Trump and the GOP prefer to 'buy victory' over earning it
Plus this week's Ask Me Anything.
The AP ran a headline that said it all. "Can $1 billion buy victory in the midterm elections? Some Republicans fear the answer is no," read the topline item from yesterday's "Morning Wire." However, that was apparently too on the nose for some GOP readers. Later, the AP changed the headline to read: "Can $1 billion power Republicans to victory in the midterms?"
It doesn't matter, though. The fact that Republicans are spending $1 billion on congressional elections is a grotesque revelation. It tells us who the Republicans are, what they value and what they expect from democratic politics. That's more money than you, me and everyone we know will see in our lifetimes. Whether the AP asks if it can "power Republicans to victory" or "buy victory" for the GOP seems like a distinction without a difference.
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The Republicans are spending obscene sums for two reasons. One is they took for granted congressional seats in red states and red districts. Some are suddenly in deep trouble. No one foresaw the president campaigning in Nebraska this week, but farmers there have been hit by a costly double-whammy – Donald Trump's tariffs and Donald Trump's war. They're so mad an independent candidate is dead even with incumbent GOP Senator Peter Ricketts.
The second reason is related to the first. Because they took those seats for granted, they got a late start buying media time. They are paying more now to run ads than they would have months ago. The AP said MAGA Inc, the president's PAC, "has been charged roughly $894 per airing, according to AdImpact, while Texas PAC has been charged roughly $809 for a mix of broadcast and streaming." For the same mix, Democrat James Talarico paid about $290.
But there's more here than Republicans making up for lost ground. One billion dollars is a reflection of who they are. They believe authority is their birthright. As a consequence, they believe there's nothing morally wrong with "buying victory." The Republicans are anti-political. They resent competing democratically. They would rather pick their voters, for instance through gerrymandering, than humiliate themselves with the chore of earning votes. As Mark Jacob said, with a precision rare in our discourse: "The clear message of Republicans is that this country is owned by white people and everyone else is renting."
Some white people are renting too. They just aren't aware of it or, if they are, they are choosing to side with the Republicans in the hopes of getting more than people they believe are their inferiors. That cynicism might pay off in good times, with a Democrat overseeing the economy. But with a Republican in charge, it backfires. Nebraska farmers like Trump, but don't like the consequences. They believe they own America, too. Now their rent is going up.
The pain has been exquisite. Well-meaning advisors tell the Democrats to capitalize on it. The Bulwark's Sarah Longwell said they have "a generational opportunity to reestablish a relationship with rural voters betrayed by Trump." Longwell said the formula is simple.
"Focus on solutions to cost of living issues, including healthcare," she said. "Commit to a secure border without inhumane deportations. Deprioritize divisive social issues. No new wars. A more careful approach on AI policy and data centers. Care about working people."
Other than AI and data centers, these have been part of the Democratic platform since at least the Obama administration. The problem isn't Democrats failing to send the message. It's rural voters failing to hear it. The reality is they want what the Democrats are offering, but not from the Democrats. They want it from the Republicans. They never get it, of course.
That's why they get so mad.
There may be "a generational opportunity," but I don't know if it can be realized through enticements. A better way might be through "tough love." Let GOP voters feel the consequences of empowering men who take them for granted, who try to "buy victory" rather than earn it, and who act like democratic politics is a chore that's beneath them.
Perhaps the best way to help Trump voters is by allowing the painful experience of the GOP brand to play out. Self-interest drove them to Trump. Let it drive them to the Democrats. We're all in this together. United, we stand. Divided, we fall. But values are not enough for some people. They won't choose democracy unless it's a means of survival. Millions of Republicans didn't choose Franklin Roosevelt because he was charming. They chose him, in the depths of the Great Depression, because they understood they were hurting themselves.
Ask Me Anything: October 8, 2026
I asked you to ask me anything. Here are some questions I got. If you want to ask me something for next week's Ask Me Anything, leave a comment below or send a reply.
E Wade asks:
Where are we now on getting the remainder of the Epstein files released?
My answer:
Where we are is paralysis. As long as Donald Trump, or a Republican successor, is in the White House, the entirety of the Epstein files will never be seen. That said, there might not actually be much to them, at least not in ways most seem to believe. Lindsay Beyerstein explained in March the real Epstein story is probably about financial crimes. Epstein probably did the sex crimes, Lindsay reported. Maybe a few others did, too. But, she said, the pedophile ring is almost certainly not as broad and global as alleged. What is probably broad and global, however, is financial crimes, perhaps including espionage. As they say, follow the money. Ron Wyden's office has been. "My investigators have confirmed the Trump administration is hiding interview documents it conducted with some of Epstein’s banks, and there could be more," the Oregon senator told MeidasTouch last week. "There’s no limit to how far Scott Bessent, Kash Patel and Todd Blanche will go to continue this cover up."
Carl Gibson asks:
It almost seems like Trump has been deliberately sabotaging the midterms. If there was a how-to guide for how to screw up your party’s chances of staying in office, he’d be following every step. Do you think he’s deliberately trying to throw the midterms? Kicking 760,000 people off of their health coverage weeks before an election really serves no purpose other than to make life harder for people, including a lot of his own voters.
My answer:
I asked myself the same question in May. Here's what I said: "After all this time, we still interpret the president through a partisan lens that attempts to explain his behavior. Everyone assumes he wants his party to keep the House, at the very least to avoid impeachment. It's because of this assumption that Republicans are growing frustrated. 'The president was elected to juice the economy, to bring down inflation, to stop illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture,' a GOP pollster told the Times. 'If his highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing.' We should consider the alternative: that control of Congress is not his highest goal."
What is his highest goal? Donald Trump, obviously.
How that will manifest after the midterms is hard to say. What's certain is he won't accept the outcome, even when he blames the Republicans. He already laid the groundwork for alleging fraud. On Sunday, he wrote on his social media site: “In Detroit, Philadelphia, California, and numerous other US Cities and States, the results, with much smaller numbers, will often take weeks to Rig, I mean, calculate. Voting in America is CORRUPT!!!” For allegations of fraud to work, however, Americans have to trust him. In an interview with the Connecticut Mirror, Jim Himes, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said there's the rub. Trump "no longer has any meaningful public sentiment on his side." Himes added: "That was not true on January 6, 2021. A president who is despised by two-thirds of the American population is a much less scary force than one who has the support of 60 percent of the population. So public sentiment really matters, and it is not on his side.”
lindsrn.bsky.social asks:
How do you balance caring for your mental/physical/emotional health while swinging between anger at all the chaos around you and how so many applaude it, feeling sadness over all of the death and destruction, and trying to manufacture some type of genuine hope to keep trying to lead positive change?
My answer:
Hope is found in two things: a) evil people die and b) good people always do good things, leaving their works behind. Progress is usually two steps forward, one step back, but there is no stopping democratic politics. It is the force of change in the world. That said, I stopped believing in the inherent goodness of the American people. Voters will trade democracy for money and status. But there is no good if there is no struggle, and sometimes, the struggle is just to wait. As Charlie Chaplin once said: "So long as men die, liberty will never perish."
