Author, columnist, speaker
Placing Blame and Finding Bright Spots
By Robert Knight
So much for my “cautious optimism” before the midterms.
Yes, this train wreck was all about President Donald Trump, high prices, and the Iran War.
It was also about changing demographics and a hostile media that distorted every Trump success into a failure.
Mr. Trump’s biggest negative was failing to end the Iran war in the promised four to five weeks. Americans are of a mind that if you are going to start a war, you had better win it.
Instead, we got an endless stalemate.
Meanwhile, gasoline was over $4 a gallon and diesel hit $6.50 a gallon.
Many voters were upset that he did not fix the high prices he inherited from Joe Biden. In fact, he issued tariffs that kept prices high and hurt farmers.
Democrats pounced on “affordability,” and pointed to the Trump family making billions off cryptocurrency. They promise revenge and nonstop investigations.
Distractions abounded, such as Mr. Trump renaming and then closing the Kennedy Center, building a huge ballroom, and planning a massive arch near Arlington National Cemetery.
Then there was the Reflecting Pool fiasco, which Mr. Trump inexplicably revisited in person on Election Day. The next day, he showed off the marble floors in the new ballroom.
On top of that are the social media insults, which many find embarrassingly unpresidential.
He threatened to make Canada “the 51t state” just before their 2025 national election. This doomed a possible Conservative victory and helped make leftist Mark Carney prime minister. He renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America.
Mr. Trump rightly fortified security around Greenland. But he first threatened to use force. Americans like strength, not bullying. He would argue it was necessary to get results, but that’s how it came across.
Finally, there was his deal for Russia to release 300,000 metric tons of diesel fuel even as Vladimir Putin was sending more missiles into Ukraine, killing scores of civilians.
All of this took away from Mr. Trump’s enormous accomplishments. Foremost was ending the mass invasion by illegal aliens orchestrated under Mr. Biden.
He targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities, something none of his predecessors dared to do. Iran still bars UN arms inspectors while claiming the nuke enrichment is for peaceful purposes. So why are they deep under tons of mountainous terrain?
Mr. Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which preserved the 2017 tax cuts, saving money for seniors, tip recipients, and others.
He revived America’s energy industry. He toppled a dictator in Venezuela and reversed DEI policies in the military. He appointed scores of sound judges. Crime has dropped to historically low levels. Massive fraud is being uncovered almost daily. In many ways, Mr. Trump has been a great president.
There’s more, but here are some encouraging election takeaways.
Even in states in which the Democrats scored victories, voters showed a conservative streak.
In four states (Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, and Washington) voters approved ballot measures barring biological males from girls and women’s sports teams.
In North Carolina, voters approved Republican-sponsored measures capping property taxes and income taxes and requiring photo IDs for voting.
In Iowa, voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds majority to raise income taxes.
In Ohio, voters passed an amendment requiring photo voter IDs.
In Gov. Ron DeSantis’s well-run Florida, Republicans elected Byron Donalds as America’s first black Republican governor, kept a U.S. Senate seat, and held the legislature.
Despite wins by several congressional candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, an exit poll found that only 9 percent of voters strongly favor socialism, with 31 percent favoring capitalism, according to The Washington Post.
An NBC poll found only 29 percent of voters endorsing the Democratic Party, with 38 percent favoring Republicans. The GOP isn’t dead, just badly stunned.
The damage in deep red Texas is the most consequential. Democrats swept all statewide offices and four state Supreme Court seats, including installing a lesbian as chief justice.
Fake Christian chameleon James Talarico is headed to the U.S. Senate.
Changing demographics played a part. Texas has about 1.4 million more registered voters than it did for the 2022 midterm.
One key factor in the midterms was the low white evangelical Christian turnout. It was only 17 percent of the electorate, down from 23 percent in 2024. It was likely down by 5 million from the 2022 midterms. About 80 percent typically vote Republican, so the no-shows were sorely missed.
Young people aged 18 to 29 apparently bought the Democrats’ socialist pitch for free stuff and abortions, voting in House races for Democrats by 72 percent.
Catholics, who account for 20 percent of the electorate, voted about 50 percent for each party. Jews, who constitute about 3 percent, voted 31 percent Republican.
The “nones” [no religious affiliation], at 27 percent of voters, went 78 percent for Democrats.
Hispanics, who constitute 10 percent, voted 62 percent Democratic, although one NBC poll showed Hispanic Protestants voting 56 percent Republican.
Black Protestants, who comprise about 7 percent, voted 90 percent Democratic.
Muslims, only about 1 percent of the electorate so far, had a big impact in Michigan, where they voted 92 percent for newly elected Democratic U.S. Sen. Abdul El-Sayed.
The clip of his victory speech is chilling. With a smirk, he drops the “just a regular Michigander” facade and says, in a heavy Arab accent: “I am Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed.”
Conservative Christians and Jews who sat this one out had better think twice about it in 2028.
Illustration by Linas Garsys / The Washington Times.
Beware of the Wolves in Sheep's Clothing
By Robert Knight
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear appears to be readying for a presidential run in 2028.
The telegenic Democrat was on a speaking tour last year in early primary state South Carolina. In September, he has a book coming out entitled, “Go and Do Likewise: How We Heal a Broken Country,” a reference to Jesus’s parable of the Good Samaritan.
His publisher summarizes it this way: “By regrounding faith in compassion and kindness, he believes we can start to heal as a country.”
Compassion and kindness are God-given, but I thought we were in the midst of healing from the nightmare of the Biden years, with its promotion of atheism, illegal immigration, sexual anarchy, and attacks on Catholics and pro-lifers.
Mr. Beshear, like Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, identifies as a Christian and a moderate and gets priceless media cover while supporting the Democratic Party’s radical social and economic agenda.
In 2023, for instance, he tried to block a state bill protecting minors from “gender affirming care.”
The law prohibits doctors from subjecting gender-confused teens to puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and irreversible, disfiguring surgeries.
The law also bans males from competing on girls’ sports teams. Most people think this makes sense.
Beshear insisted that such a law “would hurt kids and their families” and violate “parental rights.”
He claimed there was no evidence of widespread harm. To which I would say one butchered child is too many and that evidence of harm is voluminous, including the growing number of suicides and trans-related violence.
On the same day of Mr. Beshear’s veto, both houses of Kentucky’s Republican-controlled legislature overrode it. Naturally, a federal judge, Rebecca Grady Jennings, issued an immediate injunction halting enforcement. The case is still in litigation.
A year earlier, Ms. Jennings, one of President Donald Trump’s few clunker appointees, struck down a Kentucky law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks and requiring medical oversight for abortion pills.
Gov. Beshear also vetoed that bill, and the legislature overrode him.
In South Carolina, which went for Mr. Trump by 30 points, Mr. Beshear emphasized his Christian faith while boasting that he was “a proud, pro-LGBTQ+ governor.”
This is a stance that ignores Jesus Christ’s clear restating of God’s creation of male and female and God’s marriage-based sexual morality from Genesis.
According to the Washington Post, Mr. Beshear said, “My faith teaches me that all children are children of God, and I didn’t want people picking on those kids.” How about protecting them from quacks who sterilize them and turn them into lifetime medical cases?
By the way, politicians love to haul out the term “children of God” like a magic amulet. The Bible says we’re all created in the image of God, but that we’re not children of God unless we believe in Him and submit to God’s authority. Until then, we’re on the other team, and I don’t mean the New Jersey Devils.
“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name,” John 1:12 says. If we’re automatically children of God, we wouldn’t need to be, as Jesus said, born again.
Anyway, Mr. Beshear is not the only wolf in sheep’s clothing. Democrats have become quite adept at using Christianese and buzzwords to fool people. President Barack Obama often gave biblical scholars heartburn over his misappropriating Jesus’s words to justify sexual sin and confiscatory redistribution of wealth.
In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico is battling hard-left U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for the Democratic nomination for U.S. senator. Like Mr. Beshear, Mr. Talarico touts his Christian faith while cleaving to a radical agenda.
“He delivers left-wing orthodoxy in centrist packaging and fights Christian nationalism with Scripture,” the Wall Street Journal explains.
If you’re a patriotic Christian, he’s talking about you and your family as a threat to America.
Much of his rhetoric revolves around Marxist class envy, such as, “Make billionaires pay their fair share in taxes.”
During remarks opposing a bill protecting kids from transgender treatments, he said, “Jesus never once condemned transgender people.”
Well, Jesus didn’t need to, and He welcomed all repentant sinners. The Hebrew Scriptures are crystal clear on sexual morality. Sexual confusion is the province of paganism, which historically often involved child sacrifice as well.
Any comparison to the pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ Democratic Party inferred by readers at this juncture may not be coincidental.
In a 2024 interview with MSNBC, Mr. Talarico said, “Christian nationalism is dangerous. … When politicians use the Bible to push division and hate, they’re not following Jesus; they’re using His name for their own agenda.”
This is classic projection, accusing your opponents of exactly what you’re doing.
Illustration by Alexander Hunter / The Washington Times.