Donald Trump long ago promised Republicans that, with him as their leader, there’d be so many wins, they’d tire of winning. He didn’t say the wins ultimately would be Democrats’.
In the wake of a wipeout for the ages, is the Republican Party so tired of Democrats’ winning that it will finally quit Trump? Don’t count on it. Yet. But that question will define the 2028 presidential election cycle, which began the day after Republicans’ rout — and President Trump’s much-deserved rebuke — in Tuesday’s midterm elections. For Republicans, keeping the garishly gilded White House after 2028 just got a lot harder.
Trump promised retribution. The American voters took theirs. Vote as if I’m on the ballot, Trump said at his campaign rallies, and voters did. Yet Trump predictably blamed others, the Republican candidates themselves, for the losses even though he hand-picked many of the biggest losers (“losers” in every sense of the word; candidate quality matters).
Trump was right about one thing: For a century, the party of the president typically has lost seats, in Congress and governorships and statehouses, as voters send a message to the White House of dissatisfaction with its direction. Bill Clinton had his “drubbing” in 1994, George W. Bush his “thumping” in 2006 and Barack Obama his “shellacking” in 2010. Yet each president, by those words, acknowledged that the voters’ message was to them and conceded their responsibility for their parties’ losses. And each one changed course somehow.
Not Trump, though his spanking (yep, that’s a nod to his bizarre late-campaign obsession with men’s butts) was more pronounced than his predecessors’. Nor does change seem to be the inclination of the party he still controls more fully than any president before him.
Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson, the Louisiana Republican who in January will forfeit power and House control to current Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, vowed that House Republicans will “double down” on the agenda voters so decisively damned. Former Trump press secretary turned Fox News pundit Kayleigh McEnany said that the results “vindicated … Republicans who said we need to play hardball.”
This defiance, like much else about Trump times, is a break from normal politics going back decades. After past presidents were blamed for midterm debacles, members of their party publicly demanded changes, distanced themselves or even broke from the White House. That’s a sign of a healthy party.
The Trump Republican Party is not a healthy one.
In his first term neither Trump nor the party changed after the 2018 midterm elections, despite Republicans losing their House majority. Unlike the reformed Clinton and Obama, the unreformed Trump lost reelection two years later and cost Republicans control of the Senate as well as the House. Then came Jan. 6, 2021. If Republican fealty to Trump didn’t break then, it won’t after Nov. 3, 2026.
After the 2022 elections midway through President Biden’s term, Republican Party “leaders” and operatives privately fumed that the then-out-of-office Trump, by his antics and legal quagmires, caused the expected red wave to dwindle to a trickle of gains. Still, they didn’t hold him to account. And when Trump immediately, seemingly implausibly, announced his candidacy to recapture the presidency, party voters all but trampled the aspiring Republican nominee, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a rush to reboard the Trump Train.
Now Trump stands uniquely culpable for the worst midterm elections outcome yet. He’s earned his record-low unpopularity: By his signature tariffs and a new Mideast war. The inflation resulting from both. A violent immigration crackdown. Corruption. Incompetence. Prioritization of gold and granite vanity projects over Americans’ needs and wants. And bad candidates, chosen simply for their loyalty to him.
And yet Trump remains president, with all the power he can grab either constitutionally or not, along with a proven predilection for revenge, a humongous campaign war chest and the seemingly unbreakable loyalty of an overwhelming, if eroded, share of Republican voters.
Lest anyone forget that, on Wednesday morning as Republicans raked over their ruins, the White House posted a photo of a scowling Trump leaning with his fists into his Oval Office desk. Caption: “PSA: Trump is still your president.”
For two more years, Trump will continue to dwell in his bubble of sycophants. The fact that he spent election eve at the Reflecting Pool showcasing that failed vanity makeover — a metaphor for his warped priorities that no worthy advisor would have allowed — was hard evidence there’s no one around him who tells Trump “no.” That’s dangerous. Then on Wednesday, he surfaced not to assure voters he’d heard their verdict on him but to show off the under-construction ballroom that two-thirds of Americans oppose.
Yes, Trump’s successor-wannabes, notably Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DeSantis, have taken baby steps to separate themselves, particularly on the war. But any Republican seeking the 2028 nomination knows they can’t run at Trump, given his all but certain continued hold on MAGA voters.
As even some Republican operatives privately confide, it likely will take losing the White House in 2028 for the party to agree it must shed Trumpism and rebuild. Still, your parents’ Republican Party isn’t coming back.
As for Democrats, their challenge is not reading their triumph so much as a “blue tsunami,” but as what the Bulwark site called an “orange crush” — anti-Trump, not pro-Democrats.
A Democratic Congress should take back Congress’ powers on spending, war, tariffs and oversight of the executive branch that servile Republicans surrendered. Its priorities should be not Trump’s impeachment, but delivering on Democrats’ promises to promote Americans’ economic well-being. Try to reverse Republican healthcare cuts and offset the cost by both clawing back the tens of billions of dollars that Trump got to create an army of anti-immigrant agents and withholding money for further war in the Mideast.
And if Trump uses his veto, as he’s already vowed to do, then the fight is on: for both Congress and the White House in 2028.
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