a leader.
Trump was correct about one thing during the mid-terms, and that was candidates supporting him did better than candidates that did not. But this is not a reflection of Trump, it is a reflection of what happens in mid-terms when candidates of the President’s party run away from the President’s policies rather than in support of them. The Deomcrats have notoriously done this during both Obama’s and Clinton’s Presidencies. No matter the character of the President, members of that party must tout and run on the President’s policies, or they will lose.
The major reasons that the Democrats did not due better in the mid-terms were due to Democratic losses in the 2010 mid-terms, which ushered in Republican gerrymandering across many states, Citizens United, Republican removal voters from polls across many states, and gutting if the Voting Rights act.
If Democrats want to be successful in 2020 and beyond, they need to lead by passing as many progressive legislative reforms over the next two years, as possible, even if they are not taken up by the senate. They must hold Trump in check, but not spend the next two years just bashing Trump. As Clay often talks about Jefferson, the Democrats must sing the music of American, and show Americans what optimism and success for America looks like. They need to convince Americans to vote, so the turnout is 70 to 80%.
I agree with you. What the Democrats really have to do is to clearly communicate what it is they are for. Their approach regarding health care was a resounding success. Consider: 1) infrastructure, 2) the role of the U.S. in the world, 3) our relations vis-à-vis our allies and competitors, etc. Concrete Congressional actions, despite the response in the Senate, will provide the American people with a roadmap with which they will gleefully relate and respond. Actions speak louder than words.
I agree and also think the Democrats should make clear they are for secure borders and support only legal immigration. I know many Trump supporters believe illegal immigration is only a Republican issue and they believe Democrats want to have more illegals entering this country.
These electoral maps are always misleading. The “blue islands” represent more people than the vast red landscape. The physical size of a state like Montana means very little. Tiny, blue Rhode Island actually contains more people and more votes.
In Colorado we’ve elected Jared Polis, a hard-working Democrat who believes in building coalitions in governing, and have replaced Republican representative Mike Coffman with Jared Crow, a Democrat. John Hickenlooper, our outgoing Governor, is considering a run for the Presidency in 2020, and he’s eminently sensible and has advanced the economy in this state. State by state, younger people are voting more, and they want common-sense legislation to protect citizens from domestic guns and they want to address the structural inequality and weakening of the middle-class, starting with health-care and the high cost of college. School bond measures narrowly passed in Douglas Co., CO, and in other parts of the state, where citizens voted to help pay for teachers’ salaries and to fund school infrastructure.
Don’t be discouraged that an out-and-out repudiation of the POTUS didn’t obviously occur. Take encouragement by the real changes in demographics and at the state and local level. The NY Times has this encouraging piece, that democracy won in this election: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/opinion/democrats-midterms-resistance-trump-democracy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Pretty much right, Clay. And there’s nothin pretty about this truth.
I believe Clay is right that the Senate Republicans will do nothing to remove or constrain Trump. As a conservative and former Republican myself, I am disgusted at their cowardice and greed in choosing raw power over their oaths to uphold the Constitution. The only chance for justice will come after Trump leaves office, when he can be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned or executed for his crimes.
But I fear he knows how vulnerable he would then be and will therefore never surrender power willingly. He has already claimed that he can personally re-write the Constitution by executive order, so it’s likely he will take a pen to Article II and to the 22nd Amendment. If that happens, there is every indication that many of the Republicans will support him. At that point there will be no way to restore our Constitution except through civil war – and it will make the last one look like a picnic. But I would rather wade through rivers of blood for years to regain our Constitution than to live for one hour under the corruption and tyranny of Trump.
I think there are several important points not being considered:
* The Montana Senate Seat was held, an Arizona Senate seat was won, a Nevada Senate seat was won. Those last two are a HUGE deal. Democrats had to defend 23 seats and only lost one, Republicans only had to defend 9 seats and lost 3, maybe 4 if Nelson prevails.
* Democrats overall received tens of millions more votes and most importantly, historical red districts which Trump won by double-digits were flipped all across the country. You simply can’t dismiss this.
* Massive voter suppression and disenfranchisement across the country, mostly affecting minority voters
* It was a historical turnout for a midterm election (imagine what it would have been if all those votes were actually counted)
You are spot on! Well said
Oops, I misspoke above, Bill Nelson already holds the FL Seat of course, it would be a another loss for the Dems if Scott prevails.
Clay, you are correct in your analysis of the election…I do however, believe with control of the House, the Dumpster can no longer get everything he wants! To have regained the Senate was an extremely long shot. No one really thought that possible. Winning Arizona was a HUGE slap in the face to DT. Personally, I came away with seeing a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel…Now with the Chair on all the committees, I say let’s get to work
The take-away from the 2018 election is how duped we are into paying attention to anything but the bottom line. The bottom line for us is that Big-money has stolen our republic. This is not representation of the public. This is Corporatocracy. A Corporatocracy so powerful that the record spending for vote buying (marketeering and soft money attack advertising) is being hidden from exposure, even by “public” media.
We are numb and we are numskulls. We’ve been so anesthetized from so many huge injections of money politics that we barely moaned when corporations were declared to be people and money was declared to be speech.
This two-party race to the bottom line has imploded our country and confirmed Thomas Jefferson’s biggest fears. The Yankee Banker’s have already won and the reality is so ugly that we just lay here, waiting for our next injection of distraction, occasionally sighing as we remember that fine fantasy of old: a government by the people and for the people.
Spot on – follow the money.
Spot on, Clay. … except. Given the geography and a blatant increase in measures to suppress minority votes, results nationwide were very much a repudiation. Dems have picked up 34 seats so far and may pick up as many as 5 more. Were it not for the defensive position of many Dem Senators and the backlash from the Kav hearings, Dems may very well have turned the Senate. For the loss of Donnelly and Heitkamp (Kavanaugh), pick ups in Nevada and Arizona may have changed this discussion. And I haven’t even mentioned the governors races or state legislatures. This was a win for the Dems and unless Trump grows some empathy, it will continue in 2020.
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/14/667818539/it-was-a-big-blue-wave-democrats-pick-up-most-house-seats-in-a-generation
Even as someone who refused to vote for Trump, I do not take seriously the worries that he is going to injure the country. Things don’t often turn out as we proclaim. For years I heard warnings, heartfelt and dire, about Clinton and then Obama. And as I recall, the Jefferson Hour projected Hillary as an inevitable victor. So really we just keep having an endless discussion about who was and is and is to come. The one in the chair right now sounds exactly like so many left and right potty-mouth citizens on social media on any subject, which makes him quite representative of even the younger crowd. It’s like looking in the mirror. He’s the president; I wish him well. Then I wish the next one well, and the one after that. We will continue to keep them lame much of the time, almost as harmless as the queen.
Thanks Clay. My first thought in all this was wondering what you had to say about it. Fond memories of our travels Char Shirven
This is social media put to good use. And Jeffersonian in that it is much needed dialogue. Sometimes I think there is hope. Didn’t TJ say something akin to “those who choose to remain ignorant and remain free want something that never was and will never be.” Also, “given the choice of a government without a free press or a free press without a government, I would choose the later. The later is likely anarchy, the former is totalitarianism.” Also, Benjamin Franklin giving the ominous warning to a lady questioning what they were doing in in Constitutional Hall “ Lady we have given you a Constitution if you can keep it”. Aime Casavant, 70 year old ND male, Vietnam Veteran and part of the resistance. If the ballot box fails us – again TJ. “The tree of liberty must be fertilized with the blood of patriots and tyrants, from time to time.”
Clay, please stick to your show if possible. I’m not interested in your take on politics.
Enjoy the upcoming holidays.