Looking for RealClearPolitics’ final Senate polling aggregates, I stumbled upon a link to an op-ed by investment banker Kenin Spivak titled “A Closing Argument for America on Election Eve.” It is not inspiring.
The future of the United States will be in the hands of the candidates elected Tuesday, including all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 33 senators, and 36 governors.
So far, so good.
Anyone concerned with the Democrats’ radical goals must vote for Republicans.
Do tell?
Many who support Democratic candidates do so largely out of animus to one man. In a survey of 5,200 adults by the Public Religion Research Institute, 58% agreed that “President Trump is a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” While I believe that view is an unsupportable mischaracterization of Trump’s disagreeable traits, it is widely held and drives votes.
One would think, yes. And, holy smokes, 58% is quite a high number for such a bold statement in a polarized country. Kamala Harris only got 48.3% of the vote two years ago, to Trump’s 49.8%. Granting that voters and adults are not identical universes, that would lead me to believe a significant number of those who supported Trump now think he’s dangerous.
Up to 75 million votes will be cast before Election Day according to the University of Florida Election Lab. About 50 million are expected to vote Tuesday.
To those who have not yet voted, I offer this plea: Look past personality, gas prices, concerns about Trump’s Iran policy, vanity, ICE’s fallibility and any lingering hope that radical left candidates mean what they say when they sanitize their agendas.
“Look past personality, gas prices, concerns about Trump’s Iran policy, vanity, [and] ICE’s fallibility” is quite the ask! I’m reminded of Monty Python’s Life of Brian:
Reg: “All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health… what have the Romans ever done for us?”
Another member: “Brought peace?”
Reg: “Oh, peace? Shut up!”
But, you know, the Democrats are even worse!
Elections are about the future. Our choice is between Republicans who believe in American exceptionalism, and Democrats who increasingly “problematize” America with the goal of transforming it into a socialist, Islamist, intersectional society that abhors merit, individual initiative, and intellectual diversity, while expressing animus toward families and indifference to personal security.
That would be pretty bad, for sure.
Many of those voting for Democratic Party candidates are doing so out of a desire to constrain Donald Trump. To the contrary, impeded by Democrats in the Senate and a tight margin in the House, like Barack Obama and Joe Biden, Trump has governed through executive orders and will continue to do so.
If he’s going to continue doing what he wants regardless of the election outcomes, doesn’t that lend fuel to those aforementioned concerns about dictatorship and dangers to democracy? But, of course, it would seem to work both ways: it’s going to make it mighty hard for Senate Democrats to impose Sharia transgenderism.
According to the Harvard-Harris poll, 36% of those voting for Republicans are doing so because of the president, while the balance support Republican values or recognize that the radical left is an existential threat. With progressives setting the agenda, even traditional liberals elected to Congress will support open borders, packing the Supreme Court, higher taxes, more regulation, less energy production, men in women’s sports, and pervasive DEI.
Uh huh. Let’s concede that the three Democratic Socialists for some reason set the agenda and force the Democrats elected in red states to go along with them somehow. Wouldn’t that be subject to a presidential veto?
Aside from personality, the principal concerns voters have with the Trump administration are the cost of fuel and the Iran conflict.
Which are, of course, linked. And a direct result of Trump’s rash, unilateral action.
Trump also unfairly receives low marks for the economy, and fairly for chaotic tariffs.
Yet, even with elevated oil prices, inflation is running at 3.7%, under half the rate during the Biden administration. Core inflation is only 2.6%, and many food prices are falling. Personal income per capita is at an all-time high. The nation’s poverty rate is the lowest ever reported, and the decline in violent crime is the steepest on record. Contrary to Democrats’ misinformation campaign on this topic, by making permanent the 2017 tax cuts, instituting no tax on tips or overtime, and increasing the standard tax deduction, many lower and middle income Americans pay no or reduced income tax.
Didn’t that used to be a bad thing?
Whether Trump could have waited a few months to constrain Iran, or acted sooner, preventing it from securing a nuclear weapon and advancing its campaign of terror is essential for American security. Those who disagree misunderstand or refuse to consider the facts, including that regardless of whether Trump terminated Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, its protections were set to expire by now, or they support Islamic terrorism.
Yes, that’s the ticket. The reason so many successive administrations avoided going to war over Iran’s nuclear program is that they were idiots and/or secret fans of Islamic terrorism.
It is true that JCPOA was set to expire on October 18, 2025. There is, however, a rather significant caveat:
However, the JCPOA itself and its remaining provisions do not terminate on this day: the accord states that, following successful implementation of the final steps of the JCPOA, Iran’s nuclear program “will be treated in the same manner as that of any non-nuclear weapon state party to the NPT.” Iran’s IAEA safeguards obligations, as well as some JCPOA obligations, last for an indefinite duration. Potential nuclear-related exports to Iran remain subject to the Nuclear Suppliers Group’s export guidelines
Spivak continues:
The loss of any soldier or sailor is tragic. Still, the loss (so far) of 22 brave Americans is far less horrific than the millions who will die if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon. These heroes volunteered for service because they believed there are causes worth dying for. Difficult though it is for many Americans, temporarily paying an extra $1 for a gallon of gasoline or higher prices for air travel honors their sacrifice and avoids a far greater loss of life and much higher prices for all goods. If this burden is too heavy, those seeking to destroy our values and resilience have already won.
Sigh. What if Iran was unlikely to ever actually obtain a nuclear weapon prior to this conflict, having judged the risks to have exceeded the rewards? For that matter, why on earth would a nuclear-armed Iran then turn around and launch a nuclear war with the United States, ensuring its own destruction? The likes of Joe Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Jong Un have had nuclear weapons and not used them.
Hopefully, the Iran conflict will conclude in the next several months, and energy prices will fall.
One can only hope.
Trump’s term will end in 26 months.
If the Constitution is followed, yes.
If Democrats take control of the Senate, they can block the appointment of judges
That’s not sounding so bad, actually.
and treaties.
Which treaties, exactly?
By taking control of the House, they will fritter away resources on performative investigations and impeachments that have no impact on Trump’s authority. His inevitable retaliation will be equally wasteful.
This is likely true, considering there’s next to zero chance impeachment would be followed by removal. But Congress is irrelevant, anyway, since Trump is governing by executive fiat. I believe I read that somewhere.
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and nine Democrats running for House seats are members of the Democrat Socialists of America, are endorsed by the DSA, or are DSA-adjacent. At least until winning their primaries, they and other progressives advocated defunding the police, subordinating U.S. sovereignty to the “international order,” reawakening cancel culture, and support for Islamic terrorists.
“Adjacent” is doing a lot of work there. But, of course, police are mostly funded locally. We have demonstrated a longstanding, bipartisan, willingness to ignore international law when it suits us. Cancel culture is mostly an online phenomenon, not something imposed by Congress. And nobody supports Islamic terrorists.
The election will not change anything you dislike about Donald Trump.
Again, this is true. It is also not the point.
If you reject Marxism, Islamists, and radical left ideology, your vote for Republicans is critical. If Democrats take the House and Senate, the consequences will be considerably worse than Trump’s shortcomings or the Iran war.
Well, okay then.
