Messenger vs. Message

Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States.  Contrary to some highly irresponsible claims, Biden will not win by theft, but by people actually voting for him.  It frustrates me to see my own party demanding lawfully cast ballots not be counted.

I am opposed to counting ballots that show up after Election Day.  I think ballots need to be in by Election Day.  Those that arrive by Election Day need to be counted and those votes will hand Biden the presidency.  There are issues for which the GOP should force accountability in the vote, including the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wanting to accept all ballots, including those that show up after Election Day.  But the GOP should not be so willfully trying to claim a stolen election.  Democrats are not out manufacturing tens of thousands of votes and Republicans who think that need psychotherapy. 

Hanging on to that grievance and playing the victim also will cause the Republicans to lose sight of just how well they did.  Donald Trump may have lost, but Republicans held the United States Senate, added seats to the House of Representatives, gained a state legislative chamber while holding all their others, and picked up a gubernatorial seat.  Republicans will control redistricting for congressional and state legislative races in most states for the next decade despite losing the White House.  That is a very good thing.  

That success also is more evidence the election was not stolen.  Stealing the presidency and not the Senate so the Republicans can block the President’s agenda and deny him his judicial picks really would be a waste of time.  Stealing the presidency while ensuring the GOP can control the majority of redistricting for the next decade would be silly.

Donald Trump clearly brought more black and Hispanic voters into the GOP than prior Republican nominees.  They came for two issues: jobs and education.  If Republicans are able to show non-white voters that they will give their kids good educations and help them compete on a level playing field for jobs, the GOP can cement itself as a part of the working class across racial and ethnic lines.  

Starr County, TX is the most Hispanic county in America with a 95.7% Hispanic population.  Hillary Clinton won it in 2016 with over 65% of the vote.  Joe Biden won it too, but only by 5%.  In Florida, Hispanic voters and young black men turned out for the GOP.  Certainly, it was not a majority of young black men, but it was a significant enough number to help the GOP.  There is a realignment coming as secular, rich white people leave the GOP for the Democrats and more culturally conservative Hispanic and black voters leave the Democrats.

All the data points to a few things.  Donald Trump’s policies are broadly popular.  The nation just ensured a Republican Senate can block President Biden.  The nation rewarded Republicans who would advance the President’s agenda down to the state level.  The President himself was a flawed and undisciplined messenger for his message and the nation rejected him.  Likewise, the nation rejected the progressive agenda that many Democrats want Joe Biden to pursue.

In the month prior to the election, Democrats began openly bragging that they would scrap the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, enact a government-run healthcare scheme, pass the so-called Green New Deal, and end fracking.  So convinced of Joe Biden’s win, they were boastful of these things.  Concurrently, they blocked a COVID relief package assuming they’d be able to use the failure of a deal to gain the Senate.

American voters have flat out rejected all of that.  Americans have rejected the socialist revolution progressives called for.  Americans have rejected court-packing, government healthcare schemes, and silly environmental proposals.  They embraced Joe Biden as a President they would not have to think about every day and rejected ever passing his and the Democrats’ agenda.

Voters rejected the Republican’s messenger.  Voters rejected the Democrats’ message.  Though the American political press has long cheered the end of a viable Republican Party because of demographic shifts, the GOP is more viable now than the Democratic Party.