Cromwell

I watched as much of the interview as I could stand last night. Trump seemed more dazed than angry, but he was unquestionably himself; he blamed everyone but himself for the blue tsunami, including his handpicked candidates, the media, and his political team. As far as he’s concerned, the country still loves him; that’s the message he takes from his rallies.

As usual, Trump measured the success of his presidency by the stock market. More unusually, he appeared to concede that his mass deportations had gone too far, and that he was open to a deal on immigration. This just after he made Stephen Miller his chief of staff.

What should we make of the obvious contradiction? To expect an even wilder ride for the next two years.

Stephen Miller’s theory of the case is that the base viewed the Iran war as a betrayal of “America First.” All Trump has to do is end the war and reduce gas prices; at that point, the base will return, and Trump will wield as much clout as before. Does that make sense?

No, for multiple reasons. First of all, based on history and the polls, the Democrats were likely to win the midterms even without the war. The war turned an incipient blue wave into a tsunami. Second, Trump can’t end the war rapidly without being labeled as a loser. Finally, the support of the base is not enough to win elections. Trump won in 2024 because swing voters–not the base–thought he would bring back the economy of 2019. They ignored his record, his capricious personality, and his program, which was practically designed to create more inflation. They are paying the price for it today.

On the new chief of staff they call Steve.

He’s exactly what we didn’t need.

This move to the right

Means perpetual fights.

Things are bound to get worse, I believe.

The election was reasonably close in 2020, so the leaders of the New Right could pretend Trump’s loss was due to electoral fraud. Trump won a tiny popular vote majority in 2024, so they could argue their agenda had substantial public support. But what about now? Trumpism has been roundly repudiated by the electorate. What can they say about democracy now?

They will go back to their anti-democratic roots. Their real position is that most Americans shouldn’t have any say in government. Only reasonably affluent white Christian men should have the right to vote and hold office.

History tells us that presidents of both parties tend to focus more on foreign policy after taking a beating in the midterm elections. When you add to that Trump’s insatiable need to be the center of attention and to prove that he’s the world’s boss, you have a recipe for explosions over the next two years.

My guess is that Trump will follow his worst impulses to an even greater degree than before, and that no one in America will be able to stop him. That will be bad news for Ukraine, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Venezuela, and virtually all of the EU. Putin and Xi, on the other hand, will have plenty of reasons to rejoice.

I really didn’t think Trump could do anything to shock me at this stage of his presidency, but I was wrong. In the face of a defeat of historic proportions, he has replaced one of the few semi-sane members of his administration with Stephen Miller. That’s right–the single most obnoxious man in the government. The guy who is to the right of Attila the Hun. The man who supports a deportation regime that is even worse than Trump’s.

This looks like Michael Corleone sacking Mike Hagen in favor of a better wartime adviser. It sends a clear message to everyone in America that Trump intends to govern as an autocrat, and that public opinion is a matter of no importance to him.

Plenty of commentators have observed that J.D. appears to have a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality when he is campaigning. When he is dealing with, say, the NYT, he is Dr. J.D.–a thoughtful and pious conservative Catholic who struggles mightily against his worst instincts and loves everyone. In front of a MAGA audience, however, he is Mr. MAGA–an angry, slashing troll who revels in cruelty and expresses nothing but contempt for his opponents. It can be extremely difficult to reconcile these two personas.

But what if he is really neither of them? What if he is just a cold opportunist who tells his audience what they want to hear because that is the best way to satisfy his vast ambitions?

I think we will find out between now and 2028.

The GOP wipeout wasn’t due primarily to the proximity of tech barons to Trump, but it certainly didn’t help. The barons now face a wave of public anger and the likelihood of more intense regulation. Will they change course or double down? As I predicted before, different companies will respond differently.

Elon Musk is one of the barons, of course, but he is a special case, because he just threw away $500 million in an effort to save the GOP’s bacon. Now he will be operating his business in blue Texas. Don’t expect him to change his opinions or his ways; he has leverage against the government at all levels, and he will have no qualms against using it.

The crypto industry had developed a reputation of being invincible. It invested huge sums of money in the midterms, particularly in the Senate race in Ohio. Adios, invincibility. Relations with the blue Congress are going to be very sticky.

J.D. campaigned extremely hard for Husted and Ramaswamy in Ohio. His efforts were a miserable failure. Trump is now arguing that the GOP only wins when he is at the top of the ticket. If he is right, what does it tell us about J.D.’s chances in 2028?

The blue tsunami was just a large wave in Florida. The GOP gave back all of its massive gains since 2018. The gerrymander was a total failure, and the state looks pink again, rather than crimson. The GOP might even have been saved by terrible weather in blue districts. Nevertheless, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. The Republicans eked out victories in the most important races; with the loss of Texas, Florida is now the unquestioned capital of MAGA; and Ron DeSantis is perfectly placed to run for president, if he has the nerve to try again.

Chuck Schumer has taken a lot of criticism over the last two years for being too passive in the face of Trumpian outrages. In reality, he understood that the blue team didn’t have the practical ability to stop Trump, that the only remedy was to mobilize public support for 2026, and that the best tactic for the midterm was to get out of the way and let Trump self-immolate. It worked. In addition, Schumer did an excellent job of recruiting quality candidates. The blue team’s success owes a great deal to his strategic patience.

Trump owes his presidency in large part to Greg Abbott. Without Abbott’s successful efforts to spread the impacts of Biden’s immigration crisis all over the country, most of us would have ignored the issue, and Trump’s signature argument would have gone begging.

Abbott has been a ruthless and methodical supporter of reactionary causes for years. Recently, however, he became aware of the political potency of the data center issue. He tried to moderate his deregulatory stance, which is a no-no to any good Trumpist.

Trump called him a RINO this morning. By any reasonable standard, however, Abbott is not a RINO. He is simply another loser, or, if you prefer, more of Trump’s collateral damage to the GOP.

J.D. is blaming the war for the GOP’s catastrophic defeat. He is largely right. His problem, of course, is that he is a prominent member of the administration that launched the war, and his boss still supports it.

How does J.D. deal with this in the upcoming presidential campaign? Does he really think the man on golf cart will designate him as the heir apparent even if he vocally opposes the war? If not, is it even remotely plausible that the VP can run as an administration outsider?

In case you were wondering, the correct answer to the last two questions is no. J.D. has to be hoping that the war will be ancient history when he starts running in earnest. If not, he will have to square a circle to win.

The relationship between Trump and Fox News has never been easy and simple. Nevertheless, Fox has been his partner in defining MAGA orthodoxy and punishing dissidents for the last decade.

MAGA is about to splinter, and its great champion has been shown to be a monumentally unpopular lame duck. How will Fox respond to that? After all, a vote against MAGA and Trump is effectively a vote against Fox, too.

I suspect Fox will return to its default of being anti-anti-Trump, instead of pro-Trump. It will continue to preach against the excesses of the left while no longer promoting the dictatorship of any particular member of the right.

Two collateral benefits of the blue tsunami: first, as a result of Democratic gains in the legislatures of swing states, the Green Bay sweep is probably no longer a viable approach in 2028; and second, the blue team should have a majority in the Senate through 2032, so J.D. will be unable to push any outrageously right-wing Supreme Court nominees through the system if he wins in 2028.

Bad news for J.D. is, of course, good news for America.

This is the massacre we should have had in 2020. If it had happened then, it would have put an end to the MAGA movement. Today, it will leave the GOP reeling and divided. What does it mean for the red team in the future?

Trump will do everything in his power to keep any Republican dissidents under his thumb; in fact, quashing dissent in his own ranks may occupy more of his time than attacking Democrats. The door is now wide open, however, for an outsider with no responsibility for the war, the tech oligarchs, and the tariffs to run against J.D. if he can summon the courage to do so.

In the immediate future, the question is whether any GOP grandees will summon the nerve to blame Trump openly and directly for the massacre. If all they do is complain about him anonymously, you will know that the fever hasn’t broken yet, and the man on golf cart is still the uncontested ruler of his party.

In the face of a blue tsunami, a normal president would admit his failures and make sincere efforts to cooperate with the opposition to correct them. Trump is not a normal politician, so in spite of some conciliatory words, don’t expect him to change; in fact, he will almost certainly double down and become more autocratic than ever.

For the Democrats, the trick will be to avoid letting him reunite the GOP by going into martyr mode. They should investigate corruption anywhere they find it, which shouldn’t be hard, since most of it is in plain sight. They must legislate–or, at least, attempt to legislate, given the veto and the filibuster–on economic issues that are of immediate importance to the American voter. They should use the War Powers Act and their control over the budget as leverage to put an end to the war. And they should impeach Trump enablers who represent a danger to the community, starting with Hegseth.