One does not need to be a political genius to know what the American people want, and in a constitutional Republic, they will ultimately get it. The American people most importantly wanted prices to go down, and yet Mr. Trump wanted them to go up. Yes, I’m not being unfair, he wanted them to go up. The entire rational for his trade war against the entire world was to raise domestic prices such that manufacturers would be able to produce in America again and cover their costs. We’ve written extensively about why this is bad policy; that it is all pain and no gain. But alas, the president wanted it. No matter how unconstitutional, no matter how many court setbacks, he was indefatigable in his purpose–raise our prices to restore out glory. But the problem is that no one wanted this. Fox News exit polling showed 65% of the country viewed his trade wars as harmful, and a similar majority blamed the poor economy (as perceived by voters) on Mr. Trump’s policies (the war in Iran heavily influencing this).

While here at BATG we’ve noted the potential for a new much more positive world with the change of the Iranian regime (such that I supported Mr. Trump’s initial military efforts), his conduct of the war was and is as volatile as his posts on Truth Social. He refused to build either domestic or international consensus on both the ends as well as the means. What’s the plan? When it was going to be over in days and then weeks, and then a couple of months, and now Mr. Trump opines that he’s not sure what he wants to do, but something after the mid-terms. If you are fighting a war, fight a war. His whipsawing the world in foreign policy and his whipsawing the American policy with his trade wars were simply not what the American people wanted. And oh bye the way, do we really want to go to war with Europe over Greenland? And do we really think a trade war with our next door neighbor is good policy or politics? What the American people want in a president is a competent and steady hand. Mr. Trump was viewed in his first term as relatively competent albeit not steady. In his 2nd term, he is no longer considered either. He wanted to be the focus of the election and he was.

Mr. Trump also got all the candidates he wanted, deliberately picking weaker candidates for the general election in favor of those considered more loyal to Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump ran Senator Tillis out of the race. Despite months of cajoling by many different senators, including Tim Scott (who is a Trump loyalist) he refused to endorse John Cornyn in Texas, and instead anointed Ken Paxton. He endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy as soon as he came out for Governor of Ohio. In Georgia, Mr. Trump continued his feud with Governor Brian Kemp, the one man who might have had a chance to take out the Democratic Senator Ossoff. So Mr. Trump got his man in Georgia, and the Democrats got another Senate seat. In South Carolina, he intervened to get Darlene Graham on the ballot. He did, and the Democrats got another Senate seat in another deep red state.

I was prepared this morning to write that this latter failure cost him the Senate, but seeing the results I’m not now sure. The margin of victory, particularly in Texas, was stunning. It’s not clear that given the historical headwinds and Mr. Trump’s actions to increase costs that we would have seen a dramatically different result. But it certainly didn’t help. For example, here in Ohio Jon Husted should have been running for Governor and I think he would likely have won (albeit I don’t know if he had that desire), and in this anti-incumbent mood it would have been better to have a new Republican candidate take on the retread Sherrod Brown. But who knows; we don’t get to run the counterfactual election.

Mr. Trump is now a very lame duck, and his remaining two years will not be pleasant. JD Vance likely lost his chance to be the nominee. As a practical matter, nothing will be done to change the direction of the country and the Democrats will not approve a single Trump judicial nomination (certainly not any potential Supreme Court opening). Per our last post, Peggy Noonan got her wish. I now hope that she is right.