As the 2026 election approaches we should start seeing more and more political ads after this Labor Day, the unofficial start of campaign season.

Many have said that the coming Midterms could be the most important election in this nation’s history….we either save our democracy or we allow it to slip away…..for good.

In what must sound like a broken record to Americans who aren’t paying a whole lot of attention to what is going on in their country, election integrity experts, historians, and political scientists have been saying for a decade now (with the exception of the 2022 midterms) that the next election is the most important in recent US history.

Contrary to what people who aren’t paying any attention and know nothing about history may think, they are not crying wolf.

It’s kinda like playing Russian Roulette. The next pull of the trigger is always the most consequential. And that is really an apt analogy, because Americans have been gambling with their country’s future.

In 2016, they got their first opportunity to stop a wannabe authoritarian from taking power. Thanks in no small part to an inept Democratic Party, the Electoral College, and some Russian interference, they wasted it.

There were other reasons, of course. The mainstream media had no idea how to deal with a compulsive liar at the top of a presidential ticket and decided to just let him do his thing because that was good for business.

It also helped that a right-wing propaganda machine had managed to create a post-truth reality for conservatives.

Two years later, voters got it right and handed Democrats control of the House of Representatives in an effort to curb the power of Donald Trump.

In 2020, Americans really knocked it out of the park. In response to Trump killing tens of thousands of them by bungling the response to the COVID-19 pandemic (and all other kinds of craziness and chaos), they sent him packing. One result was an unsuccessful coup attempt and a violent attack on Congress.

Then, in 2022, there was a respite from the “most important election in our lifetime” talk… and voters responded by giving control of the House to a bunch of MAGA yahoos who proceeded to do little more than investigate Hunter Biden and fight among themselves.

2026 Will Be an Election Like No Other

But will it?

A poll says that voters are not happy with Democrtas….

A greater share of voters view the Democratic Party unfavorably than at any point in the past 35 years of Wall Street Journal polling—63%. The Journal‘s latest poll, conducted this month, found that 33% of respondents hold a favorable view of the party. The other side also is in negative territory, though the results were better, with a majority of voters viewing President Trump unfavorably by a 7-point margin and the Republican Party coming in 11 points under the break-even point. Even when respondents disagree with Trump on issues, they have more faith in the GOP to resolve them in Congress than in Democrats, per the Hill.

Democrats have planned town halls during the House recess to build opposition to Trump, with an eye toward winning big in next year’s midterm elections as they did in his first term. The Journal suggests its poll indicates possible problems with that strategy. More voters identified as Democrats than Republicans at that time. That’s flipped since, though the GOP lead is only 1 percentage point in the new poll. Democrats still have a 3-point advantage when voters are asked if, should the election be held today, how they’d vote in a congressional race. But in 2017, Democrats led on that question by 8 percentage points.

So will this just be another election where ‘anybody but Trump’ and we get another feckless leader?

What do you think?

Will we continue on this path of destruction or will rationality return to our political system?

Can we save this republic or is it too late already?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”