4 Realities Conservatives Must Swallow in the Wake of the 2022 MidtermsThe electorate has crossed a point of no return, shattering previous assumptions conservatives had baked in.BY: PETER BURFEIND
NOVEMBER 11, 2022
Unlike the left, the stunning under-performance of Republicans on Tuesday should not be an opportunity for screaming at the cosmos. It’s a reality check, and the sooner we adapt to reality, the sooner we can be optimistic about the future.
So what are the realities conservatives must face based on Tuesday’s shock? I see four things.
Donald Trump Has Jumped the SharkDonald Trump was a great president who did conventional Republican things conservatives dreamed about for decades. He’s absolutely responsible for 10,000 fewer babies being aborted due to his conservative appointments to the Supreme Court and their role in overturning Roe v. Wade. He kept us out of war. He kept Russia at bay. He brought up Chinese aggression as an issue. He kept North Korea silent. He fixed NAFTA. I could go on.
But he will never win the presidency again, and the candidates he endorses do not do well.
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‘Democrat’ Is Shorthand for ‘I Gotta Get Mine!’The electorate has crossed a point of no return, shattering previous assumptions. Everyone predicted the fundamentals of the economy would determine harsh losses for Democrats. Yet here we are. A frighteningly close majority of voters don’t care how massive government spending combined with strangling our oil production has led to economic decline.
Clearly, a sizeable part of the electorate has baked into it a transactional relationship with the Democrat brand that gives the party a reliable handicap regardless of what’s happening in the real world. “Democrat” is now shorthand for livelihood security, essentially for one’s career in the bureaucracy or one’s government entitlements.
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The GOP Must Adapt to Snowflake AmericaThe Arizona governor race should have been an easy win for the GOP. I loved Kari Lake’s spunky, confident, in-your-face style, but she got beat by a timid snowflake who was afraid to debate her and came off as kind of mousy.
However, to many Arizona voters, Lake seems grating while something appeals to them in Hobbs. The “own the libs” tone that so many conservatives expect and love probably doesn’t work in the suburbs or college towns.
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GOP Must Adapt to How Elections Are RunEarly voting and voting by mail completely changed how elections are run. The exciting news about polls moving favorably toward the GOP didn’t matter if much of the electorate had already voted. Democrats did not seem interested in late-October debates or even winning the argument; what do they know that we don’t know?
What they know is that elections are not about “winning votes” or even “getting out to vote” so much as they are about gathering ballots. (Read this very carefully.)
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/11/the-2022-midterms-unveiled-new-realities-conservatives-must-learn-to-swallow/
