While Scott Jennings is correct that the socialists take extremist positions, I disagree that they cannot be viable. In fact, voters will still continue to support them, in part because of Republicans not doing their jobs:
Constitutional Conservatism and Biblical Christianity in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina
As logical as what Jennings says is, I doubt it will be reflected in voting for Republicans in the mid-terms. All the things Jennings mentioned will be totally obscured by the Mockingbird media.
Add to that Republicans and Trump keeping so few of their campaign promises: Govt spending and borrowing continues to grow big time, almost no cleaning of the Swamp, & peace candidate Trump has bombed (acts of war) 7 different countries. Inflation (worsened a bit by tariffs) has slowed its rate of price increase a little but is still compounding on top of the 25% loss in value of the $ since 2020; this inflation reveals to people that they are not doing so well economically. The border control and the related reduction in crime are huge positives but will tend to be ignored to the extent media determine the conversation, as they typically do.
2 more things: Trump is increasingly an insufferable bully, a nasty self-centered personality, who surely disgusts independents. And illegal aliens will vote, especially in the cities where registrars are blue.
For many of the reasons you cite, J. Sobran, Republicans might be at risk of losing BOTH houses of Congress– not just the House. In addition, I saw polls over the weekend suggesting that Gavin Newsom is polling AHEAD of JD Vance for 2028. (And it was one of the reliable polls). Voters’ memories are short. They conveniently forget the awfulness of what Biden and the Democrats wrought from ’21- ’24.
It should be noted that inflation is affecting most severely those items for which people pay out of pocket– grocery and household items, insurance, energy. Yes, gas prices are down, but I don’t think Trump is getting credit for that.