The 'Trump Effect' and the 2018 Midterm Elections

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry … has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who … have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” —Thomas Jefferson (1816)

In the 2016 presidential election, what put Donald Trump over the top was middle America’s disgust with the status quo in Washington, both Democrat and Republican. Grassroots Americans from all walks of life, who have been used, abused and discarded by both political parties, sent Donald J. Trump to DC with a mission — to drop a bomb on both the political and bureaucratic entrenchments.

He did, and there’s plenty of fallout — most good and some not so good.

While the results have been positive for working Americans — those who sent Trump to DC — positive results are big political negatives for the Democrat Party, and Democrats are determined to dwell on the negatives from now until November.

Is it too early to contemplate the 2018 midterm elections?

A New York second after Trump’s election, Democrats and their affectionate mass media outlets began calculating a path to victory in 2018 and 2020.

Part of that collusion reflects their virtually indistinguishable ideology, but the perpetual election cycle — propagated by the mainstream media’s 24/7/365 endless loop of talkinghead political hyperbole — is also their most significant revenue generator, flooding their coffers with advertising and donor dollars.

I mention this to say that 99% of the media’s political chatter, which converts even the most mundane political claptrap into a “Breaking News Alert,” is still just claptrap.

However, now that 2018 is here, let’s take a serious reading from the political balance sheets to get some sense of Republican congressional opportunities and obstacles under Trump — beginning with the negatives on the left side of the ledger.

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