By Bill Wilson
While there was a little drama in the early counting of the votes, in the end the results in the special election to fill Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District were predictable, with Matt Van Epps winning with 53.9 percent of the vote. While the hard-Left Democrat came closer that any other similar candidate in the past, it was never going to be enough. No amount of “dark” billionaire money, union operatives and neo-Marxist NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) were going to overcome the natural ethic of the people of Tennessee.
But to listen to the corporate media and the paid propagandists, this was supposed to be very close, but then it wasn’t. The truth is that the base of the Democrat Party is depressed, near suicidal. All they can do is feed a bunch of lawyers to file endless lawsuits that eventually fail. They do not have the votes and they do not have the vision to counter President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) team. So, to keep the peasants down on the plantation, the Democrat-Media Complex are looking for anything to give their base hope.
Just look at the situation. The Democratic National Committee is broke, no money, no manpower and no plan. The so-called leadership in Congress borders on a joke. The feckless leaders in both the House and Senate cannot command their own members or the agenda. Their efforts at narrative control are laughable. The President’s team always seems to come up with something more interesting and attractive.
All of that said, the Republicans should pay attention to the results and learn a few valuable lessons. First, if you need to motivate the base of the vote that elected the President, you don’t accomplish that by engaging is silly, childish fights over issues that have no impact. Case in point, the Jeffrey Epstein files. Why all the back and forth? Release the damn files and let the chips fall where they may.
Remember, foreign policy and foreign affairs do not matter to 90-plus percent of the voters. As long as the government is not sending their sons and daughters off to a war in some God-forsaken hellhole, they really do not care. End the wars and have everyone build and create. So why the focus? It makes no sense. And if the paid left wants to hold protests and disrupt college campuses over Gaza or anything other conflict, let them. Don’t feed their story. But, if they resort to violence and break the law, crush them like a dry leaf.
The President and the Republicans need to focus on their successes and the issues that still motivate the MAGA base — secure borders, ending illegal immigration, reversing the failed policies of “deindustrialization,” and keep the U.S. out of war. That is what the people voted for and that is what all polling tells us are still the drivers. Any time some self-appointed guru tells the President that some fad issue or near total focus on cultural issues — like was done in the disastrous Virginia gubernatorial effort — will win the day, they should be kicked the curb. The only issues that matter are the economy, continuing to cool the Biden-Democrat inflation and illegal aliens. That is all that is needed.
So, the corporate media will now have to look for a new “critical race” to get people all worked up about and try to boost the spirits of the collectivist faithful. But in the end, once MAGA gets back to basics, does the hard work of registering voters and getting them to the polls, there is little to no hope for the Democrats at flipping deep red districts and states in 2026. Until they change their agenda and start listening to saner voices like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, they are stuck with no way out of the rut they have dug for themselves.
Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.
