The term ‘midterm’ has various applications, from tests in the middle of the semester – which is how I usually think of things – to elections held in the middle of a presidency, taking place as I write in the United States. Will it be a red or blue tsunami, or a ripple? For Canadian readers, these colours are sort of the reverse of the way we think of them: insofar as we have a ‘conservative’ government here in our benighted Dominion, it’s blue, while blue in the States refers to the unhinged Democrats, and red the more conservative Republicans. Even if neither is ideal, the latter is, to paraphrase Dickens, a ‘far, far better’ choice, and far more choice than we have here in Canada. As Henry (not Doug!) Ford said of his Model-T, ‘you can get it in any colour, so long as it’s black’.
Midterms make a difference for a student’s grade – often worth up to 30% of the final average, give or take. They will far more of a difference for America, but one wonders where this all ends up. As a certain ‘New York Times Op-Ed contributor’ Wajahat Ali wrote of Abdul el-Sayed (a Muslim and Democrat running for Senate) – there will be reckoning either way. Win or lose, the powers of darkness are determined to win.
Yet is Donald Trump his own worst enemy? For midterms are also the measure of a presidency. The quagmire of the Iran war is a debacle, and people feel the pain of skyrocketing gas prices, which make everything more expensive. Mark Steyn has some thoughts about that, and perhaps I’ll add a few of my own after this day is over.
For now, we turn to prayer and intercession, to Mary Immaculate, the patroness of America, and all her saints who evangelized the burgeoning republic. It’s Christianity or bust and civilizational collapse. As Our Lord quite crisply put it, he is not with Me, is against Me (Mt 12:30).
We’re in an eschatological battle, against principalities and powers, and it’s well past time to pick a side.
