After watching the debacle on Tuesday night, I did my own post-mortem of what happened. I lay the blame on three major factors: The Republican elites, the American public, and early voting.

The Republican Elites

By far the most important factor is the Republican elites. In 2020, the GOPe was almost as glad as the Dems to be rid of Donald Trump, so they ignored and denied the massive vote fraud that swept Joe Biden into office.

After Biden’s many undistinguished years in the Senate, they convinced themselves that he was their friend and would work with them, in other words, “he’s one of us….” With a few notable exceptions, they went along with the Dems’ “insurrection” claptrap hoping it would vanquish Trump from the national scene for good. The GOPes ignored the effect these actions had on the Republican base, which was far more loyal to Donald Trump than to the Republican party.

My husband and I are pretty typical conservatives, and we were outraged at the Republican elites long before the 2020 election. Even though I changed my registration to “independent” after the Romney disaster, I continued to contribute regularly to the Republican Party and Republican candidates. That stopped cold in January 2020 after the GOPe rolled over and denied the 2020 voting irregularities and chastised anyone who questioned the results. No one penny of our money has gone to Republicans since and probably won’t ever again in the future.

Trump’s biggest accomplishment was exposing the Uniparty in D.C. Unfortunately, he was unable to break it up. There are limits to what one man can do when he must fight his “allies” almost as hard as his opponents. For the most part, Republican elites were embarrassed when Trump fought back against Democrat attacks and falsehoods. I can’t count the number of times they criticized Trump for being “coarse” and “unpresidential.” After working so hard against Trump, the GOP elites are reaping the consequences—less loyalty and enthusiasm from the base.

Image: Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy. YouTube screen grab.

What response did the Republicans make to the Dems’ constant drumbeat about Republican fascism leading up to the election? As far as I can tell, it was mostly crickets. They were overconfident and complacent. They spent three weeks beating their chests about the “red wave” and talking big about what they’d do when they took control of Congress. While they were doing that, the Democrats and their media allies were scaring the bejesus out of their base and, as a result, they turned out in droves.

When I read that Mitch McConnell called Joe O’Dea, a Colorado Senate candidate, “the perfect candidate,” I shuddered because conservatives dislike McConnell almost as much as they dislike Nancy Pelosi.  That statement probably cost O’Dea support among rural conservatives.

O’Dea compounded his problems by saying he didn’t want to see Trump as president.  That unforced error gained him nothing and lost him votes in the red part of Colorado (most of the state besides the Front Range and the ski resorts), contributing to his humiliating loss to Michael Bennet. With the Californication of Colorado, O’Dea always had an uphill slog but might have performed better if he’d kept his mouth shut about Trump.

I haven’t seen the statistics on turnout, but I know that if I’m disgusted with the Republican party, then a lot of other people are as well.

The American Public

The American public, having been fed a steady diet of leftism and dumbed-down curricula from nursery school through graduate school, no longer understands civics or economics, and sees our form of government as somehow inferior to European socialism.  European socialism is only made possible by the U.S. Defense umbrella in the form of NATO, but few understand that distinction.  

As a result, Americans don’t see the threat to our freedoms that vaccine and mask mandates and lockdowns were and are. They also don’t understand that someone must pay the bill for government handouts, either directly as confiscatory taxes or indirectly as rampant inflation or hyperinflation.

As a result, they tend to vote for the person who promises them something for nothing.  Many are mush-heads who will be gobsmacked with the business failures, job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, shortages, and other chaos that will inevitably result from the Biden administration’s policies.

Early Voting

Early voting is the sleeper contributor to last night’s losses.  It gives both parties an advance detailed picture of how many people voted, who voted, who is likely to vote but hasn’t yet, and what party voters support or belong to. With all the massive databases out there and modern computers, they have a pretty good idea of how many votes they need to produce to win an election and where to go to get them, days before election day.

Then, all that the parties must do is go round up their laggards and either run them to the polls or lockboxes or collect their ballots. The Democrats have a huge advantage with legions of union foot soldiers who excel at rounding up their lightly-motivated voters and strong-arming them if necessary. My experience with leftist voters is that they’re more emotional than rational, so the Democrats just need to scare them about some issue, and voila! They get their votes. In a close election, this attention to detail will make the difference.

I freely admit that I’m no expert political consultant, but I have observed politics since I was a teenager, and I spent most of my career as an analyst so I can recognize trends and identify root causes. Take my analysis for what it is worth.

Cassandra Smith is a pseudonym.