If Republicans Are Defeated In Wisconsin & Florida April 1, The Ballgame Changes
On Friday, Brian Barrett wrote that just a couple months into Trump’s second regime, the country “is in pure chaos mode. Tens of thousands of workers are fired one week and forcibly rehired the next. Tariffs rise and fall based not on strategy but on one man’s ire. Deportations fly in the face of judicial orders, careening the country toward a constitutional crisis. The only constant is the volatility itself… There’s plenty of Occam’s razor at work here: The US is wobbling wildly because its president and de facto CEO are some combination of self-serving and inept. But in between and among the absurdities, something darker takes shape. Inherent in every chaotic act is a challenge. Every outrage is a test.”
Barrett concluded that Musk “secured his choke hold on the mechanics of the federal government weeks ago. But the installation of Starling terminals at the White House, his repeated attacks against federal judges on Twitter, his open dismissal of Congress— none of these are normal. The longer they go on, though, the more they feel like they might be. That’s the point, really. The standardization of chaos. The steady insistence that no matter how outlandish, how dangerous, this tilt away from democracy gets, it’s actually nothing to get upset about. Attempt to remake the US government as quickly and radically as possible, because otherwise how will you know how far you can push it? Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you’ll land among the kakistocracy. The good news is that there is a way out of this. The courts have already stopped DOGE at various turns and reversed some of its most extreme activities. Congress could wake up tomorrow and remember that it’s a coequal branch of government. Public pressure can remind politicians that elections aren’t decided only by whose corner the world’s richest man is in. Boundaries do exist, even if they need to be reinforced with rebar. And then there’s the bad news, which is the likelihood that Trump and Musk will at some point stop pretending to care about any official checks on their power. Or that they already have.”
Everyone I know already feels like America is on the brink. I’m not goin’ all pollyanna on you but maybe there’s still a way back— if voters seize the opportunity that the midterms present. The chaos isn’t some fluke; it’s the plan. The only question left is whether the American people are willing to stop it. The midterms have always been a check on executive overreach, but this time, they are a referendum on the survival of American democracy itself. This isn’t a drill. The country can’t afford another Republican Congress acting as Trump’s rubber stamp, any more than it can afford state legislatures that will refuse to certify future Democratic victories. The window to act is closing, and if voters don’t show up in record numbers, there may not be another chance to course-correct.
It’s easy to get lost in the daily scandals, the blatant corruption, the sheer absurdity of it all. One minute, Musk is attempting to install his own private communications network within the White House; the next, Trump is floating the idea of pardoning convicted war criminals as a ‘loyalty test’ for the military. The dysfunction and the lawlessness are relentless, by design. The strategy is to create so many fires at once that the public stops trying to put them out. Exhaustion is the goal. Apathy is the prize.
But here’s the truth: none of this is normal. None of it has to be accepted. And none of it is inevitable. The courts have provided a temporary backstop, but Trump has already signaled his desire to push those limits. Congress, if in the hands of Democrats, could serve as a meaningful check. And that’s where voters come in.
Every race matters now. Governors, secretaries of state, attorneys general— these offices will determine whether future elections are free and fair. The Senate majority will determine the fate of the judiciary for a generation. A Democratic House could at the very least halt Trump’s most dangerous impulses. These are not abstract concerns. They are the difference between a country that still has avenues for accountability and one that doesn’t.
There are no more off-years. No more waiting for someone else to step up. The Trump-Musk alliance is betting that Americans will accept the chaos, shrug, and move on. The only way to prove them wrong is at the ballot box. The midterms are not just another election— they are the last, best hope to put the brakes on a descent that will not stop on its own. Democracy doesn’t save itself. The question is whether voters will rise to the occasion before it’s too late. And it starts April 1 with Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election and the special congressional election Florida’s 6th district.
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