Can You Feel the Vibe Shift? |
Six months ago, everything was amazing, and six weeks ago, everything sucked, yet now there’s a feeling that the tide is turning. America is back, economically, culturally, militarily, and even in terms of crime. It’s a vibe shift, but these new positive waves that replaced the negative waves, Moriarty, are backed up by objective metrics. Things are getting better for the Trump team as they get better for America. The administration has found its footing again. Sure, there are some internal problems in our movement – there are always going to be disputes within our coalition because this is a human endeavor, but that stuff seems to be slowing down as we sideline the kooks. In the place of the feeling of political vertigo is the inescapable feeling that stuff is getting better, that the country is healing, and that, maybe, 11 months from now in the midterms, it’s not going to be the bloodbath our enemies are praying to their pagan, angry weather goddess for. Take a deep breath, because we have a lot of work to do, but our work is working. And if we are smart and don’t trip ourselves and don’t evolve into a circular firing squad of idiocy, 2026 can be another spectacular year of glory instead of devolving into a roiling cauldron of human waste.
The big issue is the economy. It’s always the economy. James Carville, though he’s grown crazy even as he’s grown irrelevant, was right 3-some odd years ago when he proclaimed, “It’s that economy, stupid.” When people feel especially precarious about money, they’re going to vote accordingly, even if that means accepting a bunch of social issue nonsense. How the Republicans do in 2026 is not going to be determined by historical trends. It’s largely going to be the result of how much money people feel like they have in their pockets and whether they feel that they’re going to continue to have money in their pockets down the road. Voters entering the voting booth always ask themselves how they feel about their economic future. If the answer is “I feel broke and can’t get a job,” the Democrats win. If the answer is, “Yahoo, good times ahoy!” yeah, we’re going to do fine, and we might even add to our majority.
Those of us who are crusty have been to this rodeo before. Ronald Reagan took a while to get his policies in place, and the economy wasn’t pumping before the 1982 elections,........