In 2 of your [awesome]podcasts you brought up the emails you have received re the 2022 midterm elections.
For the most part the media and commentators were predicting a red wave for the Republican party. It didn’t seem like it would be unlikely. All the parameters were there, based on past elections. i wasn’t that optimistic and always added a warning to people it might be overhyped. There were as many cues it wouldn’t be a wave as there were it would be. Another words it was a 50/50 chance either way. The pundits were talking like it was a sure thing. {Nothing is a sure thing}
We know how it turned out. It was what i would characterize as a mixed bag probably more in keeping with what was the most likely.You noted all the emails from Trump supporters stating they weren’t going to vote or didn’t vote; even proudly didn’t vote.
I was shocked and frankly disappointed. I envisioned historic turn out between the MAGA voters and the Republican voters. We were all on the same page.I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would not vote. The stakes were too high. I was sure the Trump supporters would be the ones we could count on the most. However, every chance i got i would say the same thing. We vote-we win. We don’t vote-we lose. I had no inkling of what was coming so there was no reason to doubt people would show up.
I figured it was worth reminding people anyway.
The final and probably most consequential was the Georgia Senate race between Walker and Warnock.
Walker was the Trump endorsed candidate. He was a good man. I could see why Trump would endorse him. Trump’s endorsement record was pretty impressive up till this point.The question remains then; why did people stay at home for the more critical races at the tail end?
We could note it was a small group, a minority. The problem is any candidate can lose by just a small margin; a minority could make the biggest difference. It’s exactly what happened in Georgia. These people seemed to be saying their vote wouldn’t have counted because the election would be rigged or the Democrats would cheat. Unfortunately that’s MORE reason to vote, not less.
It comes back to the warning i sent out. Simple; you vote-we win.You don’t -we lose. Good turn out overcomes fraud. It means we win DESPITE the problems.The vote you think isn’t going to matter, matters a lot.
The Senate seat was critical. The Democrats knew it too. They wanted that seat badly.
Why would we not vote in that race?
A win for us would have sent the message to the Biden administration that we rejected his policies. It would have sent a strong message to McConnell and the Republican establishment that we were a force to be reckoned with. It would have put the Democrats on notice & slowed down their radical agenda. Finally, it would have set the stage for Trump in 2024 in his bid for the White House.On the state level Walker would have better served the interest of Georgians. i don’t care if he did win, Warnock was a terrible candidate.
THE SMEAR AGAINST WALKER(ABORTION)
We all knew Herschel had a past but we were voting on the man he was in 2022.There isn’t a candidate on the planet that isn’t flawed in some way. However, it does seem like every time it’s a black conservative male these sexual misconduct allegations always come up. Herman Cain dropped out of his race after they pulled it on him. When that one was all said and done we had no idea if the allegations were even true.
The smear against Herschel was worse because,according to the allegation, it involved an abortion. I don’t see how the left could possibly condemn Walker. Aren’t they the ones who support a woman’s ‘right to choose’? If Herschel did support a woman procuring an abortion wouldn’t that put him on their side of the issue? You know their m.o.though They would have attacked us for voting for Walker calling us hypocrites. What the left always fails to understand is that the Christian voter believes in redemption. If a person turns their life around we always cut them some slack. Ir’s only when a person persists in an old behavior while claiming they’ve changed that we have reason to be skeptical. The secular world view understands that people make mistakes and can change. The Christian world view understands that people are sinners but their life can be changed by grace. The Democrats have been known to lie though and make false allegations just to take out a political opponent. They lied on a grand scale to get at Pres Trump. It’s come to the point i don’t put anything past them, including the accusation against Walker.
THE FALL OUT
Herschel actually lost by a very small margin; probably equal to the number of people who chose to sit it out.Trump’s record of endorsements was darned good. Unfortunately his losses were made a bigger deal than his wins. The one that hurt most was the Georgia loss followed by Kari Lake’s run for Governor in Arizona. I still can’t believe the drama that followed. It wasn’t the outcome we wanted-the red wave- but had people not built that expectation up in the first place we might not have had Republicans carrying on like it was apocalyptic. We got the House and Pelosi retired. Yes, i wanted Walker and Lake to win more than anything. There were other races we should have won and didn’t.I wasn’t the least bit disappointed to know that Pelosi was packing up and leaving the swamp. i can’t tell you how many Republicans i ran into who were already throwing Trump under the bus. They had their mantra; it’s time to move on they said. He took a beating over Georgia and Arizona but not from the left. So Walker lost and i’m surehe took it hard after everything he went through. He had such high hopes for the people of Georgia.Trump was already getting tossed out[,in my opinion] by a very thin skinned group of people. The Democrats were celebrating their Senate gain knowing it would push ahead their agenda at lightning speed. On the plus side Pelosi would be packing and maybe the Republicans would start having some honest soul searching; if they are willing to stop using Trump as a scapegoat. i’m fairly certain the Never Trumpers were behind some of the losses as much as the Democrats were. They worked against us from the beginning. Sometimes they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. i just wish the people who decided not to vote especially the ones who said they were proud not to vote would realize the consequences of that choice.Maybe they thought it would shake things up. It did, in the wrong way with the wrong message. It cost us a seat that was critical we hang onto. It could have destroyed Trump and ruined any chance he had for 2024. We would have come out stronger and had more leverage with the establishment had we won. We didn’t fix them. We certainly didn’t fix Biden.
THE FUTURE
I think we can pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off. Thankfully we’ve had a win for free speech with Elon Musk taking over Twitter. Should the Republicans in the House get their act together we might stand a chance.against the radical [MARXIST] Democrat party. Trump will come back. He’s not one to retreat from battle. Please vote the next time though. The Democrats always circle the wagons no matter how terrible their candidate is. The one thing they won’t do is stay home.
THIS IS NOT AN ANALYSIS!
I would not consider anything said here an analysis of WHY we lost. There were too many people anxious to pin it on Pres Trump as it is. It was not any one factor and certainly not any one person. I honestly only intended to point out why i thought not voting was counter intuitive and encourage people to go the polls the next time. The bottom line for the Republican party is that they need to get people to go to the polls in the first place.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states a position for Catholics:
“Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community… “Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country.”
There is a caveat:
“The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel.”
There are instances where we may have to vote for the candidate who would be more protective of our moral principles than the opponent. For instance ,we would want to vote for someone who would support abortion restrictions rather than someone who would support abortion upon demand, that is, no restrictions at all.
Trump:The American Years 