Blue Wave, Red Seawall: The 2022 Lesson Dems Can't Ignore

More from the analysis ...

... Instead, it was one of the strongest midterm performances by a governing party in decades. Republicans gained only nine House seats, failed to retake the Senate, and spent the next four years arguing about why.

That story should haunt Democrats heading into 2026. The mirror image of the 2022 environment is now setting up around them: Trump's approval underwater, inflation cooking, Democrats overperforming in special elections, the generic ballot tilted blue.

The lesson of 2022 wasn't that wave conditions don't matter anymore. They still do. It was that they don't reliably translate into wave results. And, what's more, the infrastructure for blunting waves has changed since then.

Just after midnight on May 20, the South Carolina House voted 74-37 to redraw the state's only Democratic-held congressional district, a move urged personally by President Donald Trump, replacing it with one designed to elect a Republican in November.

That is only one piece of a much greater national effort underway. Democrats are waiting for the wave. Republicans are building the sea wall. ...

@#2 ... This past weekend Bessent went on TV to tell Americans to lower their withholding taken out of their wages and if they do that, it is a "pay raise". I am sure there will be people that listen to that nonsense. ...

Like Dir Hassett telling people that consumers needing to use their credit cards for necessties, increasing the amount of consumer credit card debt, is A Good Thing because how robust the economy is.

Trump official boasts that Americans' credit card spending is through the roof.' That's far from a good thing (May 6, 2026)
www.independent.co.uk

... A senior Trump official has boasted that Americans' credit card spending is "through the roof" as millions across the country grapple with soaring costs of living including high gas prices, a slow job market and inflation.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett made the stunning remark to Fox News Wednesday in response to an initial question about the jobs outlook for the rest of the year.

After stating that the jobs market is going to be "very, very strong," Hassett, the president's top economic advisor, continued: "In fact, I had the head of one of the big five banks in my office yesterday going through the credit card data.

"And just as Secretary [Scott] Bessent said, credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else, too."

The backlash to Hassett's remarks was immediate. "Working class Americans are maxing out their credit cards to pay for groceries and gas," Democratic Representative and House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, posted on X. "The Trump Cartel thinks this is something to celebrate. Shameful." ...

@#1 ... That is only one piece of a much greater national effort underway. Democrats are waiting for the wave. Republicans are building the sea wall. ...

Exactly.

The Democrats seem to be looking at voters voting for Democrats.

Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be changing the election infrastructure to make it more difficult for Democrat voters to choose the politicians.

Instead, Republicans seem to be choosing which voters they want to vote.

As a fmr Trump admin official once said ...

thehill.com

... 'We've been proactive to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders to lead this country.' ...