Republicans Are VERY Afraid Of The Midterms. Three Months Ago, They Weren't

What changed? We did. We broke the spell of Trump's invulnerability.

Let’s take a step back into the distant past of…March 2025. Trump had just been sworn in several weeks earlier, and his regime immediately set the Constitution on fire. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, was rampaging through the federal government, stealing trillions of dollars’ worth of personal data and illegally firing tens of thousands of federal employees.

Masked ICE agents began to grab people off the street with no warrant and make them disappear. The first human trafficking flight to a concentration camp in Central America was on March 15, in direct violation of a court order. The country was terrified. The press was working 24/7 to sanewash a rabid president and normalize open lawlessness by a fascist regime. The Republican Party was gloating about Trump’s (nonexistent) massive mandate and a new dawn in ‘Murika. Elections didn’t matter because by the time they came? This would be The White Christian States of Trump.

March was a really long time ago, wasn’t it? All that Republican swagger vanished. Where is it? In a supermax prison in El Salvador?

Fascism thrives on fear. It wilts under scrutiny. Never look away. Never stop fighting. Hold them accountable and make them pay for every cruel thing they do. It’s the only way we get through this. Support this newsletter for just $5 a month or $50 a year and we’ll get through together.

Let’s fast forward from March to the far-flung future of June 30, 2025. In the three and a half months since the regime peaked, how are things going for them?

• Trump has lost about 93% of the cases brought against his regime.

• Elon Musk has been exiled from his government job and is now attacking Trump and his signature bill, the MAGA Murder Budget.

• Trump’s triumphant, masturbatory military parade was a disaster, complete with laughably low attendance and the troops making it very clear they were not on board with the fascism.

• At the exact same time no one showed up to cheer for Trump, several million people took to the streets to cheer for democracy in one of the largest, and definitely most widespread, protests in American history.

• Trump’s public support has vanished.

• Voters fucking HATE the “Big Beautiful Bill” Republicans are trying to pass. Even Republicans hate it if they’re aware of what’s in it, something Democrats have been screaming at the top of their lungs and the legacy press has been kind of mumbling under their breath.

This last part is where we pick up the story of now. Remember, Republicans were strutting with their collective dick swinging around. They had a mandate, baby! Fucking ‘Murika! MAGA all the way! Those pussy libs couldn’t do anything. Trump was inevitable and who cares about elections?

A party convinced they don’t have to worry about elections doesn’t give a shit about what the voters think. And when the House Republicans put this bill together, they surely did not care. They were loud and proud about how they were going to gut Medicaid and Medicare and food stamps and Meals on Wheels and just steal literally hundreds of billions from the poor and middle class to feed the endless greed of the fascist billionaires that own the GOP.

By the time they passed the bill, though? They were fighting tooth and nail to secure the votes. Whole lot of threats and compromises and even more threats to get it over the finish line. That was five weeks ago.

Since then, things have gotten even worse. Senate Republicans are tearing each other to pieces over the bill. Trump is threatening primaries. “Moderate” Lisa Murkowski needed a massive bribe. Thom Tillis said, “Fuck you” and then announced he wouldn’t run for reelection next year.

The bill is so bloated and mangled, the Senate Parliamentarian is shooting down crucial pieces of it and Republicans are responding by lying and cheating as they always do. Trump is demanding they simply ignore her and pass whatever they want. But the Senate GOP is not doing that (yet). Why not? Elections don’t matter anymore, right? This is the Thousand-Year Reich, so who cares if they ignore the rules?

Three months ago, Republicans might have done that. They might have done away with the filibuster, too. Something else they haven’t done but should have if they really believed there isn’t going to be another election. Why keep it if they’ll be in power forever? When democracy is dead forever, consequences are only for the losing side.

But the Trump of three months ago isn’t the Trump of now. He’s weak and flailing and still a bumbling incompetent.

Meanwhile, the public of three months ago absolutely isn’t the public of now. We’re angry. So SO very fucking angry and getting more organized by the day. More organized and more militant in our organization.

Trump may have convinced himself that there will not be another election but the Republican Party VERY much believes the midterms are coming and they are very afraid of them.

Did you know the Opinionated Ogre has a weekly podcast? It’s true! New episodes every Thursday! Catch the latest episode here:

Here are a few things to consider and I will continue to point them out:

• The Trumpcession has not hit yet. It’s coming and it’s going to be bad - When millions of people lose their jobs and the federal government does nothing at all to help, because Project 2025’s solution to a recession is “Fuck you, Poors!”, no one is going to blame Joe Biden or trans kids. They’re going to blame Trump and the GOP.

• The tariffs haven’t fully impacted the economy yet and Trump is still a fucking moron engaging the country in a global trading war we cannot win - On top of the inflation that’s coming down the pike as the tariffs jack up prices on huge swathes of the economy, Trump’s stupidity is crashing the value of the Dollar and it’s going to get worse.

• Stephen Miller’s Nazi war against immigrants is going to do massive damage - On top of destroying millions of lives, Miller’s blind racist rage will devastate several industries including hotels, farming, restaurants, and construction. With the economy already stumbling, this will be a killing blow and food prices will skyrocket as crops rot in the field.

• Musk is not on Trump’s side anymore - Will Musk fund primaries against Trump allies? Possibly. But even withholding his money and support is a massive blow to Trump who would not have “won” the 2024 election with the billionaire and his propaganda machine.

• The ongoing cuts to the government will be felt soon enough in red states - Even before the MAGA Murder Budget, Republicans have gutted thousands of programs that overwhelmingly served rural America and red states. They’re already noticing all of that support disappearing and they’re going to want to know why. (Hint: Not trans kids)

• RFK Jr’s vaccine bullshit will kill tens of thousands of people and we’ll all know whose fault it is - By limiting access to the flu and covid vaccines this Fall, the death toll will be unlike anything we’ve seen since 2020. Who’s going to get the blame for that? Not migrants.

• Iran and Israel will keep fighting and we will get more involved - Netanyahu cannot allow peace to break out or his criminal trial will proceed. Therefore, Israel will be back at war before the summer is over and Trump, his little mushroom dick hard over the idea of being a “wartime president,” will throw us headlong into the fight. No planning. No exit strategy. Just “cool” footage for the news and demands of absolute loyalty. But a new endless Middle East war will infuriate at least some of the GOP base as well as the rest of the non-MAGA country.

Beware The "Wartime President"

• ICE will continue to spiral out of control - Stephen Miller’s Gestapo grows bolder by the day, convinced that they will never be held accountable for their actions. They are so very very wrong about this. But while they’re high on their own supply, their violence will increasingly sicken the public. Eventually, they will beat someone to death on camera because white nationalists are animals and they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this. They won’t even care if they’re undocumented or not because they’ll have brown skin and that’s all that matters. The public backlash will make the George Floyd protests look like a gathering of elderly British librarians having Sunday tea.

When all of this comes to pass, Trump will be weaker than any president in history and the public will be raging at him more than anyone thought possible. This November’s off-year elections are going to be a bloodbath presaging a midterm slaughter that will put the House and Senate firmly in the hands of the democrats and yank a number of even gerrymandered state legislatures to the left. Republicans will long for the days of the 2018 blue wave.

Now, it’s important to understand that Trump desperately wants to use the military to seize control of the country. To declare an “emergency” and cancel the elections. That’s the plan. That’s always been the plan.

It’s a very bad plan.

There is no mechanism to cancel or even delay the midterms. The federal government cannot dictate when and where states hold their elections. Trump can write an executive order demanding they be canceled and…what? What Democratic-controlled state would honor it? Would the Supreme Court uphold it on the grounds that Trump is king? There is not one single letter in the Constitution to support Trump’s plan and inventing new powers would simply trigger riots.

Now, Trump may want that but the United Military is clearly not onboard and even if they were, they simply are not large enough to seize control of more than one or two big cities. So how does that work? Fingers crossed and hope for the best? Dissolve the Senate and House and hope no one says anything? Hunker down in the White House and rule by fiat? Hope enough of the police or militias join you to put down the riots?

If Trump had the kind of support he needed to do this, millions of Proud Boys would have been in the streets, beating up protesters on No Kings Day. But they weren’t. Isn’t that strange?

Republicans may cram through this bill because they’re afraid of Trump and his cult of murderous monsters. But this should have been easy for them. Deficits don’t matter when elections don’t exist. The debt doesn’t matter when elections aren’t happening. Public rage at the contents of a bill you were gloating about just a month ago doesn’t matter because the public doesn’t get to vote anymore.

But that’s not how Republicans are acting at all. Most of them are very much convinced that passing this bill is electoral suicide and they’ve been trying to do it in the middle of the night behind closed doors. They’ve been lying about what’s in the bill, whereas before they didn’t bother lying at all. They know.

Trump is weak and getting weaker. They’re afraid because they know we’re coming for them, and they no longer believe Trump can stop us.

Fascism relies on the illusion of infallibility, and that illusion has been well and truly shattered. By this time next year, the rats will be fleeing the flaming wreckage of Trump’s regime, trying to save themselves without incurring the wrath of the mad king. Look for an enormous number of “retirements” from the right as dozens of Republicans decide to “spend more time with their families.”

Those are the filthy rats fleeing the coming blue wave.

For their part, Trump and his regime will be lashing out in a wild panic, desperately trying to subdue us. So this is going to get worse before it gets better. Document all of it. Make a record for the tribunals and use the anger to fuel you because when this is over, and it WILL be over, the Nazis will either spend the rest of their lives in a small cell or swing from the rope for what they’ve done. Count on it.

I hope you feel better informed about the world and ready to kick fascists in the teeth to protect it. This newsletter exists because of you, so please consider becoming a supporting subscriber today for only $5 a month or just $50 a year. Thank you for everything!

Fascism hates organized protests. They fear the public. They fear US. Make fascists afraid again by joining Indivisible or 50501 and show them whose fucking country this is!

The Blue Wave has begun and the fascist fucks are scared. There are 126 days until it hits Virginia and Pennsylvania. If I were a billionaire fascist loser, I’d think REALLY hard about getting out of the way.