snip ...

There is no universe, in this one or any alternate timeline, where "let's lock up the economic data and build a shiny new ballroom" is a winning affordability message.

Yet here we are.

snip ...

You saw Donald Trump's 18th iteration of his affordability message yesterday, when he said of affordability, "It doesn't mean anything to anybody ... The word affordability is a con job by the Democrats."

The vibe is late Bourbon decadence and indifference, King Donald the Corpulent in his palace, while the peasantry starves. I'm going long on pitchforks and tumbrels.

At the precise moment when Americans are standing in the cereal aisle doing battlefield math over whether the kids get brand-name or generic Wheat-os, Donald J. Trump is obsessing over chandeliers, parquet floors, and the sightlines in his new, ever-expanding plan for a White House ballroom with the square footage of a large Costco.

#4 I'm sorry you didn't read the entire Rick Wilson article, JPW.

#6 Yeah!

It is almost as if this never happened - just a month ago:

-> Georgia voters ousted two Republican members of the state's Public Service Commission in favor of two Democrats"the first Democrats to win statewide nonfederal offices in decades.

-> Democrats in Mississippi Break the G.O.P.'s State House Supermajority

-> Every single county in Virginia - even deeply red counties - saw shifts TOWARDS the Democrats, as opposed to how they voted 1 year ago.

-> Dems flip Wichita School Board from a 4-3 GOP majority to a 5-2 Democratic majority. Democratic candidates Amy Warren and Amy Jensen defeated Republican incumbents Hazel Stabler and Kathy Bond.

->Two of Tuesday's school board elections were in Bucks County, Pa., which was considered "ground zero" for right-wing groups' takeover of school boards in 2021. A few years ago, conservatives on these boards in Pennbridge and Central Bucks districts were using their roles to pass policies targeting LGBTQ+ students and banning books.

---> Democrats flipped control of both boards in 2023, and on Tuesday, they ousted every Republican from both of these boards, except for one. The Pennbridge school board is now 8-1, with Democratic members in control. The Central Bucks school board is 9-0.

-> In Texas, we even won in Lockhart, which sits in a district so red that Democrats normally don't even run. We had a clean sweep in Cy-Fair ISD, another deeply red area that not even Greg Abbott could save your party.

-> In SD-9, another red district, we saw an 8 point shift for the Democrat

#6 Not sure why your server would be blocking Substack?

#6 Or this happened just this week:

Tennessee special election results: What we know about Matt Van Epps's win
Republican Van Epps manages to defeat his Democratic challenger by a narrow margin.

#11 Come on, Eb. You know exactly what that adds up to.

You said, and I quote, "...there has been a buildup of confidence in a "blue wave" in the past and it never materialized."

I provide you with multiple examples of very recent Democratic Party blue wave victories, and you claim you don't know what that adds up to?

Really?

Or how about 2022, when there was a Democrat in the White House (but not on the ticket). Was that a red wave, as would be expected in an off-year election?

Or perhaps 2020? How'd that election turn out for the Democrats?

Or 2019, 2018, 2017?

bell boi keeps using the phrase "self-inflicted." I keep repeating back to him that what he's doing is actually self-fulfilling for a pre-determined outcome.

Is that what you're doing, Eb?

#14 Major wars are won by many, many, many such "very very very small victories."

And major wars are lost by one side constantly dismissing all the "very very very small victories" from the other side that seem to be racking up.

More importantly, what are those "very very very small victories" saying about tomorrow?

Especially given all the "very very very small victories" I highlighted in my #7, #9, and #13.

#14 See also: Canary in the coal mine

'Tis almost like no one bothered reading the article.

The knee-jerk reaction was over the title, A Blue Wave Revolution is Coming ...

... without once bothering to read the article where Rick Wilson lays all this at the feet of the Trump & Republicans:

When your entire brand is "I alone can fix it" and things feel more broken, it becomes very easy for voters to decide that you, in fact, cannot.

The GOP is already on demographic thin ice. Trump's affordability fiasco is the kind of slow-burning anger that melts what remains of their suburban support among moderates and independents, many of whom held their nose in 2024 solely because Trump promised to reduce grocery and gas prices. It accelerates the erosion with younger voters who have now lived through two Trump eras and a housing market that looks like a hostage situation.

They signed up for the myth of the businessman president. They got the guy who bankrupted casinos and decided the solution for a hurting country was to blow up the economy for a jacked-up economic theory from the 17th century, build a ballroom, and hide the books.

None of the culture war crap, the performative yelping about the Deep State, the liberal media, or whatever else tickles MAGA Twitter's happy place will work when America is locked in a deep recession caused by their Golden God.

In 2026, Republicans will discover the oldest rule in politics and business: eventually, the mark realizes he has been conned. And when that happens, it is not just the con man who pays the price. It is everyone foolish enough to stand next to him when the lights come up, and the check arrives.

Trump is too old to pay that bill ... and doesn't pay his bills in any case.

But the MAGA GOP sure as hell will. That sound they hear in the distance is a mob, hungry and furious, approaching their palace.

The article I posted here is NOT about the Democrats.

It is not about pulling defeat from the jaws of victory.

It is not about if Democrats are (or are not) up to the job.

That is not what Rick Wilson was saying in the article I posted.

#28 Fair enough.

Then please allow me to post the money shot from the article:

Picture a Republican House incumbent in a Biden-won suburban district trying to run on "We made life cheaper" while their constituents are staring at concealed inflation numbers, higher costs from trade shocks, and the footage of Trump's Marie Antoinette cosplay in the East Wing.

Every ad writes itself: split-screen of the new White House ballroom, dripping with gold and rich people, paired with a kitchen table where the bills are stacked higher than the food. The voiceover does not need to be clever. It just has to ask, "Are you invited to their party?"

Republicans will try the usual: blame immigrants, blame Democrats, blame "wokeness," blame the deep state. None of it answers the basic pain of a middle-class voter who knows damn well that their real wages are not keeping up with Trump's trade disaster and inflation.

When your entire brand is "I alone can fix it" and things feel more broken, it becomes very easy for voters to decide that you, in fact, cannot.

The GOP is already on demographic thin ice. Trump's affordability fiasco is the kind of slow-burning anger that melts what remains of their suburban support among moderates and independents, many of whom held their nose in 2024 solely because Trump promised to reduce grocery and gas prices. It accelerates the erosion with younger voters who have now lived through two Trump eras and a housing market that looks like a hostage situation.

They signed up for the myth of the businessman president. They got the guy who bankrupted casinos and decided the solution for a hurting country was to blow up the economy for a jacked-up economic theory from the 17th century, build a ballroom, and hide the books.

None of the culture war crap, the performative yelping about the Deep State, the liberal media, or whatever else tickles MAGA Twitter's happy place will work when America is locked in a deep recession caused by their Golden God.

In 2026, Republicans will discover the oldest rule in politics and business: eventually, the mark realizes he has been conned. And when that happens, it is not just the con man who pays the price. It is everyone foolish enough to stand next to him when the lights come up, and the check arrives.

Trump is too old to pay that bill ... and doesn't pay his bills in any case.

But the MAGA GOP sure as hell will.

That sound they hear in the distance is a mob, hungry and furious, approaching their palace.

I hope that's fair enough, Lamp.

#21 Are you really trying to say that what I posted in my #7 didn't happen?

Is that really what you're saying?

Are you really trying to deny this reality?

-> Georgia voters ousted two Republican members of the state's Public Service Commission in favor of two Democrats"the first Democrats to win statewide nonfederal offices in decades.

-> Democrats in Mississippi Break the G.O.P.'s State House Supermajority

-> Every single county in Virginia - even deeply red counties - saw shifts TOWARDS the Democrats, as opposed to how they voted 1 year ago.

-> Dems flip Wichita School Board from a 4-3 GOP majority to a 5-2 Democratic majority. Democratic candidates Amy Warren and Amy Jensen defeated Republican incumbents Hazel Stabler and Kathy Bond.

->Two of Tuesday's school board elections were in Bucks County, Pa., which was considered "ground zero" for right-wing groups' takeover of school boards in 2021. A few years ago, conservatives on these boards in Pennbridge and Central Bucks districts were using their roles to pass policies targeting LGBTQ+ students and banning books.

---> Democrats flipped control of both boards in 2023, and on Tuesday, they ousted every Republican from both of these boards, except for one. The Pennbridge school board is now 8-1, with Democratic members in control. The Central Bucks school board is 9-0.

-> In Texas, we even won in Lockhart, which sits in a district so red that Democrats normally don't even run. We had a clean sweep in Cy-Fair ISD, another deeply red area that not even Greg Abbott could save your party.

-> In SD-9, another red district, we saw an 8 point shift for the Democrat

Well, are you really trying to deny that reality?