According to a recent assessment by NBC News, the Republican Party is struggling to respond to its horrific (albeit predictable, given how badly things have gone under President Donald Trump’s leadership) performance in the recent Midterm elections.
Despite their decisive defeat at the hands of the Democrats, because of the Republicans’ catastrophic inability to deliver peace or prosperity, the Republicans remain fiercely loyal to the forty-seventh president.
Trump Speaking in Arizona. Creative Commons Photo.
Donald Trump at CPAC in 2022. Creative Commons Photo.
In fact, some prominent Republican donors are running around claiming that the Republicans actually won the election and those pesky Democrats stole it.
Yes, because exploding inflation and an unpopular war have nothing at all to do with why the Republicans lost so badly.
The level of rank delusion is astounding.
But it highlights the kind of partisan warfare the country will be subjected to once the Democrats are sworn into power in Congress on January 3.
Americans Hate Trumponomics
When Donald Trump told audiences throughout the summer to vote as though his name were on the ticket, Americans resoundingly heard his message–and they voted accordingly.
That those Americans overwhelmingly voted against Trump was not what Trump and his team intended.
But the American people were never going to go along with Trump and the GOP for another two years, given the fact that they failed to deliver any semblance of their campaign promises from two years ago.
And it wasn’t as though the American people didn’t give the Republicans major power in 2024. They took the White House, the US House of Representatives, and the US Senate.
As a result, the American people expected the Trump administration to overcome the economic doldrums of the Biden era.
Instead, Trump deepened those doldrums with his thoughtless trade war, incessant tax cuts for the rich, refusal to forgive student loans, and insistence on being a wartime president.
U.S. Air Force Maj. Sean “Rambo” Loughlin, pilot for the F-35A Lightning II Demonstration Team, performs aerial maneuvers during a practice flight at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, Jan. 6, 2026. The flight supported Loughlin’s training as the team’s new demonstration pilot as he prepares for the upcoming air show season. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Nicholas Rupiper)
That last part was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The Iran War triggered massive inflation, increases in the cost of goods everywhere, and an overall economic slowdown that impacted the most vulnerable Americans–many of the same people who overwhelmingly voted for Trump and the GOP in the 2024 election.
Evoking that NBC News report, one national exit poll found that a staggering 74 percent of voters considered the Iran War either a decisive or significant factor in determining their congressional votes.
Meanwhile, 64 percent believed Trump’s tariffs had negatively affected their local economies.
Most Republican leaders have acknowledged that the economy was the determining factor for many people who voted against them.
Yet few seem willing to admit that the unpopularity of the Iran War sparked the economic problems for so many Americans.
Even with the tariffs, the US economy was not failing.
Inflation was still coming down. People felt as though things were getting better.
All that changed once Trump decided to drop bombs on Iran on February 28.
And that inability to acknowledge how damaging the Iran War has been for the GOP and the country is also something that likely incensed many voters.
Even Vice President JD Vance and, later, President Donald Trump acknowledged that the American people voted against the GOP in the way they did because of the unpopularity of the war and its negative economic consequences (that will likely far outlast the Trump administration).
The GOP Can’t Quit Trump
The decisive defeat was the moment for the GOP to break with the increasingly mercurial President. They have thus far refused to do that.
Even when it came to impeaching the wildly unpopular Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the lame-duck House GOP opted against impeaching Hegseth in the eleventh hour.
U.S Air Force Capt. Nick “Laz” Le Tourneau, F-22 Raptor Aerial Demonstration Team pilot and commander, performs an aerial demonstration at Naval Air Station Oceana Air Show, Virginia, Sept. 18, 2026. The visible vapor forms when rapid changes in air pressure and humidity around the aircraft cause water vapor in the air to condense. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Kaden Ciminnisi)
Almost no elected Republicans–even ones who lost their reelection bids–are willing to criticize the President.
Of course, some Republicans did criticize Trump.
But many were long-time critics of the forty-seventh president.
They had little to lose from criticizing Trump because they never liked him, their power base came from Washington institutions rather than the American public, and they had lost their reelections or retired before they could lose.
Nevertheless, the GOP cannot quit Trump, despite having been handed one of the greatest Midterm Election defeats in the modern era.
Trump continues blundering ahead, and the Republicans who drove off the cliff with him appear intent on holding hands with him all the way down into the abyss.
The American people will not willingly follow these people.
In fact, the American people will likely keep delivering decisive votes against such behavior until the GOP significantly course-corrects.
The End of an Error
Democratic control over Congress will effectively flash-freeze Trump’s presidency for the next two years.
He is now the ultimate lame duck. Whatever legislation passes will be driven by Democrats’ whims.
Meanwhile, the Democratic majority will spend its time intensively investigating and pursuing legal action against anyone associated with the Trump administration or possibly his family.
Trump does possess executive power, notably in foreign policy, raising concerns that he will use it as leverage to refuse to fully end the Iran War.
Trump also possesses significant power over immigration enforcement and international trade.
However, the Democrats insist they are working on legislation to stunt Trump’s ability to influence both areas.
Things will continue to worsen for Trump and the Republicans the longer that they refuse to acknowledge the hard reality they face: the American people vociferously oppose everything they’re doing.
Whatever problems the voters have with the Democrats have been supplanted by their deep-seated aversion to the Republican Party, and their desire to force Trump to change course, and to empower the very forces that have spent the last decade trying to destroy him.
If the Republican Party continues carrying water for Trump, keeps insisting every election he loses was merely stolen, and pushes forward with their most unpopular policies, the GOP will not survive as a political party, let alone have any real power for the rest of our lives.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert is the co-host of The Mario Nawfal Show on Twitter/X. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, most recently A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). His next book, Fortress Americas: A New Monroe Doctrine (Tucker Carlson Books), is due out December 8. Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
