2026 General Election: An Opportunity to Put an End to Trumpism

 

    Today is the 2026 General Election across America for federal offices (the United States House of Representatives and Senate) and for state offices (legislative, executive or judicial; statewide and county, municipal, etc.) in many States.  At stake in the mid-term elections is party control of both chambers of Congress, with the Republicans holding slim majorities in both the House and Senate.

    This election represents an opportunity to begin the end of Trumpism by depriving the Trumpist Republicans of their congressional majorities, which would not only reflect on Donald Trump, the leader of the party who, like the opposition Democrats, has been campaigning as if the election were a referendum on him and his policies, but to thwart some of his most extreme Trumpist (protectionist, nativist and isolationist) policies, and conduct proper oversight over his authoritarianism, corruption and cruelty that the congressional Republicans have avoided performing.  As such, a loss of the GOP majority would not only diminish Trumpism for the next two years by exposing Trump as a loser for the party and far-right Trumpism as unpopular, but have significant implications for his successor as Republican presidential nominee in 2028.  It would thus create an opportunity for non-Trumpist Republicans on the center right to return to leadership of the Grand Old Party.  A step back for the Republicans today would give it the only chance for a restoration to its former status as an acceptable major party for conservatives.  Otherwise, a new center-right party would be necessary.

    Furthermore, the optimal way for Americans to cap their year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of independence would be to renew their independence by voting to reject the influence of a hostile foreign power (the Russian Federation under tyrant Vladimir Putin) over Trump and the Trumpified party he leads.  

    Although I cannot vote in good conscience for liberal Democrats, particularly those who are not pro-life, nor to vote to put their party into any federal or state legislative majority, or to encourage anyone else to do the same, I am among the many conservatives and Republicans who are trying to cause the Trumpist Republicans lose their congressional majority so that they turn away from far-right Trumpism and back toward principled conservatism. Moreover, elections are only binary choices between the lesser of two evils if we voters continue to accept unworthy candidates as the nominees of each party and to vote for them.  Forcing the major parties to nominate principled candidates by withholding votes for their nominees is the only way to encourage better nominees. 

    Therefore, as I do in every general election, I encourage principled conservatives not to vote for any candidate for public office who does not repudiate Trump or Trumpism and instead vote for qualified, acceptable independent or third-party candidates, or at least to write in the names of principled non-Trumpist Republicans, including our own names, if necessary.