OPINION:
Jim Treacher, a prolific blogger, posted one of the best comments after the Democratic blowout win last week in the off-year elections. “I watched ‘Escape from New York’ instead of the election results,” he posted on Substack. “Because I figured, ‘Well, I’ll watch the actual result of this election.’”
He was referencing New York’s mayoral race, in which Islamic socialist Zohran Mamdani won. The perpetually grinning 34-year-old wunderkind immediately promised to facilitate his collectivist plans.
These include a rent freeze, government-owned grocery stores (like in communist Cuba), “free” public transit, “free” child care, a “tax on millionaires” and other ways to turn America’s biggest city into a socialist hellhole.
Before long, New Yorkers may well be crying out for help from “Snake Plissken.” He is the antihero played by Kurt Russell in the 1981 dystopian John Carpenter movie mentioned by Mr. Treacher. Plissken is a war vet turned criminal who is blackmailed into rescuing the president of the United States, whose plane has crashed into New York City. Crime is so bad in the city that the government has sealed it off from the rest of the country.
The film deserves its R rating for violence and a torrent of profanity.
Getting back to the election, I don’t think “blowout” is adequate to describe the breadth of the Democratic sweep across the country. They won pretty much everything on every ballot.
By keeping the federal shutdown going, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, ensured plenty of pain, especially in Northern Virginia’s Washington suburbs. Democrats could have ended it by approving one of the 14 funding bills passed by the House, but they correctly calculated that their media would blame it on Republicans — as usual.
While Mr. Schumer smirked for cameras, I thought of this passage from Psalm 37: “Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass. Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret — it only causes harm.”
OK, no fretting allowed, even though voters approved California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s gerrymandering plan, elected liberal Democrats as governor in New Jersey and Virginia, along with Virginia’s two other statewide offices, and added at least 10 state House seats in Virginia, giving them a supermajority.
Democrats will have total power in Richmond. The last time they got it, they initiated a far-left agenda in 2020. This included gun control laws, eliminating voter ID, expanding voter rights for felons, adding sexual orientation and gender identity to anti-discrimination laws, banning counseling for gender-confused minors, and legalizing marijuana and sports betting.
This time, they aim to gerrymander congressional districts and pass constitutional amendments enshrining abortion and same-sex marriage. So, buckle up, Old Dominion.
Virginians had given Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin an overall high approval rate. Yet Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears lost the governor’s race badly to faux centrist Democrat Abigail Spanberger. Attorney General Jason Miyares lost to Jay Jones, whose surfaced texts showed him dreaming of killing a former Republican House speaker and his children.
Pundits sum it up in one word: Trump. Yet there’s more to it. President Trump elicits strong emotions because of his pugnacious personality. He knows the left will try to destroy him no matter how nice he is. (Think of Mitt Romney.) Mr. Trump also picks a lot of unnecessary fights. Does the leader of the free world really have to weigh in on Sydney Sweeney’s jeans ads?
You can’t underestimate the power of the media to undercut Mr. Trump’s considerable accomplishments. For example, most Americans support his securing the border, ensuring renewal of the 2017 tax cuts and his bold move to bomb Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. These are now ancient history. Gas prices and inflation, driven up during the Biden administration, have fallen, but not by enough. The jury is still out on the effect of his tariffs.
Mr. Trump’s various peace initiatives in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere may net him a Nobel Prize, but they don’t ease the economic crunch facing many American families. He has been back in office for only 10 months, but Democrats and their media are hammering him for not cleaning up the mess they left fast enough.
There’s also the perception of overreach. It’s one thing to see criminal illegal aliens arrested and another to see footage of masked federal agents accosting mothers, fathers and children. As with the abortion issue, the media play up hard cases and ignore the overall reality. It’s sad but no surprise that Virginia’s female voters went for pro-abortion Ms. Spanberger by 59% to 38% for pro-life Ms. Earle-Sears.
Some pundits have already written off Republicans in the 2026 midterms, but a lot can happen between now and then. Democrats are riven between their insurgent Marxist wing and what’s left of their moderates. Republicans are narrowing the party registration gap in key states such as Pennsylvania and are raising more money than the Democrats.
Democrats are justifiably giddy right now, but the stark reality of a Mamdani-run New York may well reignite enthusiasm among Republicans and independents.
The game isn’t over. Few political losses or victories are permanent, and Democrats are quite capable of blowing it again.
For conservative Virginians, it’s going to be a tough couple of years. For New Yorkers — and the rest of the country — let’s pray that it won’t take the likes of Snake Plissken to turn things around.
• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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