Summary

Republicans face rising fears of a 2026 midterms backlash after defeats in key races, with some blaming Trump’s tariffs and Elon Musk’s influence.

Trump announced sweeping new trade levies Wednesday, alarming GOP strategists who warn of higher prices and economic risks.

Vulnerable Republicans urge a return to economic messaging, citing concerns the party is overreaching. Democrats are leveraging Musk’s unpopularity, linking him to GOP policies.

The GOP remains divided over how to respond.

  • Geetnerd@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    14 hours ago

    Well, you greedy fucks thought you could control a “celebrity,” and push your Neo Feudalist agenda.

    You didn’t count on him being the most psycho narcissist you’d ever met, did you?

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    16 hours ago

    Well, it’s not like the Democrats are going to take advantage of it or anything. They probably shouldn’t worry about that, maybe they should worry more about being hauled out of their beds and dragged through the streets naked. That’s a lot more likely.

  • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    18 hours ago

    If they actually cared they do have the power to stop Trump.

    Don’t worry though, if people are even allowed to vote in 2016 Republican voters wil have long forgotten by then what it was like to have rights and be able to afford groceries, and will be happy to vote to let the leopards eat the faces of the next outgroup in line.

  • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    21 hours ago

    They should be worried, everything is stacking up to be a classic mid-term bloodbath, just like 2010.

    And that is exactly why there will either be a heavily and obviously rigged election, or HitlerPig will impose Martial Law over some False Flag operation (probably ferocious violence against peaceful protesters), and suspend all elections until peace is restored, which will never happen because he controls the peace.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Point to a second Republican that has actually been punished for their criminal misconduct.

      Is Matt Gaetz in jail yet? Did Dick Cheney spend any time behind bars? What about Richard Nixon?

  • HubertManne@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    22 hours ago

    They should be more worried about trump making being a congressman or judge a powerless position. There are so many executive actions going against law and it keeps increasing.

  • dota__2@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    111
    ·
    1 day ago

    this is all song and dance. trust nothing that is said that remotely sounds good for their opposition.

    • dhork@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      70
      ·
      1 day ago

      Exactly.

      I remember Mitch saying that the reason he voted against the second impeachment was that he felt Trump’s Jan 6 crimes would be better adjucated in criminal court. And before that, I remember Linsday saying that if Trump wins the GOP nomination in 2016, the GOP will get “destroyed… and we’ll deserve it”.

      Never underestimate the ability of Republican voters to enthusiastically vote against their interests…

      • aramis87@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        25
        ·
        1 day ago

        Trump’s Jan 6 crimes would be better adjucated in criminal court

        As soon as he said that, I knew they’d never hold him accountable. Because I knew they’d immediately move to “Congress didn’t convict him so there’s nothing to see here”, “if we have to go to court, let’s bring in every stalling tactic possible” followed by “why are you investigating such an old event”. I hate the Republicans.

    • FrostyTheDoo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      Yeah, I don’t buy anything about how the public is leaning anymore. I assume everyone is conservative and will continue to vote conservative in every election until I see any evidence otherwise.

      After the 2024 election, the public can’t be trusted and the media absolutely cannot be, in regards to elections especially.

  • ofcourse@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    edit-2
    1 day ago

    Until Republican lawmakers change their voting patterns, these articles mean nothing and IMO are poor journalism. Lawmakers can say anything about their reelection worries and polls almost always show swings in the opposite direction after elections.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    1 day ago

    I’ve been hoping for a MAGoo/GOP war since 2015.

    otoh, if DOGE really manages to mess up Social Security payments, there’s no way the GOP can recover.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      21 hours ago

      otoh, if DOGE really manages to mess up Social Security payments, there’s no way the GOP can recover.

      Republicans straight up nuked the economy in 2008 and they were back in the Congressional Majority two years later. Same thing happened in 2020.

      Gerrymandering makes many of these maps mathematically unwinnable for Democrats

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        20 hours ago

        Big difference between ruining the Wall Street types and taking money out of someone’s pocket.

        Social Security has never missed any payments in 80 years. It’s the difference between milk going up a dollar and you not getting your paycheck.

    • Heikki@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      23
      ·
      1 day ago

      Im not so sure it’d be that easy. The conservative media cesspool is closed loop. They will lie and blame the Dems for not making it break proof or some other BS and the sheep will eat it up.

      We will need Dems to go onto the shows and blast the message day and night that it’s broken bc GOP allowed I lt it be broken by an illegal imagrant.

    • Howdy@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      1 day ago

      I wouldn’t go that far. The maga Republicans are obviously so easily manipulated without a shred of critical thought left that they will do whatever their overlords want of them.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day ago

      I get what you’re saying, but I am also extremely aware of how fucking stupid the American electorate is, up to and including having all government support taken away and responding with “thank you sir, may I have another”. American conservatives are deeply stupid.

    • Omega_Man@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 day ago

      If they’re willing to brazenly attack Social Security, maybe they don’t care about elections anymore.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        21 hours ago

        That’s the issue. If they really start screwing with SS payments, it means that they are confident that they have control of future elections. Then the only question will be if they do it softly, and rig the elections and claim they are 100% fair and square (which the Dems will support, like 2020), or if they decide to go full on Nazi, and cancel elections altogether, then enthusiastically and ruthlessly murder anyone who dares to question it.

        Looking at the players, like Pukin, Skum, Kapo Stephen “PeeWee Himmler” Miller, Steve “Unwiped Asshole” Bannon, et al, my bet is that they’ll go for the full on Nazi dictatorship. They aren’t building a 30K capacity concentration camp in Guantanamo for giggles.

    • suburban_hillbilly@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 day ago

      People used to say Reagan and his courting of the ‘moral majority’ were going to fracture the party and cause it to destroy itself with the embrace of a massively divisive religious rhetoric. It’s wishful thinking at best.

      there’s no way the GOP can recover.

      I want this to be true, but it just isn’t. A third of the country will follow along with whatever mental gymnastics are required to blame democrats. Another third are just not paying enough attention and vote on pure vibes, if at all. If dems try to run an unlikable, centrist candidate with a mixed at best record it will end up a toss up. And the electorate at large will forget everything that is happening now within eight years.

  • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 day ago

    What are they afraid of? Trump has fucked the trans gendered, illegal aliens, brown Americans and residents, old Americans, poor Americans and now he really taking it to the penguins of uninhabited islands. Thats what I call winning baby!

    • aramis87@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’ll celebrate (1) once it’s come to pass, (b) the Democrats have actually started standing up to … well, anybody, © the resistance has started to have irrevocable wins, and (d) all the people and institutions that have actively enabled this situation are gone.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        20 hours ago

        The Dems have to start by standing up to the Quislings in their own party, like Chuck Schumer.

        Booker’s speech was an obvious audition for Schumer’s seat, so let’s have the vote, get Schumer out of his leadership position, and then force him out of office in the same humiliating fashion as when he stabbed Al Franken in the back. Then AOC can take Schumer’s seat, and we can go to war with the MAGA Nazis.

    • Botzo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      1 day ago

      You say 2 years, but the election is 19 months away and early campaigns will start in 8. Shit, we’ll probably see the first early messaging by the end of summer. So it’s no stretch to believe that some candidates for target races are being vetted already. And that means anger now makes a difference.

      • barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        20 hours ago

        In the Summer of 2026, the protests over MULTIPLE outrages, by multiple demographic groups, will be happening all over the nation. HitlerPig will encourage his RedHats to incite violence, and then send in his Einsatsgruppen to quell the violence with even more ferocious violence.

        By the end of the Summer, his deliberate violence will serve as justification for imposing Martial Law, and suspend all elections until peace is restored, which will never happen, since he controls the peace.

        He has to time it properly so that the courts won’t have the opportunity to respond before Election Day. Once that day has passed without an election for the first time in American history (even during the Civil War), American Democracy is ended, and we are officially a MAGA dictatorship.

        Then it’s Go Time.

      • phdepressed@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 day ago

        There’s elections every year so 7 months not 19 before we may start to see effects. Heck Florida has special elections June 10.