ROGER KIMBALL: Of Cabals and Elections.
Joe’s numbers are in the tank.
Kamala’s are under the tank.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s are lost somewhere in an abandoned exploratory tunnel excavated by Elon Musk’s Boring Company.
Every psephologist in Alpha Centauri expects the Democrats to lose the House in a historic tsunami of red redress.
The Democrats will lose 40, 50, maybe 60 seats.
Some are predicting 70 seats will switch from blue to red in the House.
The Senate is more dicey, but more and more observers believe that the GOP will flip the Senate as well.
But remember the premise.
Elections are only legitimate if Democrats win.
The 2022 midterms are almost certain to be a rout for Democrats, especially in the House but also, if by a less dramatic margin, in the Senate and in many state elections.
Ergo, to the Democratic mouthpiece, the midterm elections will by definition be illegitimate.
To rubes like you and me, that seems preposterous.
We think that a free, open, and democratic election is one in which the election rules are known beforehand and everyone who is entitled to vote has an equal opportunity to do so.
That goes completely against the grain of the anti-democratic Democratic mindset.
One of the most remarkable essays about the 2020 election was “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” published in Time magazine last February.
By “saved the election,” the author meant “saved the election for the Democrats.”
This is Time, so the anti-Trump animus is patent on every page.
What’s remarkable, though, is that the author cheerfully—almost gleefully—describes exactly how a cabal of anti-Trump operatives swung the election against Trump and then stymied his efforts to challenge the results.
“There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes,” we read.
Isn’t that exactly what Trump partisans argued, much to the ridicule and contempt of their political opponents?
Yes, but it’s different when they do it.
They don’t engage in ridicule and contempt because what their opponents are saying is false. They engage in ridicule and contempt to shut their opponents up because it’s true.