2022 Election: “My People Are Destroyed For Lack Of Knowledge”

Is Trump Primarily to Blame or Rather, Moral Insanity, Irrationality, and Pure Anti-Republican Bigotry?

Jonathan Prejean, an attorney, is a fellow Republican and longtime friend of mine. We profoundly disagree about President Trump, but it’s fun to dialogue with him about politics. This is from a thread on my Facebook page. His words will be in blue. The dialogue will probably continue beyond what I initially post. If so, I’ll add the additional material.

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Hosea 4:1-3, 6 (RSV) Hear the word of the LORD, O people of Israel; for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or kindness, and no knowledge of God in the land; [2] there is swearing, lying, killing, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds and murder follows murder. [3] Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, . . . [6] My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; . . .

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I think the takeaway was that Trump fatigue we saw in 2020 is real. The people are tired of the spectacle, and they want him to go away.

All the relentless lies about him have definitely had their impact: including on people like you. I think we got what we deserve as a country last night, and so we will suffer tremendously for two more years, and we must hope and pray that people who massively voted Democrat will emerge from their moral and mental insanity in 2024.

It looks like a truly tragic, massive societal catastrophe like war or depression will be required to wake people up, if what’s going on now hasn’t yet done so. “Everyone” is supposedly fed up and worried about all kinds of things, including the “woke” agenda (even Democrat strategists were freely conceding this in the last week), yet they go out and vote for the same-old same-old. It makes no sense. A maniacal desire to kill children and belief that all Republicans are Nazis and authoritarian dictators apparently brought out the Democrats.

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The South + most of the western states except the left coast, and Ohio are the only remaining sane and traditional and morally progressive regions of the country (though rural areas everywhere — such as my own county — remain overwhelmingly conservative).

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My own Michigan never had slavery as a state, but now we can murder our children at nine months and young children can “change” their gender without parental consent (Proposal 3). So we have really progressed: up to the high level of Baal worshipers who threw children in a furnace in ancient Israel and its surroundings and the cannibals and folks who tore out peoples’ hearts by the multiple thousands in sacrifices in the ancient Caribbean islands and Mexico . . .

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The GOP will at least (consolation prize) almost certainly get control of the House and so will be able to curtail the radical Democrat agenda, and (if they are smart) do what they can to defund the insane Democrat-passed laws by the power of the purse.

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I don’t even want to think about what will happen on the world stage in the next two years. It’s truly frightening. Taiwan could fall. Iran could get a nuclear bomb . . .
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But the common thread is Trump in the North and the South. Sununu and Kemp were huge winners who couldn’t overcome the drawbacks of Trump Senate candidates. DeSantis was anti-woke; he had no problem. Trump gubernatorial candidates Dixon [Michigan] and Mastriano [Pennsylvania] both failed, and in the latter case, also dragged down another Trump pick below a literally brain-damaged opponent.
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I’m not influenced by lies of the media. I’m influenced by the fact that he lost and keeps losing, yet neither he nor his supporters will admit that he is a loser, to the point that Trump was advocating blatantly unconstitutional attempts to overturn the will of the people. That’s exactly my point; why would we support a loser when we could elect a winner with the same policies?

I don’t even think this was primarily about Trump. The Democrat propaganda and polemic targeted Republicans and conservatives across the board: we’re all supposedly anti-democratic (insurrectionists, no less) and hate everyone under the sun. Trump wasn’t on the ballot. But the liberals told everyone that democracy itself would come to an end and that no more elections would take place (Rob Reiner). Well, we will still likely take the House back. Does that mean democracy is half-dead or one-third dead? How does that work?
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The response in this vote was fundamentally irrational. People have said over and over in polls that things are so terrible (the Democrats were underwater on almost every issue except childkilling), yet they voted for the status quo. They believed the Democrat lies about the Apocalypse being upon us due to the GOP, and wanted to kill children.
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DeSantis and Kemp and Abbott won because the South (along with places like Iowa and South Dakota and Ohio) remains one of the sane and sensible and morally progressive regions of the country. Florida is now a red state, and Michigan has gone from purple to blue. Now our Governor, both Senators, and both state houses are Democrat. The country is profoundly divided. Michigan itself is profoundly divided (urban vs. rural regions). This is true even of almost all blue states.
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What you fail to see is that if DeSantis is the candidate in 2024 (but he won’t be because 75% of Republicans want Trump), he would be lied about and savaged just as every other Republican candidate has been, since Nixon in 1960. It makes no difference who we select. This is what you don’t seem to realize. McCain and Romney were trashed as “racists” (etc., etc.) just as much as any other Republican nominee for President, even though the moderates and RINOs thought they would win, as more “moderate” candidates. Trump is the only Republican who has won the presidency since George W. Bush in 2004 and his policies were fabulously successful. Yet you have bought the Democrat lie that he is a “loser.”
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If the Democrats thought like you and many Republicans habitually do (shooting ourselves in the foot and devouring each other), they would have given up on Bill Clinton in 1994 and Obama in 2010 as “losers” after massive losses across the board in those elections. Wikipedia states about the 1994 elections in the House:
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As a result of a 54-seat swing in membership from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party, Republicans gained a majority of seats in the United States House of Representatives for the first time since 1952 in what was known as the Republican Revolution. It was also the largest seat gain for the party since 1946, and the largest for either party since 1948, and characterized a political realignment in American politics. . . .

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The Republicans would go on to remain the majority party of the House for the following 12 years, until the 2006 elections. . . .

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Republican House candidates outpolled Democrats among white evangelicals by a massive 52 points, 76% to 24%. . . .

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Every Republican incumbent standing won re-election. Thirty-four incumbent Democrats (including 16 “freshmen”) were defeated in 1994.

But Democrats didn’t give up on Bill Clinton, even after his atrocious personal scandals. They didn’t because they understand the supreme importance of party loyalty. Many Republicans don’t (about 25% of us right now). The 2010 election was even more “ugly” for the Democrats (from Wikipedia):

Republicans ended unified Democratic control of Congress and the presidency by winning a majority in the House of Representatives. Republicans gained seven seats in the Senate (including a special election held in January 2010) but failed to gain a majority in the chamber. In the House of Representatives, Republicans won a net gain of 63 seats, the largest shift in seats since the 1948 elections. In state elections, Republicans won a net gain of six gubernatorial seats and flipped control of twenty state legislative chambers, giving them a substantial advantage in the redistricting that occurred following the 2010 United States Census. The election was widely characterized as a “Republican wave” election. . . .
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Republicans made substantial gains in state legislatures across the nation. Twenty chambers flipped from Democratic to Republican control, giving Republicans full control of eleven state legislatures and control of one chamber in Colorado, Iowa and New York. Additionally, Republicans gained enough seats in the Oregon House to produce a 30-30 party split, pushing Democrats into a power-sharing agreement that resulted in the election of two “co-speakers” (one from each party) to lead the chamber. Republicans gained a total of 680 seats in state legislative races, breaking the previous record of 628 flipped seats set by Democrats in the post-Watergate elections of 1974.

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Six states saw both chambers switch from Democrat to Republican majorities: Alabama (where the Republicans won a majority for the first time in 136 years), Maine (for the first time since 1964), Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina (for the first time since 1896), and Wisconsin. In addition, by picking up the lower chambers in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Montana[a] and Pennsylvania, Republicans gained control of both chambers in an additional five states. Further, Republicans picked up one chamber from Democrats in Colorado, Iowa, and New York to split control in those states. They expanded majorities in both chambers in Texas, Florida, and Georgia.

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But did Democrats turn against Obama? No. Like Clinton, they backed him, despite the massacre, and he won re-election. Democrats get this. Republicans don’t. If we will lose in 2024 it won’t be because of Trump, but because we let Democrat lies manipulate us into devouring ourselves in another fatal civil war in the party. If we’re smart, DeSantis and Trump will get together, with the former agreeing to let Trump run in ’24, and Trump agreeing to be the kingmaker for DeSantis in 2028 (when he still will be in his 40s). Mutually beneficial . . . But that probably won’t happen, because that would be the winning strategy in both years.
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The two “gifts” that allowed the Democrats to win in ’22 and this year, were COVID and the Dobbs decision. COVID had nothing to do with Trump, but he was blamed for it, while Biden and Democrat governors, who fared far worse in their COVID policies (more have died under Biden than under Trump, with the vaccines), did not get blamed, because apparently these days, Democrats don’t get blamed for anything. They’re perfect in every way, according to those who vote for them.
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Dobbs could be tied to Trump, since he was most responsible for it, having nominated three Justices who voted for it. So I can understand Democrats hating him all the more for that. But Republicans should regard him as a superhero for the same reason. Yet 25% of us (including you) don’t do that, and instead characterize him as an anti-democratic “loser.”

Again, it’s that attitude that will cause us to lose in 2024, not Trump himself.

Thanks for the dialogue!

What I mean is that they did give up on Gore. They did give up on Clinton. Obama and Clinton didn’t lose. Trump did, and last night pretty much showed that if we ran 2020 again, the same exact thing would happen. It’s not a question of sticking with Trump when we think he might lose; it’s a question of sticking with Trump when he did lose.

He lost because of an unprecedented event like the pandemic: for which he was irrationally blamed (what a stroke of fortune for the Dems!). And secondly, of course, he lost because of the most ridiculous and non-stop parade of damnable lies and propaganda against him: the supposed treasonous Russian conspiracy: for which they found zero evidence, and the equally ludicrous and groundless charge about Ukraine. Between those two, and the corresponding farcical impeachments, it was a perfect Democrat storm.
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After the losing 2016 election, Billary Clinton and her lackeys in the FBI and CIA, etc., went out and invented the Russian conspiracy and denied the validity of Trump’s election for the next four years, just as they did with Bush in 2000 (while we conservatives don’t dare to even hint at any irregularities in the 2020 election, lest we be tarred with an “anti-democracy, conspiracy nut” label) . . . It’s the massive double standard, as always.
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But the Democrats must be given credit for “diabolical ingenuity.” They have now perfected the art of blaming Republicans for things that they themselves either literally did or virtually did. Bill and Billary Clinton are the most skilled liars in the history of the world. If you look up “liar” in the dictionary, their pictures appear as the quintessential examples. Biden also incessantly lies, too, but he’s too stupid to be anywhere near as skilled at it as the Clintons. He has no cleverness. He’s told what to lie about. They do it like breathing, and even believe their own lies, in a fog of self-delusion.
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Neither COVID nor an imaginary, fictional collusion with Russia were Trump’s fault. But that’s all they had. They couldn’t run against his fantastically successful policies. What were they to say: the lowest unemployment among African- and Hispanic-Americans ever and one of the best economies we ever saw, taking out ISIS, and a million other wonderful accomplishments we all ought to agree on, are terrible things?

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Photo credit: DonkeyHotey (4-28-28). This caricature of the Democratic Donkey was created from Creative Commons licensed photos from Don DeBold’s and Klearchos Kapoutsis’s Flickr photostreams. The background was created from a photo in the public domain from File:Park_Plaza_Apts_fr_Mullaly_Park_jeh.jpg. [Wikimedia Commons / Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license]

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Summary: My analysis of the 2022 mid-term US election, according to a conservative (not anti-Trump) perspective, including dialogue with a Republican anti-Trumper.

2022 Election: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”