Author: Blazingcatfur

Republicans can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

As everyone knows by now, the Republican Party was handed a resounding defeat in the midterms Tuesday in a brutal repudiation of Donald Trump and MAGA. Predictably, there were numerous instances of suspicious voting “irregularities,” but the shellacking was so bad that Democrats didn’t even have to cheat.

It’s easy to get depressed about American politics. Some might see us shifting from the MAGA personality cult to the impending rule of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

That view is wrong and misreads the results of yesterday’s midterm elections. It may have been a disaster for the Republicans, and particularly Donald Trump, but not necessarily for the country. Despite the success of some awful lefties, notably Abdul El-Sayed (D-Muslim Brotherhood), the biggest – and most unheralded – victories were won by Democratic candidates professing a more moderate message.

Can the crazies be controlled? Or are they already in charge.

Monroe, Mich. — The bigliest loser in American history — at least until the returns from the Congressional election started rolling in Tuesday night — surveyed the battleground state of Michigan from his perch on a downcast horse.

This was the doomed Major General George Armstrong Custer, whose brigade was routed and ritually mutilated by Sitting Bull’s Lakota Sioux at the battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana in 1876. “Custer’s Last Stand” has been immortalized in American infamy ever since, except in his hometown of Monroe, Mich., which is about an hour south of Detroit and just across the river from the tranche of the “51st State” still known to some as “Ontario.” In Monroe, Custer remains a bronze-headed hero, “presented at a young age,” according to a sign beside the equestrian statue on the bank of the River Raisin.

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Losing Texas in Tuesday’s devastating midterm elections means much more for Republicans than losing a political stronghold. Democrat Gina Hinojosa’s victory over Governor Greg Abbott puts the future of one of America’s largest state-led border-security operations in question, potentially depriving President Donald Trump of his most powerful state partner in immigration enforcement.

Hinojosa defeated the three-term incumbent by roughly seven points, a considerable margin in a previously deep-red state, becoming Texas’s first Democratic governor since 1995. Democrats also captured the lieutenant governorship, attorney general’s office and state House, while James Talarico defeated Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton for the Senate seat. In a rare bright spot, Republicans managed to hold the state Senate, making it their only remaining legislative stronghold in Austin.

When it became clear to me that the Republicans were on the receiving end of an epic beating in the November 3 midterms, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

I felt relieved because politicos and pundits in Canada have used Trump and his MAGA administration as a political issue non-stop over the past two years.

Well, that didn’t work out how we’d hoped, did it? But hope isn’t a strategy, nor is it often an accurate reflection of reality – it’s about as effective a plan as crossing your fingers or holding your breath as you drive past a cemetery. Republicans lost because they had bad candidates, a horrible strategy, no recent accomplishments and an unpopular President in the White House.