To any Republicans reading this: I hope you’ve made peace with the inevitable Democrat victory in the mid-terms.
I wouldn’t say I myself have made peace with it, rather it’s like accepting there’s an unfortunate event on the horizon. Like a colonoscopy, or perhaps a terminal cancer diagnosis.
What makes it hard to make peace with, though, is that it didn’t, and still doesn’t, have to happen. But it seems the Trump administration and Republicans are bound and determined to destroy the coalition that got them elected in 2024.
There’s no better example of this than the Iran War. I don’t care how many grainy videos of Trump in the 1980s talking about going to war with Iran fake news outlets like Fox News drag out to propagandize support for the administration. All those clips show is that the 2024 Trump campaign was an inconsistent lie.
How else can one square that with JD Vance going on the Tim Dillon Show in 2024, arguing the U.S. interest, “I think very much is in not going to war with Iran”? How do you square it with the years of Trump being critical of previous administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East? How do you square it with the official GOP Twitter account promoting Trump and Vance as the “pro-peace ticket”?
I know some people will disagree over the Iran War, so here’s another betrayal: the Epstein Files. It shouldn’t be controversial to say the admin’s handling of the situation was an unmitigated disaster, from Pam Bondi’s “The files are on my desk” comments, to the debacle of releasing binders of redacted old information to social media influencers as “Phase One”.
What about Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, two members of the administration who were once adamant there was more to the Epstein case, going on Fox News and suddenly parroting the offical narrative of Epstein’s “suicide”?
The cherry on top, of course, came from the “Big Don” himself, claiming the files were a “Democrat hoax” and he no longer wanted the support of anyone upset over how the issue was being handled. And of course, the infamous words, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?”
Tracing back to the Iran War, of course, you can’t go without mentioning gas prices. We’ve all seen them, we all know it’s happening. For us in southeast Georgia, the temporary suspension of the gas tax has given some relief, but it hasn’t completely spared our wallets, while other states have it much worse. And the longer this conflict drags on, the longer the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, the worse it gets.
Rising gas prices, coming from the administration that partly got elected on mocking Biden for his administration’s own high energy costs. People’s memories may be short, but most people still remember seeing those Joe Biden stickers at gas pumps, pointing at the disheartening numbers, and proclaiming, “I did that!”
Of course, now some want to shift the burden off Trump’s shoulders, arguing it’s price gouging by the oil companies, or blaming Iran for all this because we’ve supposedly been at war with them for 47 years. The buck can stop with Joe Biden it seems, but never with Trump.
But don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the Republican politicians working just as hard to betray their voter base. After all, who could forget Rep. Maria Salazar from Florida, and her beloved “Dignidad/Dignity Act”, a mass amnesty bill for illegals in all but name?
Or, who could forget the Republicans that just last week, crossed party lines to extend protections for Haitian migrants (including supposed Georgia Republican Rich McCormick)? What good does trying to secure the border do if, once in, they can never be kicked out?
I say all this as someone who voted for Trump in three elections. I say this as someone who believes in the core of America First. I say this as someone who has not truly “made peace” with Dems winning the midterms because I genuinely do not want it to happen.
But, I say this so others will hopefully recognize this: Trump did not get re-elected solely because of his die-hard supporters. We would instead be suffering under Kamala Harris if those were the only votes he received.
No, Trump won by building a coalition of independents, Republicans, a few disaffected Democrats, and young voters terrified of dying in a war, of being economically unable to build a future for themselves, or of having their jobs stolen by foreign labor.
So understand that when Trump goes to war with Iran, contemplates doing the same with Cuba, causes gas prices to rise, and Republicans scramble to legalize the illegal, they are destroying the coalition they built. And they will only change and correct course if enough people speak out against it, if they perceive these topics as the political risks, the millstones about their necks, that they are.
To put it another way, if your team keeps making bad plays and is on track to lose, at a certain point you have to stop blindly cheerleading, and start asking “What in God’s name are you doing?!” It may not be fun to go against the team, and there will be some who will accuse you of representing the other side, but harsh self-criticism is not a luxury in politics; it’s a necessity.
• Ethan Reddish is a reporter at the Waycross Journal-Herald. He can be reached at reporter@ wjhnews.com.
