Republicans Prepare To Shrink Government By Losing It

Republicans entered the midterm campaign determined to prove their commitment to smaller government by removing as many Republicans from it as voters will permit. A CBS News model projects Democrats winning 229 House seats, while forecasters say the GOP could lose dozens of districts, including several President Donald Trump carried comfortably in 2024. Party strategists have activated their standard emergency plan: panic confidentially, declare triumph publicly and redirect advertising money away from candidates whose names still appear in polling results.

Trump’s political groups have spent nearly $277 million assisting Republican candidates, reaffirming the conservative principle that government waste is intolerable unless it involves spending a quarter-billion dollars to learn that Americans remain aware of grocery prices. “We are going to lose seats like nobody has ever lost seats before, and that is called winning because the fewer Republicans we have, the more exclusive the party becomes,” Trump said while introducing the GOP’s new Defeat Means Victory platform. House Speaker Mike Johnson described endangered incumbents as volunteers in a nationwide congressional downsizing initiative, noting that a minority requires fewer committee chairs, shorter leadership meetings and substantially less governing. Majority Leader Steve Scalise has declined to contemplate losing the House, a sophisticated tactical maneuver based on the theory that electoral consequences cannot enter a room unless someone says their name.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has meanwhile promoted the destabilizing idea that the party receiving more votes should control Congress, a fringe doctrine previously confined to elections, constitutions and elementary-school civics lessons. Republican officials countered that surrendering the House would give members more time to accuse Democrats of controlling Washington without the administrative burden of controlling Washington themselves. Defeat would also allow the party to rediscover its preferred role: demanding investigations, denouncing spending it previously approved and explaining that every national problem began precisely when Republicans lost the authority to address it. By losing the House, Republicans will have conclusively delivered the smallest government possible: one containing fewer Republicans.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.