Thursday, October 08, 2026
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Real Stakes of the Midterm
If you are like me, you are deluged with fund-raising texts and emails from candidates who are WORRIED and just got an ALARMING MESSAGE about their quarterly report or something. Over it all, from both sides are claims about how IMPORTANT this election is.
And yes, it is important. But it isn't as important as 2024 was, or as 2028 will be in determining the direction of the country. The truth is that even if Democratic dreams come true and they win control of both the House and the Senate, not much is likely to change.
That's because Donald Trump and his administration have for the most part not been acting through legislation. Instead, they have acted in the absence of legislation, through executive orders and internal memos and personnel decisions. The fact that President Trump can't rely on legislation doesn't matter because he doesn't rely on it now.
A Democratic Congress simply will not be able to pass laws that limit the President because of the presidential veto (and, maybe, sometimes, the 60 votes needed in the Senate to get around a filibuster). They won't be able to reverse the "Big Beautiful Bill" because that reversal would be vetoed.
What they will have is the power to investigate and to pass bills that go nowhere. Both of those things will be divisive. They can also stall out nominations, which may have some impact but comes a little late in the game; the Supreme Court isn't going anyplace.
Meanwhile, Trump is likely to push the limits of executive authority even further relying on "emergency authorities" found in nooks and crannies of the law. And that won't be pretty.
November 3 may be a great day for Democrats, but it won't be an important one in the way it is being portrayed. We won't see that until 2028....
