The “red trickle” in the November 8 election is not due to election irregularities, though I accept that there were some that occurred. What really happened is that the voters tended to stick with the party they always voted for or with which they felt most connected. The voters indicated as much in the March 2022 tracking poll. A few may have crossed over, but I predicted that in my April 4, 2022 article, Are Republicans falling into an overconfidence trap? The answer to that question is, decidedly, yes.

The GOP did nothing to stimulate the interest of moderates or centrists, or whomever else should support their platform. The GOP did not send out clear-cut messages about the overall Leftist agenda…voters received only individual and local messages attacking the candidates on the other side of a given race. The GOP did not widely express a national agenda, other than a national representative occasionally commenting that the Democrats were doing something wrong, which appealed to nobody ever.

Meanwhile, the Democrats pushed for the usual leftist feel-good garbage to include forgiving student loan debt, even though they knew that specific issue would never be done on the scale that President Biden proposed. Watch now as the Democrats begin backing away from that particular issue since it has already served its purpose of driving herds of millennials to the polls. The only good news from this is that, in time, a significant portion of these voters will be as jaded about elections and politics as the rest of us.

I’ve read numerous articles about why the red wave never happened, ranging from “candidate quality” to the “end of the Trump era.” These things may have played into the election, but the basic reason is the same as it always was—Republicans compromising on moral decisions such as the proposed “Respect for Marriage Act“ that may codify same-sex marriage as well as other morally questionable issues.

Image: The very little red wave (edited) by ArtPhoto_studio.

It is okay to compromise on an operational issue, e.g., do we raise taxes for the war, or do we appropriate funds from some other program? It is not okay to compromise on an issue of moral import—and conservatives want candidates who have sound moral compasses. We want elected officials who follow the rule of law and the Constitution’s clear intent, which should never be compromised.

The recent SCOTUS decision reversing Roe v. Wade is a watershed moment. In essence, all the Court did was give responsibility for the abortion issue back to the individual states, as is clearly stated in the Constitution. It is still a moral issue that must be decided, but at least we can do that in a constitutional manner.

Conservative voters are looking for this type of thinking in their elected officials at both the federal and state levels. I, for one, ended up having to vote for the least damaging of my US Senate choices, Todd Young (R-IN). He is already on the list of senators allegedly supporting the “Respect for Marriage Act” which, again. is a moral decision that is not within the purview of the federal government. All indications are that the majority of Hoosiers would not vote for such an act at the state level, which is where the decision belongs.

In the end, the “Red Wave” floundered because most Republicans are doing nothing different. They compromise their morals for leftist causes, they have no national message that appeals to conservatives and, ultimately, they just wait around for the Democrats to hang themselves, something Democrats will never allow.