By SAMUEL PRESCOTT

The dizzying vortex we are now trying to navigate feels paralyzing. It can, however, also be a pathway to finally securing that most elusive of undelivered promises; normalcy. Because by showing us that he does not see us in the same basic way that we see ourselves, Trump is sowing the seeds of his own defeat and of those who have enabled him.

When voters perceive too much daylight between how a politician perceives them and who they are, that politician’s  messaging is heard differently. There is little, if any, connection, trust, or traction. Why? Like kitchen table issues, how we see ourselves is experienced personally, and often. It connects with us where we live by speaking to how we live.

The Democrats largely ignored this truism in 2024. Biden embraced (and Harris was herself part of) the cancel culture, microaggression, multi-pronoun, racism-centric prism of the progressive wing of the Democratic party. Which neither of them ever meaningfully stepped away from. By then Biden may have lacked the mental acuity to do so, and Harris never gave us a “Sister Soulja” moment.

Allowing Trump to come within 6 points of winning New Jersey - a state where there are 66% more registered Democrats than Republicans. Trump did not get there by dint of a personality that even many of his supporters find uncomfortable. His gains rested, in part, on voter perceptions. Simply stated, many New Jerseyans saw Trump as a person who lived in a world they recognized. The controversial rhetoric Trump used to get there is an objective fact. As is his New Jersey voter tally.

What has happened since? A series of reveals.

Demolishing the East Wing, renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” and creating the “War” Department out of the Department of Defense  are hardly worth a mention. But increasing tariffs on Canadian imports in response to an ad that Trump said incensed him is. The Canadian border is now basically an economic dead zone. Trump’s tariffs –a tax once removed on us (not them) – had already put some small  American businesses out of business. By increasing those tariffs Trump, in effect, decided that giving vent to his irritation was so important to the nation that it justified forcing more people who had poured their lives into a family business to start over again. Is that the America you recognize?

Now ponder the Comey indictment, which Trump’s hurriedly hired former personal lawyer so absurdly mishandled. Plainly, Trump will keep firing prosecutors that refuse to charge a person they do not believe is guilty until he finds one that will – however incompetent and unqualified. Would you?

Then there is Venezuela, with whom we now in a unilaterally declared war that Trump began after effectively ending press access to the Pentagon. The same Pentagon, mind you, that will spend some 1 trillion (that is, 1 million million) dollars of our money in 2026. Is this an America standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, or on their throats?

What about Trump’s response to the National Guardsman murdered by an Afghan in Washington, D.C.? No more visas for Afghans. Period. Some 44 million people live in Afghanistan - a country the size of Texas. All of them are being held collectively responsible for the actions of one emotionally disturbed killer that they never met. With this result. Every Afghan girl denied schooling beyond grade 6, every family member of those who risked their lives helping our troops, and every young Afghan who dreams of breathing free is now cut-off from escape. Would you punish 44 million people based on the actions of one of them? Would most Americans? Trump has.

What about Trump’s threat to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license because a reporter dared to ask the same Saudi leader our intelligence services have concluded ordered the murder of a Washington Post columnist about that murder?. Is Trump’s view of the 1^st Amendment one that you think will help safeguard the liberty of your children?

As for groceries - Trump claims that the unaffordability you are experiencing every day in the supermarket is a “Democratic hoax.” Is that how you see it? Is that how anyone (but him) even pretends to see it?

Associating an electoral impact to this level of incoherence is not difficult.

Take New Jersey. Kamala Harris put our state in play in 2024. Mikie Sherill decisively won here in 2025.  They both ran with the same economy. Besides outcome, what else differentiates these two candidates?

We have already referred to the core disconnect between Harris and too many voters. Contrast Mikie Sherrill. She wasn’t elected because she flew helicopters for the Navy or served as a federal prosecutor. Sherill was elected, in part, because those life choices – made before entering politics - told voters that she lives in the same world we do. The flawed, at times unfair, one populated by sinners all who, when faced with adversity, have no choice but to persevere.

Contrast Jack Cittarelli, who underperformed Trump’s 2024 New Jersey tally by some ten points. Why? Citarelli was all in on MAGA, MAGA is Trump and in his second term Trump only speaks at us. Not to us.

And Cittarelli is no outlier. Tom Kean, Jr. has voted with Trump 100% of the time and, like almost every other House and Senate Republican is either actively encouraging Trump’s increasingly unhinged extremism or enabling it through purposeful silence. Both of which hasten our accelerating transformation from a City on the Hill into just another grifty poker player in a backroom card game. What happens when an entire political party is no longer about policy, ideas, or principles, but is instead all about currying favor from one very unstable man? The President, mused on Truth Social about how to describe these “loyal” Republicans. He favored “TEPUBLCIAN” or “TPUBLICAN.” I have another suggestion. “REPUPPETS.”

It is, of course, early days on the Trump reveal. And we live in a very tribal time. Most New Jersey Republicans who voted for Trump in 2024 did not switch to Sherrill. But 7% of them did, along with 63% of 2024 third-party voters. https://www.njspotlightnews.org/2025/11/nj-governors-race-what-the-numbers-say-about-sherrills-big-win/. Contributing to a +8 swing to the Democrats.

Every district, and every election, is – of course - different. New Jersey in an off year is not necessarily a template for America.

But a change is palpable. Besides New Jersey, Democratic candidates have, on average, done 14 points better since Trump’s 2024 election. Here are the numbers: Florida-1 (2024 – 2025 ),

difference, D+17; FL-6 (2024 - 2025),– difference, D+19; Viginia -11 (2024 - 2025), difference D+16; AZ-7 (2024-2025), difference, D+12; T-7 (2024-2025), difference, D+13, and VA Governor (2024 - 2025), difference, D+10.

It bears emphasis that these numbers measure relative improvement. Not all of them resulted in Democratic wins, in a system where second best is dead last.

Which takes us back to this article’s basic theme; in a divided country to actually win the Democrats must field candidates that see us in the same basic way that we see ourselves. Will they?

There is reason to be concerned. The recent Congressional election in Tennessee (T-7) saw the Democratic vote tally substantially improve, but Republican Matt Van Epps still defeated Democrat Aftyn Benn. Why? It may well be that Benn defeated herself. In a deep red district, she brought in Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to wave the flag. Along with Kamala Harris. Buttressed by an endorsement of Benn by the Democratic Socialists that was likely based, in part, on Benn - a self-described “radical” - having previously supported defunding the police. In other words, Benn was (and is) even more progressive than what was on tap with Biden/Harris.

Tennessee was an opportunity lost. Actually, frittered away. Running a Mikie Sherrill type candidate would not have guaranteed a Democratic win, but running Benn was political malpractice by a party that often seems too committed to imposing its ideology upon us. In Tennessee, and elsewhere.

On that score, I can only share what I know. Before registering as an Independent I was a (lifelong) moderate Republican and, as such, worked hard for Biden in the 2020 election. Hard enough to be invited to a democratic operatives zoom call strategy session. It did not go well. After observing that Biden needed my demographic to win, I asked: “if he does win, how are you going to make sure that all voices are heard.”  The answer was that they weren’t; I was instead told that “all elections have consequences. If we win, we are going to pursue one agenda only – our agenda.”  In other words, there would be no change in response to a changing electorate. They were going to adhere to the tired physics of our broken politics. To the winner goes the spoils. And the “plan” was to pay lip service to unifying the country while writing out of existence the tens of millions of Trump voters upon whom forging that unity depended upon. In the event, Biden did what he is; a man in the business of politics. He divided the spoils and executed the plan. We are living the result. Our democracy is hanging by a thread.

If you are in New York City in a three-way race running against Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa, you can eke out a win by less than 1% of the popular vote with a 43% percent voter turnout. As a Democratic Socialist. Once. And if you are Lauren Boebert you can move to a dead red district in Colorado and win by 3.5% as a MAGA loyalist (and underperform your Republican predecessor by 22%).

But this is New Jersey - a blue state that progressives worked hard to turn red. It is also a place where, given razor thin margins in Congress, a one seat flip can literally change the trajectory of this country.

At the birth of our nation Benjamin Franklin reputedly said that we have “a Republic, if you can keep it.” What is required, now, to keep it?

Let’s start with what won’t get us there. Aftyn Benn, or any Biden Administration retreads, or another enthusiastic, self-absorbed youth candidate who is running to “give back” to a society in which they have yet to really live. The Repuppets have brought us to the graveyard gate. If the Democrats simply do more of what they have already done, they will be presiding over the funeral.

So what will get us there? What candidate will win, and win decisively? Your input has the greatest impact now, as we approach the perennially low turn-out primary season. Look up the candidates who are running in your Congressional district in the upcoming mid-term primaries. It’s not a heavy lift. All the candidates have websites. Consider what they say. But assess also how they lived before politics. Imagine a person reluctantly driven to public service by a sense of obligation to their family after persevering in real world you live in. Could you cast a vote for that person, instead of (once again) voting against a worse choice? Tell the state Democratic organization who the  candidates are you can vote for and insist that the party either support them or get out of the way. The Democrats can be reached at https://www.njdems.org/executive-committee.

As for myself - I did not ask to live in interesting times, and none of this is welcome. Nor is it new to the human experience. In 1776 Thomas Paine observed that “what we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.” By wrongly assuming that our democracy is an immutable fact we have esteemed it far too lightly.

Will we continue to do so? Will you?