They Haven't Learned a Damned Thing

Topic: Perspective

It is hard to talk of much in the political space right now except for President Trump and his Herculean efforts to undo as much damage as possible in just four years. Candidates are already lining up for 2026, as it is always election season for the consultant class to take advantage of, and before you know it, we will be in campaign mode and barreling down the highway toward the halfway point of Trump’s term. History gives us hints as to how the 2026 midterms will shake out, but one thing is for certain…

The Democrats haven’t learned a damned thing.

Hey, guys – this was you less than three months ago, if you can spot the tiny strips and blots of blue in this sea of red:

This is you this week:

No, how about we abolish illegal aliens and other leeches to society, and send you back to where you came from? Those taxpayer funded flights, in my opinion, come from the last American coins that should be spent on you for any purpose. Do you want to turn Dallas County red? It already shifted heavily toward Trump in the last race, so please, keep shutting down traffic and you will lose even your stronghold there.

Anti-deportation activists in the streets and celebrities crying over deportations aren’t the only puzzling things the country is seeing. Nope, they’re watching Pennsylvania Democrats spend legislative energy trying to remove sex from birth certificates in what was once a double-digit Obama state that transformed into the linchpin of both Trump victories. Even MSNBC recognizes and is pleading with the Democrats to get it together and stop appealing to special interest groups, especially those with insane ideas that sound great to white, SSRI-popping feminists in the suburbs and empowered college girls, but are utterly offensive to working-class voters or those of religious faith who simply want borders shut, jobs retained, the economy grown, peace sought, and children free to learn in class without needing to worry they are being turned into the next cogs in a collectivist machine.

Rather than taking the lesson of President Trump 2.0 as it was plainly broadcast, the resistance spent valuable ammo inserting a lunatic “bishop” in front of Trump to get what they thought were important sound bites pleading the case for people who either deserve deportation or, in the case of the LGBT population, weren’t going to be persecuted by the Trump administration in any case because the administration recognizes all citizens are afforded certain rights and liberties not subject to government regulation. In my time forecasting elections and identifying manipulation in said elections, I’ve come to learn that the consulting class and many campaign managers overcomplicate things to make them sound more difficult than they are. This ensures that they, and only they, are qualified to manage important campaigns because clearly no one else can figure out such a complicated topic.

Allow me to make this very simple. Trump became President on two separate occasions because he and his team, back in 2016, correctly discerned they needed to flip working-class states in the Electoral College, identifying an entirely new path the inept Romney campaign could never conceive of. The last, dying gasp of the white conservative coalition was observed in 2004, when George W. Bush won one of the weakest reelections in history; had he lost Ohio, he would have lost the race to John Kerry despite winning the popular vote somewhat comfortably. This is what the map would have looked like last November if all Bush-Obama states remained blue (except Indiana and North Carolina, which Romney flipped back in 2012), and all Kerry states backed Harris (meaning no Trump flips of the working-class states):

There you have it – without the populist realignment of the Electoral College accomplished under Trump, Harris would have won by approximately 122 electoral votes. The swing away from the hypothetical results compared to Trump’s 312-226 win in November is 210 electoral votes.

How was this accomplished?

1) Consolidation of the white, conservative GOP base (evangelicals, cowboys, farmers, and male suburbanites).

2) Flipping large chunks of the white-working class populations of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio, and the white and Latino working-class populations of Florida and Nevada (plus Arizona in 2024).

3) Particularly in his third campaign, benefitting from the erosion of the Democrat minority voter base thanks largely to the public’s aversion to feminist politics, gender issues being placed over economic ones, and the Democrat tolerance and encouragement of illegal immigration.

If I wanted to write a 4,000-word article this morning, I could make the above list much lengthier, but you should understand the gist, especially if you’re a longtime reader of Captain K’s Corner. In a nutshell, if I rode an elevator with someone who had been comatose for a decade that wanted to know just what the hell happened, I’d tell them the Democrats lost their working-class base due to trade issues, and too much of their minority voting base to win critical battleground states because they spent too much time pandering to insane, white left-wing activists while watching the country burn.

Democrats need not do much to reverse the tide politically. History suggests Democrats should flip the U.S. House in 2026, given that only two sitting presidents since World War II have seen their party gain seats in the U.S. House in a midterm; however, the Democrats are so stubborn in taking cues and incapable of reading between the lines, if ever there were a year for a reversal of norms, 2026 may be the one (especially since Americans overwhelmingly approve of the Trump transition and the administration’s opening actions). If you were to draw up a scenario in which the GOP dominates the 2026 midterms, it couldn’t have kicked off any better than it already has.

In April 2023, I correctly assessed the political terrain as lawfare against Trump was at full speed. He was taking on Republican challengers and many people, including those on our side, were writing his political obituary. I predicted the overreach would turn the nation against those pushing the foul agenda, and I already see it in full swing in these opening days of the Trump administration. The GOP needs to keep the hammer down on election integrity issues and sweeping reform, and let their enemies do the heavy lifting in the courts of public opinion, where they are doing a bang-up job.

As Napoleon said:

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.