David Frum: Yes, Elections Have Consequences

November 1, 2022 Hunter Wallace 2022 Midterms, Conservatism, Politics, Populists, Progressives 28

I agree with this.

I’ve made the same point myself.

In retrospect, the GOP won a bunch pivotal Senate races in the 2014 midterms. Believe me, it wasn’t obvious at the time, but electing people like Cory Gardner to the Senate in Colorado and Ben Sasse to the Senate in Nebraska changed the course of American history.

The GOP took control of the Senate which enabled Mitch McConnell to block Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court after Antonin Scalia died. Trump was able to stack the Supreme Court with Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. Without Justice Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was struck down and affirmative action is all but certain to fall next. The Voting Rights Act could also be struck down in this term too. This is just the beginning.

Ben Sasse was one of the worst cucks in the Senate. Mitch McConnell has been a thorn in our side for years. No one remembers Cory Gardner. The margin of victory in the Senate in those elections decisively changed the Supreme Court though. The same is true under Joe Biden with Manchin and Sinema. He doesn’t have the support in the Senate to push through his agenda. End of story.

Moral of the story: even a nobody or a cuck in the Senate can have an unexpected impact. It can have ramifications long after they are gone like ending a woman’s right to choose.

The Atlantic:

“Americans reputedly have short attention spans. But their decisions have long fuses. People vote for reasons that may be quite contingent, even temporary or incidental, but that seem compelling in the moment—with effects that detonate long afterward.

Republicans won a remarkable nine seats in the U.S. Senate in the elections of 2014. That sweep empowered Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to block President Barack Obama’s 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. McConnell held the seat open until a Republican president could fill it—setting us on the path to a conservative supermajority on the Court that this year reached a 6–3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

What enabled the Republicans’ extraordinary showing in those midterms? Good evidence suggests that the GOP owed its sweep to an event almost forgotten in this decade that is now so defined by the COVID-19 pandemic: the panic in the fall of 2014 over the Ebola virus. …

But the political legacy of that terror lingers: The Republican voters’ enthusiasm that year lit the fuse that led to the demolition eight years later of a half-century-old abortion precedent.

The lesson for the 2022 cycle is that the issues that seemed most salient as voters went to the polls will probably be long-forgotten in a few years’ time—but their choice will have had a huge bearing on what becomes of the United States. Voters can’t be expected to apprehend the longer-term consequences of the votes they cast. But their votes have consequences. …”

I wasn’t feeling enthusiastic.

I didn’t vote in the 2014 midterms, the 2018 midterms or the 2020 election.

I voted in the 2016 election though for Trump. A few thousand swing voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan gave Trump his margin of victory in the Electoral College which shifted the balance of power in the Supreme Court which didn’t begin to return dividends until 2022. Trump couldn’t run for reelection in 2020 on ending abortion and affirmative action.

Back in 2020, I was angry with Trump over his failure to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan and for a host of reasons which aren’t as salient now. I didn’t take seriously enough the possibility that the insane Russiagaters who are Joe Biden’s handlers would start World War III.

This is a pretty good take. In a few years, you probably won’t be angry or demoralized about the things you are angry about now. You can only change the system by playing a longer game like the pro-lifers in which you win multiple elections over the course of decades.

Note: I’m feeling practical in this election. It probably won’t take long for me to oscillate back to my usual cynicism. Stay tuned!

27 Comments

  1. HW: Please give this a read and response. Regarding consequences for elections, there need to be consequences for this after the house and senate flip.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/political/you-murderous-hypocrites-outrage-ensues-after-atlantic-suggests-amnesty-pandemic

    This topic deserves and requires the same amount of advocacy and pre election energy applied to it as does abortion and affirmative action, if not more.

    These people must be made to pay, and Republicans have a chance to shoulder this cross instead of being crushed under it.

    Essentially, my interest and involvement in National politics of any kind hinge on how seriously I see this being taken. I assure you I’m not the only one.

    This is a factor in the momentum being built by Republicans that we are seeing in the polls.

    • As time goes on Spencer’s resentment actually increases. I take this as proof that his life really is ruined and the trial caused him more damage than he will admit. Spencer has always profoundly despised Fuentes. There is no way this olive branch is sincere. The man is so frothing with rage that he built his whole post-Charlottesville identity on owning incels, and he is now going to align with Mr. Incel? It’s a transparent fraud.

      Apollonianism is in ruins and Spencer sees no way out. He cannot return to respectable society either. So, he comes to Fuentes. Fuentes is burnt too so he accepts Spencer. At most they see in each other injustice done by ungrateful fodder but that is not enough to bury this kind of past. I can’t say I look forward to another inevitable Spencer time bomb. At this point his whole outlook is just grim. Note that Mark Brahmin is now doomed. This is the reward of pledging loyalty to Spencer, as Spencer endlessly reminds everyone when he complains about our disloyalty. What a mess!

  4. How about playing to win like the Js do?

    All politics are local and identitárian.

    Pretty much all identities except Blacks and the worst anti White Js can t stand Black A American criminals , BLM, BRA , tap music etc .

    California Conservatives GOP wasted this year virtue signaling “ see we re not racist” bu making Black conservative talk show host Larry Elder their CÁ Governor pick . Black A Americans are less than 8% of California voters . Blacks vote > 85% Leftist Democrats , they like Siris funded DAs letting all Black criminals go free.

    So do the math:

    What s 15% of 8% ?

    1.2%

    CA conservatives would prefer to lose over 90% but get to virtue signal that “ they re no racist. Democrats are the real racists “

    It was this same $&@“ idiot race blind deaf and dumb pro life Conservatives that ran Black Conservative talk show host Alan Keyes against a then unknown half Black African community organizer with an Islamic name Barack Obama . This was ~ 1990. The Je$ wire pullers and anti White J communists David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and Bill Ayers found and made this guy And the rest is bad history .

    Alan Keyes lost in a landslide .

    Blacks , Js and homosexuals LGBT now control al the important positions in Chicago and the state of Illinois .

    • The Mexicans weren’t going to vote for a black guy in California no matter what. They hate blacks but envy Whites. California is only 1/3 White, concentrated in the northern part of the state.

      The rich, White, “liberals” around Santa Clara, SF, Concord, Napa, Sonoma etc. voted overwhelmingly for Gov. Nuisance too. In spite of $6 – 7/gallon gasoline, raging food inflation (in a huge agriculture state!) and an obviously grossly incompetent, corrupt and lunatic government, he won. For the Mexicans, the Democrat vote was reflexive. For the rich, ‘liberal”, White voters, it’s the Jim Jones Kool Aid (he was from SF) drinking.

      The state was a Republican stronghold for decades but the Republican business interests kept bringing in the Third World from Mexico and other parts south until the state was only about 60% White. “Conservative” Ronald Reagan sealed California’s fate by passing his 1986 amnesty for the illegal Third Worlders. With chronic water and electricity shortages and a growing Third World population failure is the future for California.

      Demography is Destiny.

  6. I was too blackpilled in Trump’s first term, but then again I was still listening seriously to Richard Spencer right up to the 2020 election. I underestimated the Evil of the Democratic party and blamed Trump for a wide range of issues. Really the problem the whole time was Kushner and Ivana. I actually voted 3rd party in 2020. This midterms I voted early and voted GOP straight down the ballot. I never would have thought we would see the end of Roe and affirmative action in 2020.

    Just do the opposite of whatever Richard Spencer says.

  7. “Moral of the story: even a nobody or a cuck in the Senate can have an unexpected impact. It can have ramifications long after they are gone like ending a woman’s right to choose.”

    Lol. You’re the only pro-lifer I know to use the Left’s own euphemistic language to refer to abortion. I get, though. You see it as a way to turn all those thots into tradwives. How’s it going so far? Seems to me like absolutely nothing has changed.

    • Surprised to see an appollonian take his face out of the boy pussy to show his face around here. You people really are terminally online.

    • Apollonianism as it currently stands on Twitter post-Spencer self immolation seems to be only a handful of unsocialized weirdos orbiting around two allegedly female accounts for sex, each of which have gone in opposite directions politically.

      Note: if you’ve never met the woman in real life but call her your girlfriend on the internet, you’re a cowardly, creepy weirdo. One of those Apollo guys refers to 5%’ers as “commoners.” It’s a pathological level of larp. Plus there is constant porno innuendo in their memes. It’s a loser club for porn addicted misfits in denial. That’s probably why they are obsessed with incels. Hell, Spencer is still bragging about Faith Goldy 5 years later to Nick Fuentes. Then his dating profile got exposed in Dallas lol. What a mess!

      • You can see why they all ended up where they are today. It took me longer than it should have to realize it.

        • Hey you’re not the only one. This whole treasonous about face by Spencer, everything that’s happened in the movement and my rediscovering the Bible earlier this year has caused me to think long and hard. I was blinded by hatred. I was so consumed with hatred of leftists and liberals that I missed Spencer’s innately slimy nature, and not just him but much more too. Nietzsche provided the explosive fuel for this hate to keep feeding itself. He gave it a higher meaning and kept it burning long after it should have expired. I am not saying become a liberal but there is definitely an opposite extreme that is just as destructive.

          Thanks for speaking out against it all.

          • At the end of the day, I couldn’t continue supporting a guy whose self destructive behavior has sabotaged every organization and group he has ever been involved with. Apparently, it finally happened and he even lost Ed Dutton.

            This is someone who hit on Mike Enoch’s wife in front of him. He moved across the country to sleep with random women like that Samantha. I’ve heard he had sex with Greg Conte’s wife or girlfriend and Eli Mosley’s as well. He just has no loyalty or respect for anyone else. The final straw was the pathetic Elle Reeve video when he said he was using everyone to promote himself and becom3 famous.

      • “Plus there is constant porno innuendo in their memes. It’s a loser club for porn addicted misfits in denial.”

        Surveys have found that 90% of young men admit to watching porn, and I bet a lot of the other 10% do as well but are ashamed to admit it. You Trad Christian people like to imagine yourselves as more “rooted,” “down-to-Earth”, “authentic” and closer to the “masses” than us, who you accuse of being “alienated,” “loners,” “LARPers,” “nerds,” “head-in-the-clouds” etc. But I wager it’s actually the opposite. Chan culture, porn aspects and all, is closer to the world the mass of young white men actually live in than Bibles they never read, churches they never attend, and a pietistic cult of self-denial that has always existed in America but never called fourth the support of a majority. Just look how prohibition crashed and burned.

        • The Alt-MSNBC demographic consists of like a dozen losers on Twitter who couldn’t fill up a Denny’s. There are millions of White Protestants in this country who are happily married and attend church with their families.

        • What is your point? That America today is Satantic? Yes, I agree. Funny though that you would cast this as shame here and then turn around in your “Apollo” group and brag about how this or that aspect of modern America is very good because it is sterilizing this one, making their lives miserable, and implicitly killing that one. I can at least acknowledge a perverted seriousness with channers because they take Nietzsche’s Dionysian nature seriously. Spencer and you people can’t even do that. You are resentment drunk misfit toys who lack the authenticity of the real thing and pretend that your fraud is actually proof of your superiority. Perhaps Apolloism is just the final, dumbest iteration of ironybroism?

        • “You Christian people like to imagine yourselves….”

          Google: “Welsh revival,” “Hebridean Revival,” and “Ulster Revival,” to learn how Christianity can create REALLY changed lives (not hypocrisy) and on a national scale.

          “a pietistic cult of self-denial (…) Just look how prohibition crashed and burned”:

          There was no need for prohibition in a national revival, since even pub owners were being converted, and they threw out (destroyed) their wares, and pubs were closed for years in many areas.

  8. The hidden, troubling part of what Hunter writes above, is that these Senate elections were important because they led to changing the Supreme Court, which somehow has acquired all this bizarre power to decide what will be the ‘law’ for decades afterwards.

    And that is all wrong, the most perverse pro-oligarch part of the US system, this fake Jewish-temple-style ‘priesthood’ of arrogant people in black robes deciding everything.

    ‘Judicial tyranny’ is what several astute USA Founding Fathers warned about back in 1789, saying the Constitution was flawed because its empty spaces were likely to be filled by Supreme Court judges grabbing power … exactly what happened. On paper, the Constitution should have prevented the current mess … but its mechanisms were just too weak.

    It’s little known, but the US Constitution actually makes Congress ‘supreme’, not the Supreme Court. The Constitution gives Congress unlimited power to impeach every single one of the currently 865 US federal judges, and all 9 US Supreme Court Justices, merely for ‘lack of good behaviour’ …. no ‘crime’ needs to even be alleged. Things like legislating from the bench, exceeding their remit, fabricating nonsense ‘justifications’ … can each be sufficient for Supreme Court Justice removal. But Congress rarely does this.

    So, e.g., with Roe vs Wade, any Justice who voted for that bizarre contorted decision, should have just been quickly impeached and removed for ‘lack of good judicial behaviour’, new Justices appointed, the issue quickly fixed. Removing judges more often, will chasten and limit their behaviour towards strict construction of law. It shouldn’t be necessary to wait decades and generations for old judges to die.

  9. I voted this time. I have only voted a few times in life, and mostly on local issues. But this site and this article you are quoting are making me understand politics. It’s not about purity spiraling, it’s only ever about choosing the lesser of 2 evils. With WW3 on the table, I stepped up. Hope it doesn’t backfire with the last of the neo-con old guard still kicking around…

  10. Back in 2020, I was angry with Trump over his failure to withdraw troops from Syria and Afghanistan and for a host of reasons which aren’t as salient now.

    Lol, this guy. Are you seriously going to pretend that “Syria and Afghanistan” topped the list of your plaints against “Blumpf”?

        • Foreign policy largely determines my voting history:

          2000: Voted for Gore against George W. Bush

          2004: Voted for Kerry against George W. Bush because I hated neocons

          2006: Didn’t participate. Angry over amnesty.

          2008: Voted for Ron Paul. Refused to vote for John McCain. Voted for Constitution Party

          2010: Voted for Tea Party wave

          2012: Voted for Ron Paul. Voted for Constitution Party candidate

          2014: Didn’t vote

          2016: Voted enthusiastically for Trump in primary and general who ran as America First candidate

          (Blackpilled on Trump after Syria strike)

          2018: Didn’t vote

          2020: Didn’t vote

          2022: Voting for MAGA Republicans. Largely because of Ukraine

    • Yep.

      Ketanji Brown Jackson didn’t change the ideological balance of the court, but we can expect more federal judges in that mold with a Democratic Senate. Plus, they want to get rid of the filibuster to pass anything with 50 votes.

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