Fundamentally, “our” (white America) blowback is better than their blowback, which is great news. As I write, results are still coming in, and there may be a few runoffs and recounts, but no matter what, this midterm “rebuke” of a sitting President is a pittance of what it was in 1994 and 2010, when white Republicans sent a completely unambiguous message to Democratic Presidents by capturing the entire legislative branch decisively. This bodes well for the future: Democratic blowback can be kept at a low, but Republican blowback can cause a total gridlock.
Greedy Republican campaign consultants, neoconservatives, and #NeverTrumpers should take note. President George W. Bush did not have the typical midterm rebuke in 2002 because the country was still reeling from the 9/11 terrorist attacks and largely unified in support of the President because of them. But he certainly did get a midterm rebuke in 2006, because of his foolish and evil war with Iraq was by then an utterly apparent complete catastrophe. In 2006, the Democrats gained six governors, 31 congressman, and six senators. Meanwhile, this round, the Democrats look to gain about as many governors, about as many (but perhaps a few less) congressman, and they lost senators. Anecdotally, I remember the day after the 2006 election. The trouncing of the GOP had been so thorough that Iraq War architect, Secretary of State, and terrestrial demon Donald Rumsfeld resigned. My father and I talked about it that night and we were both elated. At that point, neither my father nor I had ever voted. I was too young, and my dad doesn’t really care. In 2016, I happily voted for Donald Trump and my father, bless his heart, meant to, but didn’t quite get around to it.
One of the reasons Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 was because a lot of white guys in the Midwest thought he would bring back the jobs. Now more than ever, President Trump should deliver on that. Two unemployed good white men come to mind in particular: Lou Barletta, who lost a senate race in Pennsylvania; and Kris Kobach, who lost a governor’s race in Kansas. Both are immigration patriots, and should have been part of the Trump Administration from the beginning. For whatever reason, they weren’t, and now both have lost races in their home states. President Trump, always in desperate need of loyalists for his White House, should immediately place them somewhere useful.
Update: you can add Scott Walker of Wisconsin to the list of unemployed white men who can be given jobs in the Trump administration.
