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

From the right: A Blaring GOP Wake-up Call

“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.”

Iconoclast: Democrats’ Coming Civil War

“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.”

Conservative: Challenges for Both Parties

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 “mistakenly believes” government can “make better economic decisions than consumers” pursuing “their own best interests” — so his watch inflicted tariffs, government taking stakes in private companies, “corruption,” “bad judgment” on Ukraine and an Iran war he “failed to see to completion.” But “civil wars” loom inside both parties, as Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens’ rejection of Abdul El-Sayed shows. His win proves “Jew-hatred plays not only in liberal precincts like Zohran Mamdani’s New York” but also in swing states — so expect “more Abdul El-Sayeds running for office.” That “might keep some Democrats up at night.”

Libertarian: A New Anakin Skywalker Cult

Argh! Young right wingers on social media are seeing “Star Wars” anti-hero Anakin Skywalker as “a good guy who was right about everything,” marvels Reason’s Robby Soave. “He is flawed and ultimately succumbs to evil,” though fanboys suggest his “malevolence was somehow justified” Perhaps “this current wave of Anakin enthusiasm” is meant “to rile up liberals.” One “viral post described young Anakin standing in front of the alien-composed Jedi Council as ‘the White male experience.’ ” While “the tragedy of Anakin makes for a great story,” it “does not make him a great person.” It’s troubling that these kids don’t see the “important difference between thinking a character is cool and meme-ing yourself into agreement with a murderous stooge.”

Foreign desk: Migrant Mayhem Shifting Germany

While Germany’s political leaders “desperately enforce the ‘fire wall’ that keeps” the AfD, “Germany’s restrictionist party, out of government,” the “fire wall against speaking the truth about Third World immigration is crumbling,” remarks Heather Mac Donald on X. German public media referred “delicately to youthful delinquents” and claimed that “the situation was largely peaceful,” but Frankfurt leadership “rejected the euphemisms”: People with “migrant backgrounds” were “significantly overrepresented among the rioters,” with “a clear trend line of rising migrant violence.” The “next federal election in Germany is not until 2029,” but the AfD, now the “most popular party in Germany, despite a near total media blackout on covering its leaders,” will “be hard to stop.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board