Monday, November 02, 2026
The MAGA Reckoning Hopefully Is About to Arrive
In the first months of Donald Trump’s first term, as one moral outrage followed another, I often found myself repeating, in conversation, a seven-word phrase: Where there’s no bottom, there’s no bottom. However bad things got, they were bound to get worse. That applied above all to Trump, but also to his party, which was fusing with him.
We’ve since seen endless examples of what “no bottom” looks like. The latest is an ad from Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running for governor of Ohio. It features the estranged mother of Ramaswamy’s opponent, Amy Acton, calling her daughter a liar about her childhood and urging Ohioans not to vote for her.
Here is what we know about that childhood. In 1978, when Acton was 12, her stepfather, Cledith Arthur, was indicted for raping her. He fled to Pennsylvania, where he died as a fugitive in 2004. Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s custody, and she has not spoken with her mother since. Her mother, Donna Arthur, stayed married to the man charged with raping her daughter until he died.
Ohio’s current governor, Mike DeWine, called the ad “deeply, deeply troubling.” But the two most important Republicans in the country, Trump and Vice President Vance, defended it. Trump called it “very powerful” and wrote, “Who wouldn’t use such an Ad? . . . . This is what family values look like to Republicans in the Trump era.
As a young conservative in the 1980s . . . . I was especially shaped by George Will’s 1983 book, Statecraft as Soulcraft: What Government Does, which argued that statecraft is inherently “soulcraft,” the cultivation of public spirit and moral sensibilities. These thinkers shared the conviction that self-government depends on what Kristol called “republican virtue.”
They believed, too, that norms are fragile and that the membrane separating civilization from barbarism is thin. Character and conscience need to be cultivated. Public discourse either elevates or degrades, moving us away from or closer to a will-to-power ethic. The conduct of leaders, including political leaders, is educative. And when deviancy becomes widespread, we grow used to it. It was a Democrat, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who coined the phrase defining deviancy down, by which he meant that a society overwhelmed by destructive behavior lowers its standards rather than confronting it.
None of this means that conservatives, or the Republican Party, were paragons of virtue.. . . . But their aspirations were ennobling, and some of them lived lives that matched their words.
Today the American right is not merely indifferent to character formation; it is in the business of character deformation. It takes pride in its transgressiveness. The Ramaswamy ad embodies the “no bottom” ethic of the Trump-era GOP, and its wickedness comes in layers.
Cruelty and coarseness have momentum, but they also have limits. Political leaders who relentlessly push brutality do lower a nation’s standards, at least for a time. But if we’re fortunate, they also awaken its conscience. The revulsion comes first, almost physical, like bile rising in the throat. . . .The reckoning follows.
The anti-MAGA reckoning may have finally begun, though much later than it should have. Trump has lost most of the country. His hold on his own base is weakening; its members, like everyone else, are suffering because of the staggering incompetence of the president. And many of those who continue to support Trump are exhausted. In Ohio, a GOP poll shows that the Ramaswamy ad is backfiring. . . . those who said they were familiar with it said it made them more likely to vote for Acton.
But Ohio alone won’t be enough. A true repudiation of the politics of savagery will require a rebuke from voters in every region of America. It should come, and in a good society it would.
The Republican Party, after all, is led by a man found liable for sexually abusing a woman and then defaming her. The president has rallied behind an ad featuring a mother who, rather than stand by her 12-year-old daughter, sided with the man charged with raping the girl. Trump mocked the murder of one critic and openly cheered the death of another. He has called his political opponents “vermin,” said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country, . . His misogyny is undisguised; so is his bigotry. As president, he has enriched himself and his family by billions of dollars. He swoons over dictators while treating Canada as an enemy. He lies and distorts reality on a scale that was once unimaginable. He incited a violent attack on the Capitol in an effort to overturn an election. The list goes on. No American president has matched Trump’s limitless corruption or his cruelty.
The election, and especially the reelection, of Donald Trump caused me, for the first time in my life, to question the fundamental decency of America. I could not understand how anyone, especially my co-religionists, could look at such a squalid figure and vote for him, let alone support him enthusiastically. . . . . Don’t honor and integrity matter? Isn’t Trump’s peculiar form of madness an obvious disqualifier?
For tens of millions of Americans—more than 77 million in 2024 alone—the answer has been no. That stain is now a permanent part of the American story. But the story isn’t over. We can move beyond this grotesque chapter to something better, though the path won’t be smooth. Even if Democrats sweep the midterms, Trump will still be president, and his closing act will likely involve trying to tear the country apart. We can’t allow him to do that.
We need to get to the other side of this era with our institutions, our bonds to one another, and our commitment to justice and the rule of law intact, and then begin the work of reclaiming American ideals. A wipeout of the party of Trump on Tuesday would be an awfully helpful step in that direction.
Sunday, November 01, 2026
The GOP Braces for Some Once-Unthinkable Losses
Over the past decade countless congressional Republicans have prostituted themselves to the Felon and in general rubber stamped his pro-billionaire, anti-working class agenda that have showered tax cuts on the ultra-rich and large cut social programs ranging from SNAP benefits to Medicaid coverage. Many have happily prostituted themselves - think of the photos of gathering of House Republicans celebrating the "big beautiful bill" - while others have shown no spine and quietly gone along with the reverse Robin Hood agenda. Now, with the Felon extremely unpopular, his war of choice and tariffs making the cost of living soar, the bill for such blind obedience and harmful policies may be about to come due, if the polls and believed congressional seats in play in ruby red states, a number being labeled as "toss ups." It's telling that in some of these contested seats in red states that all Republicans can do is trot out ads demonizing transgender citizens since they have passed zero legislation that aids the majority of voters, especially working class voters. I am cautiously optimistic that the polls will hold and that Democrats retake control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Like others I worry what lies and extreme actions the Felon may take if his party suffers severe losses. A piece at Politico looks at the current situation:
Republicans are bracing for a brutal election night, convinced they’re set to face some previously unthinkable losses in deep-red Trump territory as key battleground races hang on a knife’s edge.
House Republicans are privately discussing not just if they’ll lose their majority, but by how many seats. Imperiled GOP incumbents in once safe districts have been begging party leaders for more money in the final few days to stem the bleeding, according to six people involved in internal conversations, granted anonymity to discuss them. Senate Republicans have found new cause to worry about contests in Ohio, Kansas and other red states.
“It could be quite a brutal evening,” said one senior Republican involved in the private conversations, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Once the dominoes start falling it becomes hard to stop them.”
Some Republican incumbents made an eyebrow-raising emergency decision. They stopped doing their own polling weeks ago as they tried to save every dollar for swaying voters as they begged for the GOP cavalry to arrive from President Donald Trump’s political operation to the National Republican Congressional Committee, according to three of the people.
One Republican strategist working on midterm races simply responded to a question about the environment with a video of a dumpster on fire that was being swept away by flood waters.
Top GOP officials and lawmakers have long known the political landscape would be bad, amid voter anger over the cost of living and aspects of Trump’s policy agenda. But they’re facing a worse position than they expected earlier this year, with less than one week until Election Day.
Republicans for weeks have worried that young men who’d voted for Trump, including white and Hispanic working class voters, will stay home amid disillusionment with high costs and the Iran war.
That alone could allow Democrats to overperform in some areas after they hemorrhaged support among that voting bloc in 2024.
At a Kwik Trip in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, this week in the hotly-contested 3rd District, Isaiah Romero was filling up his silver Ram truck. The 20-year-old said he cast his ballot for Trump in his first ever presidential election two years ago. His verdict on high fuel prices? “I think they’re bull,” he said as he looked over to the $6.39 per gallon diesel and $4.29 gas at the pump. Is he voting this time? “No,” Romero responded, adding: “I didn’t vote for this.”
“Any Democrats telling you they aren’t winning the Senate [besides] a couple of seats are sandbagging expectations,” the senior Republican said.
In Ohio, the race between GOP Sen. Jon Husted and former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is still incredibly close in private and public polling. But Republicans have watched with horror as GOP governor nominee “Vivek’s [Ramaswamy’s] numbers have gone off a cliff” in the last few days after he ran an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother saying her daughter is a liar, according to the senior Republican and two others who saw the internal polling. Acton’s stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12.
The headwinds across all of Ohio are deeply problematic for Republicans. They now believe embattled Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) — who is facing child and domestic abuse allegations that he denies — will lose in a seat Trump won by double digits.
South Carolina has become another unexpectedly nailbiting race for Republicans, where political newcomer Sen. Darline Graham is facing a well-funded Democratic challenger.
But in one of the most dire signs, once-unimaginable GOP worries have started to creep about deep-red Louisiana — where Trump announced this week he will hold an election-eve tele-rally for Senate nominee Julia Letlow. Speaker Mike Johnson, who is close with Letlow, will join as Republicans have grown wary about a surge of Black voters and other Democratic-leaning voters in early voting across the South. Senior Republicans believe Letlow will win, but they fear it will be by single digits if nothing changes.
“The cakewalk turned into a knife fight,” said one Louisiana Republican who has talked with Letlow recently. “If Democrat turnout surges on Election Day, it’ll be a long night in Monroe,” the person added, and they expect Letlow to win by just 6 points in a state Trump won by 22 points two years ago.
In another painful development for Republicans in Louisiana, GOP groups have even started an eye-popping spending war in a safe red gerrymandered seat — where a bitter Republican-on-Republican primary is unfolding between state Sen. Blake Miguez, who was formerly endorsed by Trump, and state Sen. Rick Edmonds, Johnson’s former pastor.
On the House side, Republicans are bracing for a brutal night. But they’ve long been spending in some redder GOP districts to forestall a true disaster.
Republicans still think they can unseat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.), while flipping retiring Rep. Jared Golden’s (D-Maine) seat. But privately, Republicans believe North Carolina’s open 11th District is close to gone, as are several other deep-red seats Trump won by double digits, according to four people with knowledge of the situation. And they’re still not confident they’ll beat Rep. Don Davis (D-N.C.) in a seat the GOP thought would be an easy flip when they redrew it early this year. It’s become the most expensive House race in history.
The Republican in Kentucky’s 6th district, where Trump won by 15 points in 2024, is barely hanging on, according to the four people.
Even in the South Texas districts the GOP redrew in their favor, Republicans reached the point days ago where no amount of new money is going to change the upcoming catastrophe, said one Republican official involved in conversations about those races.
Johnson traveled to Minnesota on Thursday to headline a fundraiser for GOP Rep. Brad Finstad, who Republicans are scrambling to shore up in a +12 Trump district.
Senate Democrats, meanwhile, are upbeat at their prospects, but public and private polling across close to the entire battleground map is running within the margin of error — meaning those states could break either way.
“I would rather be us than them. But if anyone tells you they know what’s going to happen, they’re full of shit,” one senior Senate Democratic operative said. “Everything is close.”
And some Republicans are taking solace in the fact that at least it’ll all soon be over. “I can see the light at the end of the tunnel,” said a GOP strategist working on a campaign that is trending toward Democrats. “It might be a semi-truck, but at least I can see it.”
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Democrats Are the Populist Party Now
In the waning days of the midterm election campaign, Republicans have finally stumbled on a closing message: defending the honor of the Cheesecake Factory.
Last week, Barack Obama made a viral crack about Donald Trump’s renovations: “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” Conservatives feigned outrage on behalf of the humble American volk for whom the Cheesecake Factory is the height of sophistication.
The Wall Street Journal suggested that Democrats had shot themselves in the foot in their quest to win back “the working man in Middle America.” The White House posted a list of Trump’s “accomplishments” in the style of a Cheesecake Factory menu.
Republicans have been trying to brand Democrats as the party of out-of-touch elitists since at least the 1960s, but this time, it felt particularly forced and desperate. After all, it’s become screamingly obvious which party represents billionaires and unchecked plutocratic power.
On the stump this week, an increasingly disinhibited Trump scoffed at the idea of “suffering at the pump” while boasting that high oil prices have been a windfall for the energy industry. Elon Musk, the richest person on earth, is almost single-handedly funding the Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton’s campaign. Susan Collins ran a closing ad in which a retired broadcaster seemed to mock her Democratic opponent, Troy Jackson, for being a logger, saying, “We’re not talking about buying a cord of wood here; we’re sending someone to the U.S. Senate.”
Meanwhile, Democrats all over the country are running against the ultrarich. “The biggest divide in this country is not left versus right,” the Texas Senate candidate James Talarico says on the campaign trail. “It’s top versus bottom.” In the Michigan Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed is a political protégé of Bernie Sanders who accuses his opponent, Mike Rogers, of being bought by corporations. Former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, defeated with the help of crypto dollars two years ago, may regain his seat thanks in part to widespread fury at data centers and the tech billionaires behind them.
If Democrats win big on Tuesday after running such populist campaigns, it will be more than a victory over Trump. It will be an opportunity for them to once again develop an image as the champion of working people against predatory elites. That, in turn, could realign American politics. But it will happen only if Democrats can resist the entreaties of the tech donors and lobbyists who, having realized that going all in on MAGA was a bad bet, will now spend big to rebuild bridges to the center left.
For decades now, American politics has been shaped by two very different conceptions of class. Liberals tend to view class as a primarily economic distinction: a millionaire car dealer in the Midwest has a class advantage over a Brooklyn adjunct professor on food stamps. Conservatives, by contrast, are more likely to understand class as a matter of taste, culture and education.
If anything, as the two parties sorted by education, they became a kind of cultural common sense. Obama, who was still paying off student debt in his 40s, was tagged as an elitist, while Trump, who loves to brag about his wealth, was not.
The 2024 election was a triumph for the right’s conception of class politics, with Trump making gains with low-income voters while Kamala Harris won those earning over $200,000 a year. In surveys and focus groups, voters described Democrats as elitist and condescending. . . . 56 percent of respondents said the party didn’t look out for working people, and a majority said Democrats didn’t share their values. The road to winning back working-class voters looked difficult and uncertain.
Trump, by abandoning all restraint in his kleptocratic smash-and-grab, has made it easier. In a September poll from The New York Times and Siena University, voters identified Republicans as the “elitist” party by 10 points. The Times quoted a 40-year-old who’d voted for Trump two years earlier: “The people that are ‘in with him,’ who look or act a certain way, are the ones that are going to be given an opportunity.”
Few things have laid bare the president’s essential elitism like his alliance with America’s tech oligarchs. Trump ran against Big Tech in 2020, when he saw it as an ally of Democrats, but he was less interested in curbing the industry’s power than co-opting it. Now that he’s done that, tying Silicon Valley’s fortunes to his own, he can’t countenance criticism of it.
Silicon Valley was once seen as a bastion of liberalism, but a recent Politico poll found that voters across the political spectrum now associate it with the Republican Party. At the same time, Big Tech — and particularly A.I. and data centers — has rarely been more reviled. This summer, a leaked memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee called data centers “a sleeper issue for the entire election cycle” and warned that public fury about them could cost the Republican Jon Husted his Senate seat in Ohio.
In Pennsylvania’s Eighth District, held by a Republican, Rob Bresnahan, 51 percent of respondents feel strongly unfavorably toward data centers. Only 5 percent feel strongly favorably. Voters see A.I., Flaherty told me, as “these guys sitting in a room somewhere cooking up technology that’s going to make your life worse, making you pay for it, and buying off the government to do it.”
Now that Democrats seem likely to retake at least one house of Congress, tech companies are rushing to hire Democratic lobbyists. Given the enormous resources Silicon Valley kingpins wield, some Democrats might be tempted to seek a rapprochement with the industry. . . . The opportunity before Democrats is about more than being on the right side of a winning issue. Democrats have a unique chance, after decades of culture wars, to wrest the mantle of populism from Republicans and thus change the terrain on which American elections are fought.
“They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt said in 1936 about monopolists, speculators and war profiteers. Democrats should remember his words when they retake power. A good enemy is a terrible thing to waste.
Friday, October 30, 2026
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