Balkanized
Whelp, yesterday’s midterm election didn’t exactly shape up into the nationwide Red Tsunami people were expecting, did it? I suspect the country has become too balkanized for any kind of national “wave” election to happen again.
That’s not to say there weren’t any statewide Red Waves yesterday. Even at a time when the country is balkanized, wave elections can still happen on the state level.
Take the staggering Red Tsunami in Florida.
Florida’s midterm election was one for the history books.
Just four years ago, Ron DeSantis barely eked out a victory over the Democrat candidate, that gay-romping meth-head Andrew Gillium.
Four years later, DeSantis crushed his Democrat challenger Charlie Crist by nearly 20 points.
DeSantis even carried the traditionally Democrat stronghold of Miami-Dade, getting over 55 percent of the vote in that reliably blue county.
But he wasn’t alone. Senator Marco Rubio also beat his Democrat opponent Congresswoman Val Demings by over a million votes.
On top of that, Republicans gained four Florida congressional districts.
That, my friends, was a Red Tsunami.
Then again, Florida has balkanized. Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents are flocking to the state, fleeing equally balkanized Democrat strongholds like New York and California.
This is one reason Republican Lee Zeldin lost in New York to that odious fishwife Kathy Hochul. The New Yorkers who would have joyously voted for him were casting their votes for Republicans like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Brian Kemp, or Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
We’ve become balkanized to the point where America is no longer 50 united states but 50 disparate states, with some hating our values and others embracing them.
For at least a year now, Jesse Kelly has been urging people to balkanize. Get the hell out of states that hate you and move to a place that shares your values and culture, and then vote in every election — local, state, and federal — to make sure it stays that way.
Jesse describes this as a “tactical retreat,” protecting what you can and abandoning what you can’t.
Sure, there are still small minorities of people that remain behind that don’t share the majority’s values. But with our politics growing increasingly contentious and the division between Right and Left expanding, I’ve no doubt that those who held out hope that things would change in their state are now considering a “tactical retreat” as well.
In states like New York, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, and California, the battle is lost. I don’t see any of them shifting away from the radical Democrats in my lifetime. The Democrats are dug-in, and they will fight like hell to keep it that way.
Republicans have to be just as viciously committed to protecting their states as the Democrats are.
On a related note, I have concluded that polling outfits are about as reliable as gas station sushi.
Boy did they get this one wrong.
Perhaps this is part of our balkanization, who knows?
My only other takeaway from the election is that Ron DeSantis is the future of the Republican Party because he has mastered fighting like hell to protect his state. He is a model for every other Republican governor and elected official.
I’m sure both the NeverTrumpers and ForeverTrumpers won’t like that since so much of their life’s meaning is wrapped up in Donald Trump.
But it is what it is.
The paradigm has shifted.
Donald Trump isn’t the epicenter of the GOP and likely hasn’t been for the better part of a year.
Aside from the ForeverTrumpers, Donald Trump has been losing support among Republican voters since he left office.
And his attacks on Republican candidates running in the midterm, along with his refusal to shut the hell up about 2020 and his greedy need to place loyalty to him above being a team player have all hurt his standing with Republican voters.
And I’m not just talking about Republicans who never liked or voted for Trump. He is losing ground among the people who voted for him both in 2016 and 2020.
And if Donald Trump does follow through on his endless teasing and announces he is running again in 2024, I doubt the news will be met with the level of excitement he is expecting.
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