Pirate's Cove

It bears repeating: you had

• Unpopular president, who is checked out on inflation and cost of living increases, completely blew it on Afghanistan and Ukraine, takes the weekend off almost every weekend, is hyperpartisan, and typically in DementiaLand
• Elected Democrats who are divorced from the working and middle class, and tell us to buy EVs and solar panels to save a little bit of money
• High gas prices, and diesel is in short supply
• Democrats ignoring and even causing rising crime
• Citizens saying the country is on the wrong track and they are very unsatisfied
• Democrats pushing abortion up to birth, CRT, and transgender madness, and replacing women with transgenders
• The COVID tyranny, including firing citizens who would not take the vaccine, which we now find out doesn’t do all that much. And masking children

And so much more. Yet, you saw what happened. The GOP could end up with fewer Senate seats, and, should just barely have control of the House. Some Trump endorsed candidates won, too many lost. So…

Midterm election results raise DeSantis’s stock, scramble 2024 calculus for Trump

The 2022 midterm results Tuesday helped set the stage for the 2024 Republican nomination, further elevating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the chief rival to former President Donald Trump, should both men formally enter the race.

But it also injected new uncertainty into a presidential race that, until Tuesday, had been viewed as Trump’s to lose, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican operatives and others keeping tabs on the nascent 2024 battle.

DeSantis, they said, clearly saw his stock rise in a party that has grown increasingly tired of being dragged down at the ballot box by Trump. But Trump’s grip on a strong plurality of Republican voters appears firm, despite a string of losses on Tuesday by his acolytes, and Republicans are still trying to determine if DeSantis could unseat the long-reigning king of the GOP.

Longtime conservative radio host and blogger Erick Erickson wrote in his newsletter that DeSantis’s performance Tuesday night reminded him of another governor who beat expectations in a strong year for Democrats and later went on to serve two terms in the White House: George W. Bush.

Former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany urged Trump to skip campaigning for Herschel Walker in the upcoming Georgia Senate runoff, lest he cost Republicans control of the Senate a second time in a row.

The New York Post, a tabloid that’s long been one of Trump’s favorite reads, declared DeSantis “DeFUTURE” of the Republican Party in a splashy front page on Wednesday celebrating his win. And other conservative news outlets continued drifting away from Trump.

“Trump is done,” said a veteran Republican operative.

Erickson was certainly in the Trump Derangement Syndrome bleachers, though, not to the degree of those at places like The Bulwark. That said, there are plenty of people who supported Trump, not necessarily the Trump Train, who say it’s time to move on. I’ve always said that Trump needed to tone it down against everyone excluding the Media and elected Democrats, and, even then, spend more time saying what he and his admin were doing rather than battling the media. Use honey rather than vinegar with Republicans and those who could attempt to sway. He did a poor job in explaining what he and his admin were doing, what Republicans were doing, and what they were trying to do and wanted to do.

His action during COVID were mostly right: it wasn’t the federal government’s job to do most stuff, it was the job of the states. He was right to block flights from China, then Europe, just a little late on that. Instead of truly explaining it, he battled with the media. And he’s still battling too much. And battling with Republicans, like DeSantis. The ideas of fighting back against the Dems and Credentialed Media are great, and the ideas are there. He’s just not the best to push them. He showed Republicans they can fight back. They don’t have to be get along go along anymore. We don’t need bull in a china shop anymore. We need more smooth, like a DeSantis, and Abbott, a Kristy Noem, to name a few.

If DeSantis does run, it will look bad for Trump, because Ron and his team are masters of turning things around, for bringing receipts. At one point I was enthused by Palin: but, then she pulled her will she won’t she for the 2012 elections, then was forced to say she wouldn’t. And was showing she was spending zero time learning about national and international issues. I moved on (and caught a lot of crap for it), and it is time to move on from Trump. He’s not really helping.