The inaugural Republican Midterm Convention came across to MAGA like a return to the glory days. President Trump’s speech Wednesday night, concluding with the rousing Make America—wealthy, healthy, strong, proud, safe, great—Again mantra, evoked the winning seasons of elections past. Holding a midterm convention was inspired.
Trump’s promise of a $5000 tariff dividend for every American citizen if the House and Senate remain in GOP hands, (a recommendation I made on this website months ago) is classic. Who’s going to vote against receiving five grand in the mail? The proposal was widely derided, but we’ll see.
Focus now shifts to Trump’s plans for a months-long blitz in support of GOP candidates. When that rally-fest commences in October, the man who isn’t on the ballot will be front and center in packed houses across the country. There’s a supportive base in alignment with the President’s endorsements, policies and ideology. On the stump, he must speak directly to a wavering middle of the electorate to forestall the possibility of Congressional flips and a lame-duck, impeachment-ridden ruckus for the balance of his second term.
Trump must reiterate the success and imperative for policies that combat illegal immigration. Despite the border-busting rhetoric spewing from the far-left, most voters know that unchecked foreign migration—the kind Kamala Harris presided over as “border czar” would destroy the country. Pull the focus away from individual busts, and place it squarely on wholesale targets that can be grasped as dangerous. The recent crackdown on illegal license mills for alien big-rig drivers was an excellent touch. Trump will be remiss if he doesn’t point to the ongoing immigrant invasion of Europe and Great Britain as cautionary tales.
In the rhetorical constructs of Marco Rubio, the Venezuelan oil deal sounds good—conjuring a western hemispheric future in which the Middle East oil monarchs can pound sand. But despite Trump’s construction credentials and promises to restore the Strategic Oil Reserve, analysts affirm that due to the degraded state of the South American country’s oil infrastructure after decades of Communist mismanagement, Trump will likely be out of office before the first Venezuelan oil goes into a stateside gas tank. Sen. Ted Cruz has run the numbers on the deal, and believes that leadership in this oil-rich country must dramatically change before any benefits can be counted upon. Meanwhile, last week saw the highest Labor Day gas prices on record.
The effect of the Iran conflict is a wild card element. As the prospect of intractability hovers over the region, unwavering Trump supporters hang in with elevated fuel costs, while Democrats in search of pluralities propound on domestic unaffordability to the vast undecided. When asked for a midterm prediction, even the perspicacious Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy admitted, “I don’t know.”
Trump’s rallies will be packed, and security must be impervious. The man who isn’t on the ballot must assure his base without getting ugly, reach out to largely apolitical voters who vote kitchen table, and—without relying on old-news castigation of the Biden/Harris disaster—make a two-year focus on America First the primary substance of his message.