The Right Could Still Capitalize on Democrats’ Lack of a Substantive Political Vision
Democrats’ midterm strategy was to campaign on issues where they had an edge and little else. If they don’t start to offer voters a meaningful comprehensive vision for the future, Republicans are poised to emerge victorious from the coming period of gridlock.
Republican supporter holds two flags outside of a polling site in Uvalde, Texas, on November 8, 2022. (Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images)
The Friday before the midterm elections, the New Yorker ran a two-thousand-word article in which one Republican insider after another congratulated each other on the electoral “blowout” to come.
Instead, almost everywhere, Republicans did far worse than anyone expected, and significantly worse at the national level than the historical norm for the opposition party during midterms. Democrats will keep control of the Senate and the House of Representatives is still too close to call — it’s uncertain, but it looks likely the Republicans will take the House with a razor-thin majority.
Though that New Yorker article predicted a huge Republican victory, instead it now looks emblematic of something else: a Republican Party incapable of talking to anyone but itself.
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