Democrats Won’t Win the Midterms
Everywhere you look in American politics, you’ll see two things.
First are polls, predictions, and posturing around the concept that MAGA is finished, the Democrats are ascendant, and the midterm elections will be an absolute wipeout.
And second are concrete examples showing that the Democrat Party is a collection of unmitigated angry, malignant clowns.
I’m going to trust that I don’t have to take the reader through the endless litany of examples of the first contention. You’ve surely seen enough of that. Rather, I’ll focus on the second. And then take some time to relate it to the first.
And I’ll start with the best example of how utterly disqualified the American Left is to hold power over their fellow man. Which isn’t the Code Pink “convoy” that set up shop at a five-star hotel in Cuba over the weekend, delivering three tons of “humanitarian aid” (delivered to the same government that has immiserated the people needing that aid for 67 years and almost certainly confiscated and profiteered off it over the weekend) before holding a decadent party and a rap concert by an Irish group regaling the crowd of aging Trader Joe’s patrons with shouts of “F**k ICE” and “Free Palestine!”
Melissa and I did a Spectacle Podcast segment on that which you should check out. I enjoyed that discussion more than she did.
No, while the Code Pink fiasco was a very good example of why banishing these people to the fringe of American politics is crucial to national survival, it wasn’t the best.
The best — worst, perhaps, in moral terms, comes from Chicago.
There, an 18-year-old college student named Sheridan Gorman — a freshman at Loyola University — was hanging out with friends on a pier along the shore of Lake Michigan and looking at the Northern Lights. Along came a masked assailant as Sheridan and her friends were walking, which set them to flee. The assailant, an illegal from Venezuela named Jose Medina let into the country on May 9, 2023, by the Biden administration despite carrying a criminal record in his home country, shot Sheridan in the back, killing her.
You cannot find a more complete outrage than this, which is not to minimize countless other similar outrages.
Jose Medina was deliberately let into this country even though he was a known criminal. He was caught by the border patrol and let loose. He then committed a crime here and was still not deported. And now Sheridan Gorman is dead.
Foreseeable. Preventable. Inexcusable.
And a precursor to this:
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson just unveiled an “Abolish ICE” snow plow.
Less than a week after Sheridan Gorman was murdered in his city by an illegal alien. pic.twitter.com/C6teobdrUn
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 25, 2026
I recognize that using Brandon Johnson as a standard for the Democrat Party isn’t fair. Except Johnson is the mayor of America’s third-largest city, so while he might be an abject moron, he’s not an insignificant abject moron.
And then there is Lina Hidalgo, who is the county judge in Harris County, Texas, a position that essentially makes her the chief executive officer of the county that Houston — America’s fourth-largest city — is in.
Here’s Lina Hidalgo:
Harris Co. Judge Lina Hidalgo MELTDOWNS Part II + NEW EPISODE: https://t.co/WxOtUzm14S pic.twitter.com/3QnZMJYuMl
— Real Texas Radio Podcast (@RTR_bronin) March 16, 2026
Harris County has about the same leadership profile that Iran does right now — though we know Hidalgo is alive, unlike Moqtada Khamenei, based on the money she spends.
And the deleterious effect she’s had on the Houston rodeo:
UPDATE | Rodeo officials now say Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo was told before the show that she wouldn’t be allowed on the ground level, or chute seating. Hidalgo’s leadership position has also been revoked -> https://t.co/dq4hm2R5SI pic.twitter.com/VYbUkDR8ml
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) March 13, 2026
If you haven’t heard about this, a couple of weeks ago Hidalgo got herself kicked out of the rodeo because she was trying to crash the VIP seating at the event.
What happened next at the rodeo wasn’t related to Hidalgo, other than that it’s a pretty good reflection on the direction Houston is moving in thanks to her leadership:
It looks like the local Democrat Socialists of America are really upset about the Houston rodeo kicking out Lina Hidalgo
— Kenny Webster (@KennethRWebster) March 15, 2026
And now there are calls for her to resign:
Republican Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey called for County Judge Lina Hidalgo to resign after her removal from the Houston rodeo sparked a dispute with the event’s leadership. https://t.co/sl0tsZCYf1 pic.twitter.com/Fj44seU4pj
— Houston Chronicle (@HoustonChron) March 16, 2026
Also from Houston? This guy, who some would have you believe will be the next senator from the great state of Texas:
In 2022, James Talarico said it’s “existential” to reduce meat consumption to fight climate change.
“I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign… We are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.” pic.twitter.com/tz6K1aGYsy
— Bobby LaValley (@Bobby_LaVallley) March 17, 2026
That was in 2022. Not much has changed. James Talarico is every bit the lunatic he was four years ago:
WATCH:
James Talarico says his declaration that God is “nonbinary” isn’t theologically “controversial” and suggests “most” Christians believe it. pic.twitter.com/sXyupavo2l
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) March 20, 2026
A recap of what James Talarico believes:
– Jesus Christ was a “radical feminist”
– White men are the “greatest” terror threat
– There are “six” biological sexes
– The border should be a “front porch”
– Atheists are “more Christ-like” than ChristiansTalarico is too woke, too… pic.twitter.com/R72OMkIuqj
— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) March 5, 2026
And Talarico is now being made into a martyr of sorts because on a Christian podcast, the pastor at whose church War Secretary Pete Hegseth worships made a controversial statement about his apostasy:
Pete Hegseth’s pastor says he wants James Talarico to die and be crucified:
Podcast host: “I pray that God kills him.”
Pete Hegseth’s pastor: “Right, right. We want him crucified” pic.twitter.com/DOvZuMsUyv
— FactPost (@factpostnews) March 25, 2026
This is a plea for Talarico to see the error of his ways and be reborn as an actual Christian. It is not a religious fatwa calling for his murder. It’s less than palatable as a political statement, but it’s not intended that way — it’s a religious and spiritual statement.
But we’re to believe Talarico is the good guy in all of this, of course, and not a raving lunatic about as close to 180 degrees from the mainstream of Texas politics as it’s possible to be.
Want more? Fine. We’ll go to Washington, D.C., where the Democrats are not only causing long lines at airports across the country by insisting on a partial government shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the Transportation Security Agency, but have no apparent plans to make a deal to reopen the government. Sen. John Kennedy was on CNN Wednesday talking about an apparently failed effort to break the logjam:
???? JUST IN: Sen. John Kennedy reveals Chuck Schumer has BLOWN UP GOP plans to reopen DHS with Democrats, then fund ICE through reconciliation
Schumer now demands ALL of his ICE reforms be met
“Schumer changed his mind.”
Just NUKE the filibuster NOW! pic.twitter.com/Oq0aubkgKF
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) March 25, 2026
Let’s call this less than consistent. And certainly lacking in good faith.
I won’t even get into the nonstop regurgitation of Iranian regime propaganda, of which so many of Schumer’s fellow elected Democrats are guilty.
With all of this happening — and I could continue breaking out example after example of Democrats demonstrating either unbelievably poor optics, utter and total incompetence (I refrained from bringing up Zohran Mamdani, because this column would be 2,000 words in no time flat if I did), or thorough anti-Americanism, or perhaps all three — how is it possible that anyone thinks that’s a party poised to gain anything?
It isn’t complicated.
The fact is, the midterm elections are likely to be a referendum not on Democrat fidelity or competence — they’d be dead in the water if it was — but rather that of the GOP.
Midterm elections are about Congress, and who controls it.
And Congress is an absolute fiasco at the moment.
Specifically, the Senate is the real fiasco.
Kennedy’s description of where the Senate is on the two major items in front of it — resolving the government shutdown and passing the SAVE America Act — may or may not be 100 percent accurate as to the facts, but as to the spirit of the Senate body it seems pretty spot on.
Absolute dysfunction is the name of the game.
It should be exceptionally easy for Majority Leader John Thune to force a talking filibuster on the DHS funding bill and ending the shutdown.
Though as I noted in another segment of The Spectacle this week, the easiest thing of all to do to alleviate the effects of the shutdown, specifically the lines at the airports, would be to simply disband the TSA and give airport security to the airports and airlines. You’d be breaking up a 50,000-strong government employee union that donates money to Democrats, you’d allow Americans to reclaim our belts, shoes, and dignity before boarding a plane, and you’d increase convenience to the umpteenth degree with no discernible increase in terrorist threats. TSA does security theater, not security; everybody knows that.
In fact, if memory serves it was Chuck Schumer who insisted on creating a unionized government bureaucracy to provide airport security after 9/11. Now he doesn’t want to fund his own creation? No problem.
Thune should be talking about that. President Trump should be acting on it. Instead, Trump is repurposing ICE agents to help with airport security, which makes for an interesting bit of political ju-jitsu but is nonetheless a distraction from the mass deportations we desperately need to continue.
The issue isn’t that the public agrees with the Democrats. The Democrat Party is about as popular as shingles or anal warts with most Americans.
The issue is that Republican voters are demoralized and checked out (the latter is a fairly normal phenomenon; Republican voters pay attention to elections when it’s time to, while the Left treats politics as their religion and won’t stop taking the sacraments). But Democrats are stirred up like their anthill has been kicked over.
And the crazier and more offensive their leaders get, the more fired up they are.
Trump’s statements on Iran and other things don’t have that effect on his own voters. They’re more of a mixed bag, and they generally aren’t intended for domestic political consumption. For example, on Iran he’s taking on the position of strategic instability, making himself enigmatic as a means of building negotiating leverage. That’s a long-standing pattern with him, and it often flies in the face of political expediency.
And we’re more than half a year away from the midterms, so nothing Trump says really matters right now.
Except if the GOP can’t rack up wins while in power, it won’t matter what Trump says later, either.
And there aren’t many — any — wins to brag about right now.
That’s what’s creating the perception that the midterms will be a disaster, even though the Democrats are the true disaster.
There is time to fix this. The problem is a palpable lack of an inclination to do so. And that’s the real fiasco facing the country.
READ MORE by Scott McKay: