At recent campaign rallies supporting Republican candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, President Donald Trump has asked his followers to vote as if he were on the ballot.
It’s a sensible request. Retaining at least partial Republican control of Congress is essential if Trump is to make further progress toward the goals for which he was elected in the final two years of his presidency.
In three presidential election races, the name Donald Trump garnered a huge number of votes (arguably enough to win all three!). Trump’s personal engagement may boost Republican turnout, which has historically been weak in midterm elections. On the other hand, given the intense Trump-hatred marketed so effectively by his political opponents, it might have the opposite effect, rallying Democrat votes. Such is life in our hyper-partisan world.
Or you might take Trump’s request a step further, by voting as if Abdul El-Sayed is on every ballot.
Of course, the El-Sayed name will only show up on Michigan senatorial ballots, but the outcome of that race, combined with similar races nationwide featuring similarly extreme Democrat candidates, will have profound consequences.
An El Sayed win in Michigan would be damaging to Republicans and to politically independent conservatives (and I believe to our entire country) in at least two respects:
- It would signal to the nation that there is broad (albeit disastrous) electorate acceptance — even in a sober, purple state like Michigan — of a U.S. senator who collaborates openly with America-haters, who rationalizes Islamic terrorism, who is antisemitic, who accuses our close ally Israel of war crimes, and who seems not to recognize the immeasurable threat posed by nuclear-armed Iran.
- It could prove to be a key element in the widely predicted midterm blue wave that would fuel overwhelming obstruction to everything the Trump administration has been working to accomplish. Such an election outcome would yield nothing of value to the nation, just nonstop head-butting between the Democrat-led Congress and the ever-combative Trump, grinding our government to a halt at a perilous time.
Here’s another thought along the lines of Trump’s request: Imagine that your ballot is a referendum on socialism — an abrupt switch from the free enterprise and capitalism that has served us so well for 250 years to the democratic socialism espoused by the rapidly ascendant Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
That’s actually not much of a stretch; rather, it’s a realistic recognition of the true import of this election. The DSA has taken the Democrat Party by storm; effectively giving the party a new lease on life after the disastrous collapse of the Biden administration. In return, the party has welcomed the DSA with open arms, and is managing somehow to overlook (or worse, to embrace) the stark reality that its new team member openly advocates wholesale redirection of our nation and effective abandonment of our U.S. Constitution.
Paradoxically, one of the issues that is consistently high on the list of concerns expressed in opinion polls by likely voters in opinion surveys is the threats to democracy, ostensibly posed by the Hitleresque Donald Trump. That’s nonsense — but for a very real and much more chilling glimpse into the potential for a truly anti-democratic course change, just take a look at the DSA’s published platform.
Among the thousands of Democrat candidates for federal, state and local positions in the November elections, at least a hundred are either DSA members or have DSA’s explicit endorsement, and there are surely many others who are enthusiastically supported by DSA and/or by the Democrat Party’s extreme left wing. That may seem like a small percentage, but for a movement largely unknown to the general public just a year ago, it constitutes remarkable penetration into mainstream American politics.
Democrats call it the Big Tent, implying that once they get elected and take control, they’ll all get together and work out those little wrinkles — like “shall we abolish the Senate and the Supreme Court or not?” I’m not a camping enthusiast, but I’m inclined to think that if I were, and even if I owned a very roomy tent, I would not invite a grizzly bear and a few rattlesnakes to join me inside.
I argued in last week’s column (and others) that our votes in federal elections, midterm or presidential, should be guided by eyes-open awareness of the election’s potential consequences, and particularly the direction those running for office propose to lead our nation. This one is no exception.
Sadly, we cannot underestimate the downside implications of the intense partisanship infecting both of our political parties. Democrats have made it painfully clear, and have demonstrated every day since Donald Trump took the Oath of Office in January 2025, their total commitment to obstruction of everything his administration tries to do, with stunningly little concern for the adverse effect of that pervasive obstruction.
Understandably, their objective is to win both houses of Congress — but evidently, in their efforts to do so, they’re quite content to include candidates committed to radical policies inimical to our nation’s continued prosperity. That’s not a strategy to improve the lives of American citizens — it’s a tactic to regain power.
They tell us not to worry about the details — they’ll work them out later. Voters, don’t take the bait.
