After everyone in the Republican Party’s elite political circles—from Tucker Carlson to Donald Trump to the New York Times editorial board—cemented the belief among their perfervid True Believers that not only were they going to win Tuesday’s midterm elections, but that it was going to be a blowout victory, the reality of modest gains (at best) came as a shock to the base. On right-wing podcasts and on social media, massive amounts of copium were flowing.
The election denialists did their thing: Of course the failure of their “red tsunami” to materialize was the result of voter fraud. Some of the senior scam artists, like ex-Trump adviser and MAGA guru Steve Bannon, quickly concocted scenarios where Republicans were still going to control both the House and the Senate and then take over the world from there. Or something like that.
Possibly the most hilariously pathetic of the lot was Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft, widely regarded the “dumbest man on the internet,” who began his coverage of Election Day with a breaking bulletin announcing:
Bye-Bye, Nancy! GOP wins enough new seats to retake US House—Another Dark Night for the Pelosi Family
In short order, though, this headline was replaced with a fresh one:
Oops! We Spoke too soon — FRAUD WINS THE NIGHT in US Midterm Elections – Democrats Somehow Survive After Two Years of Record Destruction
On Wednesday, Gateway Pundit’s top pinned post announced:
BLOOD MOON BLOODBATH… Democrats Steal Midterms, Communism Comes Home to America… Crime, Inflation, Record Gas Prices, War, Open Borders and Corruption WIN BIG
Leading election denialist Joe Oltmann likewise immediately (even as early results were still arriving) proclaimed that some kind of fraud was being manifested in the election during an appearance on the Conservative Daily podcast:
I’m still beside myself, as I’m looking here looking at all the things that we’re dealing with. And I’m saying to myself, ‘How?’ I have to look at this and go, ‘Kari Lake is down by 13 percent.’ With 70 percent of Maricopa reporting.
Another guest told him conspiratorially: “I toldja, they can’t let her be governor. She’ll investigate. They can’t let her have it.”
Oltmann shouted:
We can see the fraud. We can see the fraud in the machines! So we can see it, we can see it.
He then rattled off a list of unproven conspiracist claims about machine vote manipulation: Yes! Yes! Mail-in ballots, yes, yes, yes! Yes, the Eric system shares all these people, and the fraud of stealing people’s identities, and putting that in, and then frontloading the machines with this SQL database, which I said you could do, it showed it in Mesa County, you run the database right next to the thing.
Then there was Bannon, who was in no mood for folderol at his dead-serious “War Room” podcast on the morning after the debacle:
If you want to be entertained, you’re at the wrong place. If you want to talk about Ron DeSantis vs. Donald Trump or Donald Trump vs. Ron DeSantis or anything to do with 2024, you’re also at the wrong place.
This is not the place. We’re in a fight. OK, we’re in a fight to close any many seats as we can in the House of Representatives. We’re gonna fight to control the Senate. We’re gonna fight for some of these governor’s races, particularly in Arizona. … We’ve got fights all over the place, and what we need is maniacal focus. So for those that are ready to rumble, you’re ready to fight, you’re in the right place.
We’re packed with warriors this morning. Only fighters. Fight Club. All morning.
In reality, Tuesday was a very bad night for Bannon. In the weeks leading up to the midterms, he had predicted for his listeners: “We’re gonna win a 100-seat majority. We’re taking a hundred seats and we’re going to govern for a hundred years.” He had called it a “massive red tsunami.” He had also promised: “When we run the tables, there’s going to be some new sheriffs in town. We’re not playing by the old rules.”
Bannon also brought on Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, who hosts a podcast of his own on Bannon’s Real America’s Voice platform. Kirk and Bannon chatted over the vote in Arizona, with Kirk assuring Bannon that the remaining late-arriving ballots to be counted in the election are from conservatives who only delivered their paper ballots on Election Day (as part of a broader rejection of mail-in ballots in the state)—and thus, Republicans Kari Lake and Blake Masters were assured ultimate victories in their yet-undecided races for governor and the U.S. Senate.
[There’s a problem with Kirk’s thesis: Lake and Masters were only able to claw their ways back into the race after trailing badly in early voting because of a rush of Republican votes on Election Day at the ballot boxes. Those votes, however, have nearly all been counted, leaving mostly uncounted mail-in ballots, which have trended Democratic in most counts.]
Marjorie Taylor Greene, meanwhile, showed up to parrot her Republican stump speech and then ardently defended the honor of Donald Trump, who was not, repeat not at fault for the crappy outcome for the GOP Tuesday, which also was not a crappy outcome, because Republicans will be in charge.
Now, they’re trying to blame President Trump today. And I want to tell you how short-sighted and ridiculous that is. It is pathetic. The people that are running out, “It’s Trump’s fault”—no. That is a pathetic, wimpy, easy mindset. … Trump has been being politically persecuted for the past few years now, especially since Jan. 6. … He is being politically persecuted worse than any human being in our country’s history.
On social media, prominent right-wing figures like noted nativist Brigitte Gabriel’s tweet early Tuesday proclaiming: “The red wave is almost here … It’s time to save America!”
Later that day, she had changed her mind: “Generation Z is destroying America at the ballot box.”
Like most right-wing conspiracists who had been huffing the “red tsunami” exhaust, Pizzagate godfather Mike Cernovich seemed disoriented and confused because the only people he knows would never vote for someone like John Fetterman:
I need to meet some [Fetterman] voters. Most stuff I can accept. People are different. Such is life. This one, I legitimately can’t wrap my head around it.
Right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro lamented, as the results rolled in: “From red wave to red wedding.” He later added:
Last night was not a referendum on Democrats' excellence in governance; it was a referendum on Republicans lack of seriousness. Democrats will misread this and keep doubling down. So if Republicans get serious and drop the frivolous bulls***, 2024 could look very different. IF.
A lot of right-wing pundits whose anticipation of a full-on right-wing takeover like Matt Walsh simply moved the goalposts:
There was no red wave but neither was this any sort of resounding victory for the Democrats. We’re left with an electorate divided, confused, and uninspired. Neither party has a coherent message or competent leadership.
Red State founder/publisher Erick Erickson even acknowledged that maybe the whole Republican Supreme Court overturning Roe thing might have had an impact:
I do think abortion played a role in some races, but overall, seeing some GOP candidates who have the same stance on abortion do so well while others failed in the same area with the same voters suggests there's more too it. Trump support or lack thereof seems more likely.
Such talk may have outraged the likes of Greene, but even his old friends at the New York Post were ready to kick dirt on The Former Guy’s political carcass. “Ron DeSantis is the new Republican Party leader,” read their front page.
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