First Up on the Democrats’ Agenda: Revenge
5th November 2026
I said “first up,” but it’s perhaps second and third and fourth up, too. It’s what a great many voters want, and the Democrats will do their best to deliver it.
Something similar was true with the Biden victory in 2020, and J6 was used to justify it. Don’t forget that it was reasonable to think that, instead of being elected president in 2024, Trump would be wearing an orange jumpsuit by that time.
But I think the potential for damage is worse now and probably far worse. Back then – even though the Democrats also had the presidency – their Senate margin was small enough that moderates such as Sinema and Manchin were still able to stop the drive for permanent power. I think some people forget that back then Congress tried (and narrowly failed) to pass the same things people on the right are worried about now: packing the Court, nationalizing relaxed rules for voting, statehood for DC and Puerto Rico.
But now, nothing stands in their way except Trump, and the idea is that he’ll be gone in two years at most and a Democrat president will be giving the green light to those measures.
At this point, much of the electorate has become even more vicious and filled with hatred – witness the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder as well as that of Brian Thompson and several others who had aroused the ire of the leftist social media crew and therefore deserved to die. Their deaths were openly celebrated by the left and even by many “ordinary” Democrats.
I’ve written before (can’t find it at the moment) that the Trump near-assassination and the Kirk assassination were bookends of a sort. Trump’s close call seemed to start a good cycle for him and the right that culminated in his 2024 election. But Kirk’s death started a different and much darker cycle that persists to this day, a time in which violence and hatred on the left flourish and are flaunted and celebrated and rewarded electorally, and the right is riven by discord and to a certain extent even by Jew-hatred (that latter sentiment is legion on the left).
All of that has led to these election results, and the Democrats’ plan is to fully vent their spleen and gain permanent power rather than lose it in 2028 or ever again. The “burn it down” folks on the right don’t seem to mind.
There’s also – as I wrote in this recent post – the phenomenon of Trump fatigue, which I feel is widespread and even affects many of his previous supporters.
My friend Richard Vigilante (classmate at Yale) suggests that if Trump is impeached, Republicans ought to go ahead and help to unseat him. His rationale is that Trump goverened well during his first term and poorly during his second term, with results as you see them; dumping him from office would give J.D. Vance two years to show what he can do at very little cost, since the split Congress-Presidency means that nothing much will get done during that period, so we can afford to experiment.
I think that the Republican Presidential field in 2028 will be Vance, Rubio, and de Santis (who came out of the Blue Wave a hero for holding the line in Florida). Interesting times.