And it might even be worse than what anyone suspects.
First, two recent polls show Republicans with 7% and 8% generic ballot leads. In 2010 with the Republicans having only a 6.8% lead, they won 63 seats and six Senate seats. At 7-8%, we literally could be looking at Republicans taking every single contestable seat and maybe one or two not considered in danger.
They would need 287 for a veto-proof majority there. Even with the best likely outcome, they won’t get there. In the Senate, it’s worse: currently I’m thinking the GOP would be lucky to get back two seats (the two stolen in Georgia), probably in the form of Herschel Walker (GA) and John Sununu (NH). However, other R seats are vulnerable including Richard Burr’s seat in NC; and no one knows where D Mark Kelly’s seat in AZ would shake out.
Now for the really bad news. It’s probably not going to matter. If the Rs end up with even 250 seats in the House, they will be way short of the supermajority, and there is no chance for the 2/3 majority in the Senate. This means that the Biteme agenda will continue.
”House Rs will impeach the Rutabaga” you scream. Possibly. So? They will face the same issue in the Senate that Botoxic’s lunatic impeachments of Trump faced: a vote to acquit.
“They can shut down legislation.” They could, and possibly would—-though after Friday’s vote for the Biteme Infrastructure Bill, I’m not sure they would. But again, so?
Biteme will continue his reign of terror with Executive Orders. Then the House and Senate are left with only two options, which under Zero neither was willing to take: impeach (a no go, as noted above) or refuse to fund. The denial of funding is not quite as easy as it appears, given how interwoven our federal budgets are.
Go back with me to 1995 and recall how the gubment shutdown ended up only shutting down those parts of gubment that DemoKKKrats could use in their propaganda, like Christmas sleigh rids in Yellowstone Park or museums. “Well, then they could do a total shutdown.” In 30 years, no GOP majority has been willing to follow through on such a shutdown. Newt Gingrich caved, John Boener caved.
My point is, a president is phenomenally powerful, as Trump showed. He built his wall, almost completely, despite total opposition from Congress, which only relented when he proved he had the Constitutional authority to use DoD money. Then Congress finally allocated some funds. Whenever Congress refused to pony up, Trump just found a way around it: the fed gubment is so flush with money a crafy executive can move it from one place to another.
In short, folks, I think we’re in deep trouble. I think there will be a massive, massive backlash against Biteme—-and that it won’t matter. It would take a Congress of at least 200 fire-breathing Majorie Taylor-Greenes to obstruct effectively. Our side has absolutely no history of playing gutter ball. And Biteme’s ratings will continue to crash. He may well be the first president ever to leave office with a rating in the low 20s. And it won’t matter.
The Rutabaga is on a seek-and-destroy-the-US mission. He and his handlers, who are really making his policies, figure they have three more years to destroy America as we know it, and they aren’t going to be stopped. That leaves two other possible obstacles.
First, the courts. My faith in the courts is about the same as my faith that Robert Downey, Jr. will come back from the Marvel dead and put the Avengers back together. Some, as with the Fifth Circuit, will act as roadblocks around the way, but the vax and other tyranny cases from Biteme are heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has so far not earned a lick of our hope.
Second, the real resistance may have to come from the states—-not enforcing vax mandates, not going along with FBI persecutions of patriots, not tolerating one iota of tyranny. The number of states willing to do this, happily, is probably larger than the 50% of America that joined the Confederacy. Ultimately, you might see every state outside of the Pacific Coast, the north Atlantic Coast, and Illinois joining this resistance when the pain grows too unbearable. Would governors arrest federal agents seeking to impose anti-Constitutional mandates on individuals? Maybe. Would a Demented Pervert send in federal troops to enforce? Likely. How many of those troops would obey such orders? In the Civil War, not quite half of the existing army simply left. Over time it wasn’t enough, but as I say, things are much different now.
Blue states may have a slight population edge, and certainly the advantage in finished product manufacturing, but the Patriot States—-the South, the Midwest less Illinois, the West less New Mexico and Colorado—-have all the raw material production. And unlike in the U.S. Civil War, instead of being isolated in a region the North could encircle, instead the Patriot States separate the two enemy camps and would make transportation and coordination difficult. The Patriot States don’t hold all the power, but they have vastly more advantages than the South did in the Civil War. And, as in the Civil War, there would be massive pockets of internal resistance that could possibly grow to be untenable for the blue bastions.
This is not a pretty picture, but it is, I think, the direction we are heading. Biteme must be stopped, if not by Congress, if not by the courts, if not by the states, then by the people themselves. For a look at how that might play out, see the book “Unintended Consequences” by John Ross.