Now is not the time to fall for this absurdist nonsense

| 8:00 pm EDT October 21, 2018
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This week, several prominent liberal pundits have predicted that if the Republicans do poorly in the midterm elections, Donald Trump will respond by insisting that the results were rigged and illegitimate – and they’ve hinted that Trump will somehow magically make the election results not count. Oh come on.

Donald Trump does not have a magic wand. He just doesn’t. No one in politics does. It’s why he’s managed to accomplish, at most, twenty percent of the things he said he would. For all the horrible things Trump has done, there are a whole lot more he promised he’d do (ending Obamacare, building a border wall, kicking out legal immigrants, etc) that he simply hasn’t been able to pull off. Yes, of course Trump will claim the midterms were rigged in favor of the Democrats. His bottom feeding base will cheer him on, everyone else will roll their eyes at him, and then absolutely nothing will come of it.

The trouble right now is that we’re in a pre-election vacuum. No one knows for sure how the midterm elections are going to play out in two weeks, so it creates an environment where political pundits can get away with saying just about anything they want. Some of the pundits invariably use these periodic vacuums to float histrionic doomsday nonsense aimed at scaring the hell out of their own side, because it’s the easiest shortcut to gaining attention, ratings, and page views.

We as Americans have a ton of things to worry about right now – first and foremost, pounding the pavement and winning the midterm elections. This notion of Donald Trump waving a magic wand after the elections and somehow causing the Democratic House not to exist? Give me a break. Nothing works that way. Now is not the time for fall for this ratings-driven absurdist nonsense.