A blaring GOP wake-up call, Democrats coming civil war and other commentary

“The resounding message from the voters” Tuesday’s results are clear, observes National Review’s Jim Geraghty, “was that on the issues that matter most to them, they grade this presidency as a failure.” Trump’s “irate feuds with the government of countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Canada” to the way Trump “never laid out the case for the [Iran] war to the country or to the world” to his “unpredictable obsession with minutia,” reflect neither “leadership or effective communication.” Though they’re now “phenomenally unpopular,” the “good news” is that “Republicans know that they have to change.” Good: “Modest losses” would have deceived them into “believing they could continue on the same path.”“The Great Democratic Crack-Up starts now,” notes The Free Press’ Peter Savodnik, after months when “anger and divisions have been bubbling up — the uber-progressive left pushing back against what it views as a feeble and feckless Democratic leadership, the leadership trying to hold things together.” Dem ex-Rep.Cheri Bustos hopes that Speaker-to-be Hakeem Jeffries has “a big enough margin” that he can “keep ‘the most extreme’ at bay.” Notes Savodnik: “So-called moderates will point to all the Democrats who won seats that Democrats aren’t supposed to win” running on many issues — but not Gaza, which is “the issue, the omnicause, that bound together all the radicals.” Clearly, “a winning Democratic agenda” should see “that MAGA had meant something real, that these people were not deplorables, but Americans” as it moves “to pull together the Democratic base and large chunks of the splintering Republican coalition.”Republicans “fed up” with President Trump’s “assaults on free-market capitalism and liberal democracy” surely welcome his “diminished” post-midterm status, argues The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L.

Riley: “Like socialists,” Trump “mistak...