The Voters Have Spoken. I Wonder If Trump Has Flood Insurance.

"I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP."

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While Trump's ego would never allow him to admit it, by this point even the sycophants he has surrounded himself with must know that he was the only name on the ballot on November 3, 2026. Texas went overwhelmingly blue, Democrats outperformed expectations, and there is only one man to blame.

Midterm elections are historically difficult for sitting presidents, but this year's results amounted to a widespread repudiation of both Trump and his policies. It turns out that when you promise to reduce inflation, deport violent criminals, and keep the country out of foreign conflicts, voters don't appreciate it when prices rise, high-profile deportation cases generate public outrage, and the United States launches another war in the Middle East.

These were not narrow victories in traditional swing districts. Kansas snapped a 94-year Republican streak and elected a Democrat to the Senate. The expanded Senate majority will leave John Fetterman with less opportunity to play the second coming of Joe Manchin and hold the party's agenda hostage. Similarly, a substantial House majority will give Hakeem Jeffries far more room to maneuver than Mike Johnson ever dreamed of.

As a result, Trump will enter the final two years of his presidency as the lamest of ducks. With the opposition party in control of the legislative branch, his usual negotiating strategy of bullying the other side into submission will be harder to pull off. Perhaps the ghostwriter of The Art of the Deal can offer him some pointers on how to proceed.

The reality-TV star who turned the presidency into a reality show jumped the shark one too many times and exhausted the audience's patience. With two years left on his contract, the network executives can't fire him, so they'll simply bury him in an undesirable time slot.

Trump has no one to blame but himself. He likes to fancy himself an expert at everything, but in reality, his political instincts often proved downright harmful to his own interests. Having surrounded himself with yes-men too afraid to offer him advice, he plowed through the campaign like a bull in a china shop:

• Making the campaign all about himself: Despite historically low approval ratings, he put a weight around the necks of the candidates he was supposed to be helping.
• Prioritizing personal vendettas: In Republican primaries, he backed deeply flawed candidates to challenge those who had crossed him. This created openings that Democrats were quick to exploit.
• Pushing for mid-decade redistricting: His greedy attempt to secure additional House seats failed spectacularly. In Texas especially, the gerrymander turned into a dummymander.

But even without these political misfires, the winds were bound to shift against the house of cards Trump had built.

Trump won a second term by attacking Biden over the difficult choices he had to make while dealing with the worldwide economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, he convinced many voters that an economy recovering from a historic crisis was actually in free fall.

When his missteps, including unprovoked trade wars and launching a war against Iran, helped drive prices higher, he tried to convince the electorate that the economy wasn't that bad. It turns out that it is easier to convince an audience that things are worse than they are than to convince them that things are better. When these voters entered the voting booth, they knew who was to blame for making gas and groceries more expensive.

The Democrats should be cautious about how they interpret their victory. The election results suggest that voters want them to hold Trump accountable, but they should resist the temptation to turn that responsibility into political theater. They were elected to do a job, and they need to show they can get it done without stooping to Trump's level.

The Blue Team also needs to be serious about fixing our economic problems. Trump is promising to veto Democratic legislation, but if they put legislation on his desk, they will at least be able to make the case that they tried.

People are hurting, and they have given Democrats a chance to step up. If they fail, they may find themselves in a world of hurt in the next election. The electorate has proven that it can turn on a dime between election cycles. Only a fool would assume it won't happen again.

Carl Petersen is a former Green Party candidate for the LAUSD School Board and a longtime advocate for public education and special needs families. Now based in Washington State, he writes about politics, culture, and their intersections at TheDifrntDrmr.