(Editor’s note: Peggy Noonan is one of America’s most respected writers & columnist of the Wall Street Journal. She addresses the only way the Republican Party can be rebuilt is the President should be dealt a rebuke, a rebellion and a rout. She also has a message for Democrats.)
We begin with a thought at odds with the mood of the moment. It is the old political wisdom that every victory contains the seeds of defeat, and every defeat the seeds of victory. In a democracy the game is long, the outcome never final.
But elections say things. What is this one saying?
It’s all about Donald Trump. He’s the name on every voter’s mind. A veteran Republican strategist in a note the other day: “He is in the air the world breathes. As my dad used to say, ‘He is even in our soup.’ ” Early on Mr. Trump asked people to vote as if he’s running. They will, and he’ll regret it.
We all know the issues—affordability, inflation, corruption, a general feeling of instability coupled with a lack of confidence there’s any clear path to stability. Adding another dollop of existential dread is artificial intelligence and the calamities it makes possible.
Iran is important, but in an unusual way. It isn’t only that the decision to go to war fractured the Trumpian base. If Iran had ended successfully, or even just ended, the philosophical and policy breach would have been soon forgotten. Coalitions want to cohere: If they cohere, the power of their constituent parts continues.
Mr. Trump’s problem is that everyone on both sides of the issue knows that he’s out of his depth in running a major war. They weren’t sure of that when it started.
Democrats think he went in because he’s a bumbler, Republicans think he can’t win because he’s a bumbler. Supporters and opposers of his decision are united: He’s a bumbler whose bumbling made things more expensive.
Everyone knows a wave is coming, the only question is size. Will it wash away buildings on shore or leave them standing? Will it be towering or tallish?
I believe a big, big wave is coming, and I see it as composed of many colors—blue voters predominantly, but indignant red voters too, and disappointed Trump-base voters, many staying home.
This is what I hope for: that it won’t be a close election, that the outcome is unmistakable. Let it be a clear and obvious rebuke—a rejection, a rebellion, a rout.
If it is a small wave, stasis continues. We continue in Washington with the embarrassment of one party tinnily yipping about nothing and to no effect, and the other party showing slavish obeisance to a man they know shouldn’t be president.
If it is a close election, there is no trauma for either side that forces it to change its nature.
If Tuesday yields only a small wave, it will embolden and empower the president’s attempts to undo the results. He will try—he’s Donald Trump. They rigged it! We won’t certify!
He never misses an opportunity to toy with the republic, and it didn’t start in 2020. McKay Coppins’s recent biography of Mitt Romney recounts how supporter Donald Trump reacted to Mr. Romney’s 2012 loss to Barack Obama. In transit to Mr. Romney’s victory party, “Trump sat in the dark of a helicopter, unraveling.” He decided, based on nothing, that the election had been stolen. He started tweeting: “This election is a total sham and a travesty.” “We are not a democracy!” “We should march on Washington and stop this travesty.” “Revolution!”
The 2012 election wasn’t a sham, Mr. Trump just made his charges up, as he did in 2020, when his supporters stormed the Capitol.
It’s what he does. He’ll likely do some variation next week. But if there is a big and unmistakable wave, it will make it harder. The people will see that the people have spoken—and they’ll see it wasn’t close. When he begins to scream, they’ll roll their eyes. A big wave will bolster the position of state election officials.
There are those I hope the wave doesn’t touch. Among them: Sen. Dan Sullivan in Alaska is diligent, deeply versed, a public servant who’s been played dirty. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is the last grown-up, a centrist and moderating force in the Senate, one of those who keep that place running to the extent it runs. The greatest thing said about her is that she isn’t a senator, she’s the mayor of 500 Maine towns and serves them well. May she win by the same margin Vivek Ramaswamy loses in Ohio.
But I want to return to the idea of trauma. America needs to inch toward rough political health. It has to start this now. It will continue in 2028 and 2032, but should start now.
If MAGA takes it full in the face on Tuesday, it will begin to shatter on the state level, where it matters. In that shattering, room will be created in which not fully MAGA figures can start to rise.
The Republican Party has to get healthy again. Healthy doesn’t mean “the establishment returns.” It will never return. The GOP establishment of 1990-2016 ran things into the ground, is discredited and over. Also they’re 80. They destroyed the party by detaching from the legitimate needs and pleas of its base and by secretly regarding that base as stupid nobodies.
The new Republican Party, the one that will have a chance at being born, will keep the good of MAGA (man is not only an economic animal but has a soul; the base isn’t full of fools who know nothing of policy) and the good of the old establishment (professionalism, integrity, an understanding of the economic facts that fueled America’s 20th-century greatness). Party intellectuals are at least trying to return meaning to Pat Moynihan’s wry 46-year-old observation: “Of a sudden, the GOP has become a party of ideas.”
Put all that in the shaker, shake it up, pour it out: You might have something like a good new party. One with standards and driven by beliefs, not resentments. A party for regular people, normal people, “the little guy”—one that stays in touch with them and knows what’s going on in their neighborhoods.
That party can get a chance to begin forming in the trauma of major loss.
It is likely true that if the Democrats get a big, historic outcome Tuesday, they will misread their mandate and go off on various toots. They’ll think that change by definition must be extreme or won’t be noticed. A growing number will continue their grim plodding toward socialist revolution.
What they should do is be sober and serious, as one would be in a national emergency—and we’re in an emergency. They should admit they could go in many directions now, but what they choose is to govern, wisely. To make things work. They should establish competency.
Will they do this? Probably not!
But they need to get healthy again too. And their misunderstanding of their mandate just may start to set the stage.
Only a big wave will allow either party to shake things hard and pour. If it’s close, no one will bother to pick up the shaker.
So may it be a big wave of many colors, and may it be a clear rebuke, rebellion and rout.
(Footnote: We try to limit sharing pieces we read from outside publication. However, with the mid-term election near more national news and opinions are being generated.)