FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK: A hope for lessons learned in 2022 loss

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

The 2022 elections are now thankfully behind us and all has fallen quiet for a time. The big Red Wave that was forecast to wash across the nation never came. Given the unpopularity of the current President, the struggling economy, the sting of high inflation rates and just a longstanding trend that favors the minority party in mid-term elections, Republicans really should have prevailed all across the country. But they didn’t. Instead, the election turned out to be a disappointment for the GOP. Actually, it was not just a disappointment, it was a downright loss! The Republican party came out the hands-down loser in the 2022 elections.

Fortunately in every loss, there is opportunity for a lesson. So what are the lessons of 2022? No doubt, pundits and political analysts will be talking about that for decades to come. I am admittedly no such expert. But I have been watching Republican politics for a long time. Here are five lessons that I hope the Republican Party will learn from this low moment in its history.

1. The majority is in the middle
The vast majority of the American people are moderates: moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans and moderate independents. Success will come candidates of either party who can speak to that moderate middle majority.

In recent years, both parties have had trouble focusing on the middle. Instead candidates move first to secure the extreme wings of their party. Then they assume that the middle will follow them for lack of a better option. This election has proven the assumption false.

If the GOP stops courting the vast middle majority from both parties, it will do so at its peril.

2. It’s not always the economy, stupid!
With the U.S. economy stumbling and inflation nipping at the heals of the American consumer, this election should have been in the bag for Republican candidates. At least that is what they thought. But it turns out that the middle of the electorate had some other worries on their minds that exceeded even that of the rotten economy.

For example, the 2022 election showed that the practice of “election denying” is a political death trap. The middle majority of the U.S. apparently has very little tolerance for it. In battleground states, nearly every candidate running for positions that oversee and certify elections, lost if they ran on a platform questioning the results of the 2020 election. That includes the Nevada Secretary of State race where Democrat Cisco Aguilar cleanly beat Republican Jim Marchant, a Trump-endorsed election denier. Similar results occurred in Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama and more.

Moreover, here’s a little hint: When you tell people that elections are corrupt and invalid, turns out folks tend to get frustrated and just not show up to the polls. That may be a reason for the generally lackluster Republican voter turnout this year.

Another major issue that hurt Republicans was the very controversial matter of abortion. In keeping with my purposes here, I will set aside the moral and emotional aspects of this issue, and focus purely on the politics of it instead. The Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last summer was less about banning abortions than it was about returning such decisions back to the states where a majority of the justices felt they belong. Stripping away federal authority is a distinctly conservative ideal. But no sooner had the decision been made than Republicans in Congress were already talking about enacting legislation for a national ban on abortion. Big political mistake! Such talk is was not only antithetical to the party platform, it was also a gross miscalculation of what the middle majority wants. Once again, the GOP left the middle behind and has, thus, paid the price for it.

3. A new era of campaigning has dawned
Along with the COVID-19 pandemic has come universal mail-in ballots. And with that must also come a sea change in politics and campaigning.

The Democrats seemed to have comprehended this change immediately and instinctively. They quickly changed their tactics to fit the new reality; almost as if they had been planning ahead for it. They encouraged party members to mail in ballots early or to avoid the lines and drop ballots off at the voting centers on election day. No doubt, where it was legal, there was plenty of ballot harvesting as well.
On the other hand, the Republicans – especially in Nevada – went on like nothing had changed.

Encouraging voters to cast ballots only in person may be a nice ideal to uphold when there is no other option. But when mailing is available, in person voting is far less convenient. And it could – and did – result in a lower turnout for Republicans.

If mail-in voting must become the norm (as it seems it has), it might be good opportunity for the GOP to change tactics with the times.

4. Clean the inner vessel
This one is really more specific to the Nevada Republican party. But it may apply nation-wide as well.
The Nevada State GOP leadership is in complete shambles and needs to be replaced. Republican State Chairman Michael McDonald and his Executive Board have been allowed to spend the past 12 years failing – election after election. Why has this been allowed to continue?

McDonald has accomplished very little in raising funds for GOP candidates or in establishing a party machine to register Republican voters. Both of these things are primary responsibilities of a state chair. Meanwhile he has sowed seeds of contention and division throughout the state party.

The Republican Party in Nevada is in disarray. Mr. McDonald needs to go. And now is the time!

5. Cut off the ball and chain
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the GOP must learn that Donald Trump is NOT a shining star on which the Republican Party should hitch its wagon. He has not led the party to a majority and he will not lead it to the White House in two years.

If the GOP learns anything at all from its pathetic showing in the 2022 election, I hope that it will be that Donald Trump is, and will continue to be, a LOSER among the vast middle majority in this country.
Trump needs to be cut adrift from the party. Republican leaders all across the country should distance themselves from him.

The party needs to avoid Trump-endorsed candidates like the plague. That is because they tend to lose. Actually, in this election, they went down in flames and in droves!

Election 2022 should show portents of danger and peril ahead for Republicans. The party should heed it’s lessons. If the GOP decides to stay the course, if it ignores its more moderate members and remains aloof from the rest of the American middle majority, if it nominates Donald Trump again as its presidential candidate in 2024 – then I believe it will spell disaster for the Republican party.