The GOP Establishment Rises With DeSantis

Save our kleptocracy

Democrat Party materials encouraging people to vote in the midterm general election are seen in Philadelphia, Pa., on Nov. 7, 2022. Mark Makela/Getty Images

Commentary

The midterm elections have elucidated much. One of the revelations is the real definition of one of the Democrats’ main campaign themes this election cycle; for example, voters must vote Democrat to “save our democracy.” What has been revealed is that the real intention was to save our kleptocracy and that the junior partners of the Uniparty—the GOP establishment—were complicit.

Let us explore the premise.

Past Wave Elections

The first midterm elections of Democrat presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama provide a benchmark for what should logically have transpired in 2022.

In 1994, Republicans took control of the U.S. Congress for the first time since 1952, picking up 8 Senate and 54 House seats in a direct repudiation of Clinton’s policies. Clinton reneged on his “new Democrat” pledge by signing a tax increase and assault weapons ban into law while letting his wife push toward nationalizing America’s medical system via the pejoratively dubbed “Hillarycare.” As a result, Republicans under the leadership of Newt Gingrich were able to nationalize the election via the “Contract with America.” The result was a wave election for the Republicans.

By 2010, the populist Tea Party movement had emerged to deal Obama and the Democrats another major political defeat in a wave election. The Tea Party arose in direct opposition to Obama/Democrat massive deficit spending (which failed to produce the economic recovery promised by Keynesian economists) and the passage of Obamacare via subterfuge (see here about the railroading of Alaska’s Republican Sen. Ted Stevens). Thanks in large part to the Tea Party movement, Republicans gained 63 House seats, which was the largest wave election since 1948. Seven Republican seats were gained in the Senate, but not enough to win control.

In the wake of the 2010 election, deep fissures in the Republican Party were exposed after Mitch McConnell and his allies successfully marginalized and undermined the Tea Party populists in favor of Wall Street and U.S. Chamber of Commerce donors to the GOP establishment. Astute political observers discerned the split between “Main Street and Wall Street Republicans,” but it took the Trump presidency to expose the concept of a Uniparty kleptocracy.

And that split has been further exposed in the wake of the 2022 midterm elections.

The 2022 Results Defy Logic

Joe Biden’s nearly complete reversal of Donald Trump’s policies resulted in major damage to the national and economic security of the United States: massive deficit spending that dwarfed what Clinton and Obama were able to sign into law (which led to the highest inflation in the United States in 40 years), a flood of illegal aliens and attendant increases in crime rates, Democrat-directed economic lockdowns that destroyed lives and businesses, Democrat support for LGBTQI+ grooming in the public education system, the surge of racial divisiveness, the Democrats’ “defund the police” narrative that led to soaring crime rates (especially in Democrat cities), and the shutdown of the U.S. oil and gas industry in pursuit of the same green policies that are destroying economies in Europe and elsewhere.

These issues should have sunk the Democrat Party in 2022, but instead have resulted (as it looks to date) in the Republicans winning a narrow majority in the House, with control of the Senate to be determined by a runoff in Georgia between incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

The election results defy logic, given that Biden/Democrat policies have driven the economy into the ditch over the past 20 months. Almost everyone except the very rich feels the effects: gasoline prices are double (or more, depending on the state) what they were when Biden was inaugurated, while food prices have gone through the roof. Never mind the price of other commodities that are driving the core inflation rate, the fentanyl-induced deaths of family members and friends, and the grooming of children in Democrat-controlled public school districts.

Ballots are processed by an election worker at the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Nov. 10, 2022. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Furthermore, specific outcomes were more than a little puzzling. For example:

Stroke survivor John Fetterman—who was destroyed in the only debate held with Republican challenger Dr. Mehmet Oz and who was behind in the polls going into election day—magically won the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.

Despite the polling trends in favor of Republican Doug Mastriano going into Election Day, Democrat Josh Shapiro won a surprisingly large victory in the Pennsylvania governor’s race.

Two left-wing Democrat “lockdown governors” won reelection by significant margins in New York and Michigan.

A tight race for the U.S. Senate in New Hampshire (according to virtually all of the polls) turned into a rout for the Democrat incumbent.

Maricopa County (Arizona) election system issues, first identified in 2020, reappeared with a vengeance in 2022, resulting in uncertain outcomes that defied polling data. Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake was up by 11 points in some polls prior to the election, yet the race still hasn’t been called as of this date.

The Canary in the Coal Mine

The results in one state were consistent with the polling and predictions before Election Day and provided the key to explaining the illogic outcomes in many other states. Florida was a clean sweep for Republican candidates almost across the board, from the overwhelming reelection victory for incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis to the surprisingly easy reelection victory of Sen. Marco Rubio, and to the election of 20 Republicans for the House (up from 16 Republican House seats in the current Congress).

This Florida red wave was also what independent pollsters and pundits predicted for other states. Why did the wave happen in Florida but not elsewhere (except in Republican strongholds like South Dakota and Wyoming)?

What was absent from the Democrat playbook in Florida were mail-in ballots, drop boxes, ballot harvesting, and same-day registration that Democrats accelerated during the COVID-19 scare in 2020. The dirty little secret is that the results in Florida would almost certainly be delivered in other states, too, if those states had gotten rid of those practices that destroy election integrity. The contrast between Florida and Democrat-run states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, New York, and Minnesota is stark regarding how elections were run.

As blogger Mark Bradman (known as Conservative Treehouse) has explained, election outcomes in 2022 can be explained by the difference between ballots and votes. Democrat-run states concentrate their election efforts on amassing the greatest number of ballots from any sources (including illegal). In contrast, Republican-run states focus on obtaining the largest number of valid votes from legal voters.

The Democrats’ ballot-collecting process has been proven to be a winner everywhere they’ve tried it, which explains many of the head-scratching results this year that defied the polls, including the several listed above.

A woman waves an American flag to greet motorists as they head to vote in the U.S. midterm election at The Cesar Chavez Cultural Center in San Luis, Ariz., on Nov. 8, 2022. Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images

Concluding Thoughts

Did the Democrat machine roll over in Florida, or was something more at foot? The resulting political narrative beginning on Nov. 9 reflects the common interests of both the Democrat Party and the GOP establishment. That narrative is that DeSantis is in ascendance, while the failures of Republican candidates in other states “prove” that Trump’s political influence has peaked.

Both the GOP establishment and Democrat Party have been trying to get rid of Trump for years. And the spinning by Republicans, self-described conservative pundits, Democrats, and many voices in the legacy media are eerily consistent in the wake of the midterm elections. The move to push Trump aside in favor of DeSantis in the run-up to 2024 is already well underway.

One of DeSantis’s key backers (and of others in the GOP establishment) is Ken Griffin, CEO of the investment firm Citadel. As Politico reported two days before the election, Griffin poured $60 million into the 2022 election cycle to support establishment Republican candidates. Regarding Trump, Griffin stated, “For a litany of reasons, I think it’s time to move on to the next generation.” And that includes supporting candidates that will “blunt the vein of populism that has complicated the party’s relationship with the corporate world.”

DeSantis has already lined up support from the Bush wing of the Republican Party (including Jeb Bush). And many others, such as former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, are helping the cause, as noted here.

Pushing Trump aside solves problems for the GOP establishment and donors like Griffin. They are only too happy to return to making deals with Democrats and fleecing Main Street Americans through the theft of taxpayer dollars. That means business as usual status quo ante Trump, with corporate tax breaks and subsidies, the pouring of taxpayer dollars down the Ukraine rathole (and back into Uniparty pockets), future bank and corporate bailouts for those that are “too big to fail,” endless gargantuan spending bills, and continuing resolutions filled with pork.

It is crystal clear that the GOP establishment and the Democrat Party are aligned in “saving our kleptocracy.” Will the populists who comprise the America First movement be marginalized by this unholy alliance? Don’t count Trump out just yet.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.