Late on Tuesday night, after he left the victory party for Senator-Elect Annie Andrews, former South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison called to reflect on what just happened.
asserted
what → leave → Andrews
Harrison ran against Sen. Lindsey Graham in 2020, and raised more money than any Democrat in the state’s history.
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Harrison → run → history
He lost by 10 points.
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He → lose → points
Joe Biden tapped him to run the Democratic National Committee, for what both men hoped would be the presidency that ended the MAGA era.
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that → tap → era
Trump returned, stronger than ever, and Harrison went home.
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Harrison → return → ?
Two years later, Harrison watched Graham’s sister fumble away a Senate seat that had been safely Republican since Strom Thurmond left the Democratic Party.
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Thurmond → watch → Party
Harrison recalled what he told the late senator in 2020: “You better be grateful Donald Trump was on this ballot, because you would have lost.”
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you → recall → ballot
This was how Democrats thought about Donald Trump for the better part of a decade.
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Democrats → think → decade
The president convinced Democrats that pre-2016 political rules do not apply to him, that he could lead his voters anywhere.
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he → convince → voters
When he said he was “on the ballot,” maybe they’d see him there.
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they → say → him
On Tuesday night, voters revealed that his roughhouse politics don’t work without the perception of a good economy and a world at peace.
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politics → reveal → peace
Trump did nationalize the election, hold his rallies, and summon the party to Dallas for a midterm convention to juice turnout and get the coalition on book.
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coalition → nationalize → book
In Trump’s first term, his humiliation of the old Republican Party and its mega-donors showed them that there was a new electoral coalition – tough on immigration, ready to use tariffs to bring jobs back to America, and about as socially conservative as the median voter.
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humiliation → show → voter
At the start of his second term, Trump seemed to have found a synthesis between his new coalition and the donors.
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Trump → seem → coalition
He could turn out his base with money from people who didn’t understand that base.
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who → turn → base
That didn’t last two years.
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That → last → ?
Trump notched some significant wins, like the end of the old asylum system and a suite of progressive tax cuts, which Democrats are afraid to run against.
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Democrats → notch → which
But the Trump who destroyed ancestral Democrats in the Rust Belt and rural South is gone.
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who → destroy → Belt
He’s built a nationalist project that his opponents feared — right up until sunset yesterday, when the first early votes were counted in the Indianapolis suburbs.
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votes → build → suburbs
Trump hadn’t convinced supporters to pretend he was “on the ballot.”
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he → convince → ballot
Or perhaps they just didn’t want to.
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they → want → ?
Democrats made a bet that gravity was real, and Trump couldn’t defy it anymore.
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Trump → make → it
They ran many candidates who distanced themselves from “woke” left-wing ideas, now aware of how Trump could exploit them and how his ultra-aggressive GOP — no more John McCains, ripping the mic away from a woman babbling about Barack Obama’s DNA — would amplify whatever he said.
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he → run → whatever
Their strategy was much more compelling to voters than to people who write about politics.
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who → write → politics
Running back 2024 in 2026
With the votes mostly counted, the attempts to copy what worked for Trump in good times look downright pathetic.
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what → run → times
Republicans who believed they could inherit the Trump coalition mostly tried what had worked for him in 2024.
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what → believe → 2024
Like Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran for governor in Ohio, went after his Democratic opponent’s personal weaknesses, suggesting she’s a drunk and the mother who abandoned her knew she was a “liar.”
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she → run → her
In Texas, Ken Paxton tried Trump’s nickname game (“James Talafreako”) and suggested that his opponent harbored a secret sexual desire for transgender children.
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opponent → try → children
Both men lost.
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men → lose → ?
Vice President JD Vance ran the same plays, just as ineffectively.
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Vance → run → plays
In Texas, he’d joke about whether Talarico’s “browser history” would reveal a proclivity for child pornography.
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history → joke → pornography
In Ohio, he said that he wanted to meet Amy Acton at a bar — “I understand that she’s into that sort of thing!”
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she → say → thing
In Kansas, he said that Methodist minister Adam Hamilton wore Christianity like a “skin suit,” and in Michigan, he accused Abdul El-Sayed of harboring hatred toward white people and Western civilization.
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he → say → people
In two months, Vance will walk to the old Senate Chamber, smile for the cameras, and swear in Talarico, Hamilton, and El-Sayed for their six-year terms.
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Vance → walk → terms
Republicans are already looking at a post-Trump GOP, and the most panicky among them are wondering if there’s some way to avoid it being led by Vance.
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it → look → Vance
Democrats have not suddenly found the message or candidate that can win them a new governing coalition.
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that → find → coalition
But Republicans simply don’t know what to do.
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Republicans → know → what
Republicans who built their identity around Trump, believing that he had a magic with working class voters that could be transferred to them on Truth Social, were wrong.
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that → build → Social
The Aporia
