Midterm Dilemma: Neocon Republicans or Socialist Democrats?

The midterm projections are ominous for Republicans. The consensus is that high fuel prices, attributed to the Iran War that President Donald Trump launched, is the main culprit and source of the financial hardships many families are experiencing. And when the economy is sputtering, voters tend to blame the people in power.

The Silver Bulletin forecast, among the most aggressive against Republicans, gives Democrats a 95-percent chance of taking the House and a 76-percent chance of winning the Senate. Other polls are more conservative, yet most still have the Democrats taking the House and, at best, give Republicans a roughly 50-percent chance of keeping the Senate. Polling Forecast has Democrats up by only one seat to take the Senate. Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 78-percent chance of taking the House, and a 56-percent chance of winning the Senate, with 51 seats.

President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have denounced the polls as being wrong and “fake.” And there’s no question that polls, traditionally inclined toward Democrats, have a history of missing the mark, a prime example being Trump’s 2016 election. But there are other factors that suggest Democrats are likely to do well, the most telling being the high cost of fuel and groceries. The mantra, “it’s the economy, stupid,” has rarely been defied in elections.

Michigan Matters

One of the races Trump is watching closely is Michigan’s Senate contest between former FBI agent and seven-term House Republican representative Mike Rogers and political newcomer Abdul El-sayed. El-sayed was born to Egyptian immigrants in Michigan and raised by his father and stepmother, “a Michigan-born descendant of Abigail Adams,” according to reports. He earned a medical degree from Columbia University, yet never did a residency and is not licensed to treat patients.

He has his eye on politics, and his governing philosophy is heavily leftist with large splashes of outright socialism. He advocates for universal healthcare, mainly as “medicare for all”; he believes the government should nationalize data centers; and he loves to talk about taxing billionaires to pay for the big government programs he believes will improve people’s lives. El-sayed is backed by radical leftists such as Georgia’s Raphael Warnock, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and former president Barack Obama.

El-Sayed eeked out a victory in Michigan’s August Democratic Senate primary against four-term congresswoman Haley Stevens in a race he made about Israel. El-Sayed, a Muslim, opposes America’s close relationship with Israel. He wants the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to cease being a force in Democratic elections, and he doesn’t believe Israel should exist as a Jewish ethnostate.

The belief that America is too close to Israel is becoming not only more common among Democrats, but gaining popularity in conservative circles. In their testy October 8 debate, El-sayed emphasized that America should focus on domestic issues and stop meddling in the affairs of other countries, including helping other countries wage wars. Rogers, for his part, told the moderator that the United States should only oppose Israel if it decides to use nuclear weapons against Iran, which, he added, is unlikely to happen.

Muslim Brotherhood

Rogers and Trump claim connections between El-Sayed and the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to enshrine Sharia Law in U.S. statute. Rogers said during their debate that people who support the Muslim Brotherhood are giving El-Sayed money. The Democratic candidate disavows and denies connections to the group. The New York Times, however, noted at least one tie between the two:

The questions that Mr. Rogers is pushing about Dr. El-Sayed’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood relate in part to an open letter he signed in 2012.That letter, which Dr. El-Sayed signed while he was in medical school, asked Mohamed Morsi, who was then the new Egyptian president from a party that represented the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, to “purge the media and police” of supporters of the dictatorship that had been toppled during the Arab Spring. 

Michigan is considered a swing state, although it leans Democrat. Rasmussen has El-sayed with a 45-percent chance of winning over Rogers’ 44 percent. This race is one of the most expensive happening right now.

Neocon Alternative

But if there are Michiganders who want to vote for a viable candidate adhering to constitutional principles, they’re out of luck. During his 14 years in the House, Rogers accrued a score of 51 percent on The New American’s Freedom Index. As El-sayed said during their first debate, Rogers has a war solution for every foreign-policy challenge. And his record proves this. Rogers voted to arm Syrian rebels. He voted against ending the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, which gives the president almost unlimited powers to invade countries, overthrow governments, and assassinate people under the pretext of waging the “war on terror.” And he voted for Ukraine aide.

Rogers, as a typical neocon, also voted for bills that support and perpetuate surveillance, as well as most spending proposals.

The Same in Maine

The constitutionalist voters of Maine are in a similar pickle. They, too, have to choose between a neocon and a socialist. The GOP Senate candidate is a five-term incumbent with one of the poorest voting records among Republican lawmakers. Susan Collins’ Freedom Index score is a dismal 38 percent. Collins has voted to reauthorize FISA. She also supports amnesty, refugee assistance funding, taxpayer-funded abortion, and every imaginable spending program Congress can concoct. And she has opposed foreign-aide cuts and the war-powers resolution intended to symbolically reign in Trump’s Iran adventure.  

Collins has her hands full with a socialist named Troy Jackson, a veteran state lawmaker and former logger. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Sanders have all rallied for Jackson.

Like El-sayed, Jackson believes in universal healthcare. The progressive Mainer also wants to raise taxes for the wealthy and abolish ICE. As for the Israel issue, Jackson subscribes to the same ideology as El-sayed, that the United States should sever its close ties to the Jewish state.

Time magazine recently noted that the Maine race is all about Collins, even the part that includes Jackson. Time:

For all the debate about whether Jackson’s makeshift campaign has positioned him for victory, it will largely be Collins’ race to win or lose. A September CNN poll of voters backing Jackson found 29% said theirs was a vote for Jackson, while 71% said it was a vote against Collins. Her future in the Senate may not come down to Jackson at all but whether she gives voters enough confidence in what the next six years would look like.

Also in Iowa

Then there’s the Iowa Senate race, where voters have two main choices: three-term House Republican Representative Ashley Hinson; and two-term state representative Josh Turek, who apparently has a problem showing up for votes.

Hinson’s freedom score is a disappointing 58 percent. She likes to spend taxpayer money, support foreign countries’ wars, and ensure that our government has no obstacles when it comes to spying on us. During his two terms in the state legislature, Turek accrued a freedom score of 44 percent. Yet, for his many faults and foibles, including support for abortion and government intrusion into healthcare, Turek actually took the right position on carbon-capture pipelines, whereas Hinson voted to expand the Department of Energy’s carbon-storage program to include carbon-sequestration projects.

This race, like those of Michigan and Maine, is neck-and-neck.

A Few Good Options

This isn’t to say that every contest lacks an option acceptable to constitutionalists, In Georgia, voters have an opportunity to send Republican Representative Mike Collins to the Senate and rid Congress of Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Collins has earned a respectable freedom score of 86 percent, better by leaps and bounds than Ossoff’s five percent. The problem is that Collins is projected to lose.

There’s also the big race in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton are in a dead heat. If Talarico wins, he will be the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat in 32 years.

Paxton has a proven record as Texas attorney general. He fought vaccine mandates and sued Pfizer over its vaccine marketing. He filed numerous immigration-related lawsuits during the Biden-era open-borders free for all. And he supported the claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

The Constitution Is the Solution

Democrats are running on a platform of improving Americans’ lives and a promise to focus on domestic problems; things that were foundational promises in all three of Trump’s election campaigns. The problem is their solutions almost always involve government intervention, and they do nothing to address the debt.

Most of America’s problems stem from too many wars, too much welfare, and not enough restraint when it comes to spending. The lack of good constitutionalist candidates, and resulting lawmakers, among both major political parties is a primary source of the woes that emanate from Washington. In many cases, voters are given only two viable options: a Democrat with heavy socialist ideals, and a neoconservative Republican with a penchant for spending, surveillance, and saber-rattling.

The answer is less government and an insurgency of lawmakers who take their oath to the Constitution seriously. Until that happens, the cycle of having to choose “between the lesser of two evils” will continue.