WSJ: The Dems Won Big Because of Trump

Sure seems that way.

   Ignoring, for the time being, the question Is an anti-Trump wave warranted?, it seems to me that it was eminently predictable. Now, I don't think you should trust people who say that x was predictable but didn't predict it...but I just never thought to predict it. That is, I didn't ask myself the question Will there likely be a big blue wave? I dunno why not. But I'm fairly sure I would have answered yes if I had. For these reasons:

• The party out of power is usually more motivated in off-year elections
• The blue team is absolutely hysterical in its hatred of Trump
• The MSM is basically nonstop anti-Trump propaganda (with a brief diminution after the Israeli peace deal...but not much of one)
• Even reluctant Trump voters such as myself are suffering Trump fatigue already

   The left is incoherent with rage, blinded by its religious conviction that Orange Man bad. They think ICE is basically the Gestapo (that analogy gets made over and over over there), and Trump is Hitler. Every tenth comment on Reddit repeats the claim that Trump is a pedophile. (Much of the left, of course, is trending in the direction of supporting pedophilia now, and righties have managed to more-or-less make that charge--along with the groomer label--stick...so the moonbats responded by ginning up the charge against Trump...of whom they will literally believe anything...)

   Even the remaining nub of relatively centrist boomer Dems hate Trump with a passion I don't think I've ever seen before in American politics. I mean, much of the wingnut right hated Obama--still hates him. Don't get me wrong--they were absolutely beside themselves with ODS. The real wackos thought he was the Antichrist...and I've encountered ones who will, to this day, cagily suggest that maybe there was maybe something to that charge... But the blue-team's TDS is...well...kinda breathtaking. Even people I know who are generally very rational and skeptical of the left basically choke with inarticulate rage when Trump is mentioned.

   So, anyway: I say a blue wave was predictable.

   And I'll go ahead and predict another one in a year, in the midterms.

   Trump's got one year to get things done. He's done a lot--and a lot of it has been good. But, barring some major change between now and next Halloween...the blue team is going to win big. Again. People vote on vibes, personality, and tribal loyalty. And Trump goes out of his way to piss off the blues. Don't get me wrong...part of me likes to see it, because they so richly deserve it. But it's not a smart strategy. Though there is no way to ever win the approval of the blue cultists, many people are persuadable. But Trump and company don't even really try to persuade them. Instead of sending e.g. Leavitt out to explain what the blues did to shred the immigration system and what Trump is doing to repair some small part of the damage, they send Stephen Miller out to speak hard truths with no hint of padding...and he looks and sounds like he belongs on the bridge of the Death Star.