A tough and realistic conversation for the short-sighted
Happy Monday, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve been on the road for 9 days and am a bit worn down. I’m not my chipper self today, and I’m going to open your week with a bit of shockwave for needed perspective, accountability, and hopefully, direction.
Simply put, when Americans voted for a political revolution and won, they didn’t vote for a 35% approval rating and they sure as hell didn’t come out in droves just so the Republican Party could get shellacked in the very next midterms. They were told about America’s decline, viewed that fateful quadrennial presidential election as a last ditch effort to reverse course peacefully in America, and responded with a popular vote win that featured Republican presidential victories in:
- Arizona
- Michigan
- Nevada
- Pennsylvania
- Wisconsin
…and blowouts in Texas, Florida, and Ohio. This unrelenting base was ready to crawl over shattered glass and gas station bathrooms to vote for a man who became the oldest president of all time upon inauguration. That old man could have enjoyed his fame in retirement, but chose to step into a toxic arena and wear every label, accusation, and slander imaginable and even survived an assassin’s bullet.
To imagine that this man would be underwater and through uncontrollable world events struggle to deliver the full economic revival he promised his working-class base just two years later, and on the verge of losing midterms, is utterly unimaginable, unpalatable, and unacceptable to the people who believed in him.
Thirty-five percent approval.
In the celebratory aftermath of his victory and the rip-roaring fast start of the administration, no one would pencil in a 12% loss to Democrats in the House popular vote, and a loss of 26 seats, along with key gubernatorial races in must-win states. Seeing the base fray at the seams was not what I’d have envisioned watching such a political revolution unfold just two years earlier.
My assumption is that you had no idea I was talking about President Ronald Reagan’s administration and the beating the Republicans received in 1982.
Yes, indeed – at the start of 1983, right after the Democrats cleaned House, President Reagan held a 35% approval rating.
This was back before we had 900 different polls using different methodologies to produce heavily propagandized results, so a 35% approval rating hurts a lot more than the fabricated ones encircling President Trump’s administration these days. Reagan was widely thought to be a one-term president in the making at the same point in his administration as we find ourselves into Trump 2.0’s administration.
Likewise, vultures are circling today – forecasting doom in 2028 despite Republicans performing extremely well in voter registration bearing down on a midterm that, according to 92 years of history, favors Democrats, and the rapid emergence of the DSA faction of the Democrat Party.
“2028 GE: Polling Average by @RacetotheWH — Harris: 47.5% (+4.9), Vance: 42.6% — Buttigieg: 42.2% (+1.2), Vance: 41.0% — Vance: 42.0% (+1.3), Newsom: 40.7% — Vance: 42.8% (+5.2), AOC: 37.6%. Kamala Harris has led JD Vance in every single poll in 2025/26.” — InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022), August 9, 2026
Three-time Trump voters perpetuate online conversations 24/7 spreading negative energy (“blackpilling”) and convincing those on the fence that the fight isn’t worth fighting and exists only to be lost. Now let me tell you how we got here, how we get out, and what mindset shift must occur if there is to be a freer future obtained through peaceful means.
TALKING SENSE IN AN AGE OF POLITICAL ILLITERACY
I. Information War
Humanity is in a tough spot. We have access to more information than any people to have ever existed before. In past ages, iconic libraries would burn, and with them, hundreds of years of human learning and experience would go up in flames. Now, any idiot with a phone can look up the molecular composition of dust floating in an asteroid belt millions of miles from earth.
Unfortunately, despite all this information, the human brain reverts to a hypnotized state when confronted with fake news, polling, and agendas. No matter how many elections in a row we get clearly biased and rigged polling, the next round of pro-Democrat polling is right around the corner. Here’s the polling from the 2020 Senate race in Maine, which Susan Collins won by almost 9 points:
Paid influencers then post negative stories, because they get 40% more engagement than factual or positive ones, and the algorithms – like wind in sails – do the rest of the work.
“Trump lied”
“Israel owns the GOP”
“You shouldn’t vote this election to show them how you feel”
We think we are smart, and indeed, the internet did aid in the Great Awakening and allow a man like Donald Trump to be elected president. But people no longer read, write, and express original thoughts. Try handing your teenagers a book for a car ride activity, and you’ll get my point. We think we are winning the battlefield of ideas, but in truth we are insular, outsource our thinking, and are led around like sheep to slaughter.
That brings us to Point II:
II. Only One Trump
Remember when I explained why Trump was so fond of Lindsey Graham, a guy who was weak on immigration and hawkish on foreign policy?
A lot of that has to do with getting the job done on budgets. Then there’s also the reality of the political system, which selects incumbents most of the time based on the following cycle, which repeats:
- Money buys advertising, staff, and voters
- Incumbency brings money and name recognition
- Money and name recognition bring reelection
When there’s a legitimately vulnerable incumbent, he or she often survives because eight different grassroots candidates throw hats in the ring and audition like “Mirror mirror on the wall, who’s the most conservative of them all?”
As such, you have 53 Republican senators, minus Cornyn, Tillis, Murkowski, and sometimes Curtis, Cassidy, and Collins. We get conservative voters not turning out in what they view to be pointless primaries, allowing for places like Knox County, Tennessee, to have liberal idiots in charge of education. Simply put, we don’t have other Trumps, and because there are no (or few) other Trumps out there to do the people’s work, the Uniparty maintains a degree of control and can then focus on deflecting executive actions.
I suppose Trump could go bulldozer mode, but then the ideological purists would condemn his actions as those of a dictator. The United States government was designed to change slowly, and in this sense, it isn’t working fast enough to save the country politically. This brings me to my final point:
III. Short-Sighted Strategies Fail
But what if the Democrats win the midterms?
What if they do? I mean, 92 years of history show me that the president’s party loses seats in the U.S. House 20 out of 23 times since 1934. This year, believe it or not, affords one of the highest chances of president-party success since the dawn of the New Deal era, and it’s entirely owed to redistricting. Republicans aren’t going to win the Congressional popular vote, but they may be able to pull an inside straight depending on how they do in these 24 seats:
I am in it to win it, and I want Republicans to retain and expand majorities; however, I fail in my capacity as an advisor if I push anything less than truth, or lie to my friends about seats they, or even a resurrected George Washington, can’t win. If Democrats win the House, which I would give them 60/40 odds to do today, then there will be pain. There will be committees formed and inquiries ordered, and crappy people assigned important positions of influence and power. They will drag their political enemies in front of cameras and excoriate them, and unlike Republicans, deal out legitimate consequences.
And in doing so, they will remind America why they can’t be trusted with power, why voter registration constantly moves against them, and exactly why they should forget the early struggles of the Trump 47 administration that aren’t really the fault of his policies. Economic ships take a long time to turn around, global enemies left unaddressed for 5 decades don’t simply leave power in a span of months, and the enemy wants to win, too.
Like we Christians say on Easter: Satan thought he had it won on Friday, but Sunday is coming.
The 2030 census is coming. The emergence of the DSA is already coming. The truth will win out, but only if the people who desire to see it in real, living color in our lives get off their dead asses, log off the internet, and get busy building the relationships that matter and pushing the good people they know to take over school boards, counties, and beyond. There are no more Trumps. You must be the new Trumps, or provide aid to those who stand for what is right.
The focus on the short-term is killing us. Building a long-term juggernaut will bring dividends for generations and bring new life to a Republican Party that can truly be used as a force for good, as it once was.
The Happy End to the Story
As we all know, Saint Reagan made a remarkable recovery.
Today, he’s remembered as one of our greatest presidents, even though he wasn’t perfect, and left behind some policy-related damages that still hurt us today, such as those related to illegal immigration and amnesty in a 1986 scam he fell for. The Republicans went on to win 89 of a possible 100 states between the 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, achieving the only three-election streak by the same party since the end of World War II – a feat still unmatched today.
We find ourselves today on the precipice of knowing what the 2026 midterms hold in store. Republicans will bounce back from a negative outcome, perhaps even with a better and more engaged response than they do from a miraculous hold of both majorities. As for your peace of mind and sense of direction – that relies on your willingness to invest in long-term outcomes rather than temporary and fleeting dopamine hits in the form of social media whining and immediate demand for positive election results without the tough work getting done beforehand.
History doesn’t always repeat, but it very often rhymes!
Seth Keshel, MBA is a Senior Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a retired Army Captain. He publishes Captain K’s Corner on Substack.
