Alan Zendell, July 28, 2025

I hope with all my heart that the dark fantasy I published yesterday under the title The 2026 Midterm Elections never comes to pass, though if I didn’t think it was possible, I wouldn’t have written it. Horror fantasies aside, the significance of the 2026 midterm elections cannot be overemphasized.

An Op Ed in today’s New  York Times says it better than I ever could. The author, Frank Bruni, is a Professor of Journalism at the University of North Carolina. His title is November 2026 is Everything. His basic argument is beautifully summed up in one paragraph: “We can’t let any of the political anomalies, Beltway melodramas, sweeping generalities and other chum for cable television news distract from what I’m increasingly convinced is the whole ballgame for America’s future: Democrats’ wresting control of at least one chamber of Congress.”

Professor Bruni hit the nail on the head, and if Americans don’t wake up soon, Trump will successfully have transformed America into a Fascist oligarchy with himself as autocrat by the end of his term. If you’re reading this, I strongly urge you to click on the Op Ed link and read Bruni’s less than ten minute column.

Bruni reminds us that the road to recapturing the Senate is very steep for Democrats. Winning the Senate next year, with only a third of the seats in play would imply a nationwide, blanket rejection of Trump’s actions. Not likely, but the best possible outcome if it should occur.

The focus is on the House of Representatives. In Trump’s first term, the midterms cost the  Republicans forty House seats, but Bruni reiterates the warnings of others, like James Carville. Republicans would never win control of the House if the election were fair, according to national polls that suggest seventy percent of Independent voters disapprove of Trump’s heavy-handed disregard of laws and standards of behavior. But House elections haven’t been fair since Newt Gingrich taught Republicans about gerrymandering.

Both sides do it – if one side does, the other is obligated to, or risk being wiped out – but Republicans made an art form out of it. We’ve talked about Wisconsin, where Republicans won sixty-one percent of the seats in the legislature with only forty-nine percent of the votes, but Bruni cited Texas, whose legislature presently contains twenty-five Republicans and twelve Democrats due to gerrymandering. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has already caved in to Trump’s demand to re-write the districts again to eliminate at least one other Democratic seat. That’s really all it takes to rig the election, because the Supreme Court has chosen to look the other way on even the most egregious gerrymandering cases.

Bruni also warned that, “Anyone who appreciates the threat that an unbowed, unrestrained Trump poses must be relentlessly, obsessively focused on the rare congressional districts — maybe about 20 of them, maybe several more — that are truly up for grabs.” If that describes you, and you wish to contribute to someone’s campaign fund, be smart. Search out the races where your contribution can do the most good, wait until after the primaries, and imagine a million other people doing the same thing. That appears to be the only thing that will stop Trump from destroying the America we know.

However, says Bruni, because the Republicans have likely already squeezed out every gerrymandered vote, and the Democrats haven’t, they could greatly increase their chances of winning in November 2026 if they applied the Republicans’ tactics as effectively as they did. Bruni said making such a recommendation made him heartsick. Me too, because gerrymandering is the equivalent of robbing millions of people of their right to vote.

It can’t be repeated enough times. While Americans watch Trump’s antics on television, some cheering, but the great majority in terrified dismay, the Republicans who wrote Project 2025 are amassing their forces and their money to destroy the government more than two-thirds of us want and support. It’s nothing less than a coup, and it will succeed if we don’t start fighting back now.

Bruni concluded with some truly frightening facts. The Republicans have already 1.4 billion dollars to support candidates in the midterms. And worse, “while there are 13 House Democrats who represent districts that Trump won in 2024 and that might be prime opportunities for Republican pickups, there are only three House Republicans who represent districts that Kamala Harris won in 2024.”

Are you afraid enough to get involved, yet?