CRISTINA OSMENA: Has Trump lost his mojo?
These last two US election cycles have come with counter-cycle political trends. Typically, in the midterm elections of the first term of a US President, the opposite party gains seats, lots of legislative seats. The Republicans weren’t being creative with that prediction. There must be a political almanac somewhere that says that. Couple that with a visibly senile President, an energy policy that is at least partly responsible for the rise in oil and gasoline prices, a fiscal policy that has exacerbated the inflationary spiral we are now enduring and it just makes sense the Republicans would have taken both houses of Congress and a few more governorships.
Yet, they did not.
I’ve heard explanations and, certainly, this will be the puzzle to ponder among kindred souls over the next few weeks. Some have said that the Republicans have moved to R states so they just had less of an impact on the states where their results were anemic. Reasonable. One person said that the candidates were just so bad on the Republican side. That does not hold up. The Democrats have put up candidates that are so bad that one of them (running for congress in Pennsylvania) was already dead and still won. A special election has to be held to put someone living. Another Democrat from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman, the winning candidate for United States Senator, suffered a stroke during his campaign and was heavily impaired during his public appearances. It makes me wonder what kind of robot is the Pennsylvanian voter to overlook the vitality of their candidates (or lack thereof).
Maybe the woke media is right after all and voters have overlooked the ailing economy to prioritize a woman’s right to choose (I support this!) or vote in accordance with existential worries related to climate change (which should have ended the world ten years ago). But I can’t entirely trust what they say because all the talking heads seem to be saying the same thing using the same words in the same order.
I have a hope tied to all of this. My hope is that Donald J. Trump’s heavy hand in the field of Republican candidates has been judged by the public. The former president has tried and he has been found wanting by the general election voter. If that is the case, then all is right with the world. Trump tried. Trump was tested. The Trump effect fell flat, emitting a soft hissing sound reminiscent of a deflating balloon. I have to admit, it was hard to be a Republican with him at the helm…so hard I had to stop. Could it be possible that politics could move on from Trump?
