What Explains the Lack of a Red Wave in the 2022 Mid-Terms?

1) The best explanation for the sorry fate of the Republican Party in the mid-terms of 2022 comes from the always genial Tucker Carlson via PJ Media. Matt Margolis points to the Fox News host's insight into the single issue which Explains the Lack of a Red Wave More Than Anything Else:

There are many theories about why the elections played out as they have. Many believe it was a lack of quality candidates, or the issue of abortion, or even Donald Trump. But on Wednesday, Tucker Carlson of Fox News offered his explanation for the Republican Party’s dismal midterm election results despite a favorable environment — and it makes perfect sense.

“[T]he mechanics of an election. They matter. In fact, they matter sometimes more than any individual running in the election. The way people vote makes a big difference to the outcome,” he explained.

Case in point: Pennsylvania.

“Two and a half years ago, the last administration, its Republican allies in Congress, watched passively, seemingly in glassy-eyed sedation as the Democratic Party used the pretext of COVID to rewrite election laws around the country in order to get its own candidates into office. They didn’t do it by accident. They knew what they were doing” [Carlson declared]. “Last night those laws, many of which are still on the books, paid off generously. John Fetterman bombed in his one public debate. You saw it. He humiliated himself. He made a mockery of the election, but it didn’t matter by that point.”

Polls showed a surge of support for Dr. Mehmet Oz after Fetterman’s disastrous debate, and most polls in the final days of the campaign had Oz ahead. It appeared that Fetterman’s goose was cooked, but while he was hiding from the public for months, the local party was banking early and mail-in votes.

“Thanks to early voting, Fetterman’s margin was already in the bank. Nearly 70% of Democrats had voted early in the Pennsylvania races. Only 20% of Republicans did” [Carlson continued].

2) Incidentally, have you noticed that for once, the leftists haven't made a big deal out of how the popular vote should trump all other voting systems (like the USA's electoral college, etc…)? Wonder why that is? Guess what: That's because the popular vote was won by the GOP! (That's right: the "principled" Democrats only protest loudly about said principles when it benefits their party…)

According to the Cook Political Report, as of Thursday morning, Republicans took 52.3 percent of the popular vote in the 2022 midterms, compared to the Democrats’ 46.2 percent

3) Tucker's Fox News colleague Jesse Watters adds that Democrats created a system focused on ballots, not votes (It's not about persuasion anymore, it's about Democrats getting as many ballots as possible):

Elections used to be decided on election night. "American Idol" can handle millions of votes in a commercial break, but it takes Arizona, Nevada a week? None of it makes sense because they don't want the system to make sense. The longer some of these races drag out for, the better it is for Democrats because they've created a system centered around ballots, not votes. It's not about winning your vote anymore. It's not about persuading you. It's about flooding the state with as many ballots as possible and getting them filled out Democrat.

Related: • Déjà Vu All Over Again in the Banana Republic of Biden:
No, the Democrats did not run better campaigns; they cheated, as usual
• Of the 47 countries in Europe today — the nations and the continent that the Democrats are always telling us to emulate — 46 of them currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote

John R. Lott, Jr : [As a for an overwhelming majority of] the 47 European countries [they] don’t allow absentee voting for citizens living in country. Another ten European countries … allow absentee voting, but [with strict requirements]. … With loose absentee voting rules, a country is making itself vulnerable to vote fraud. With mail-in voting, a country is almost begging for vote fraud.

More Related: • What Is Behind Trump's Attack on DeSantis? Has He Lost His Marbles or Does He See Things the Rest of Us Do Not — Such as the Florida Governor Being Set Up as a Stool? 
• Joe Biden, Why Are You Calling Denmark a White Supremacist Country? And You, Barack Obama: Why Are You Calling Africa a Racist Continent? 
• Our élites constantly lecture everyone about "disinformation," about "big lies", etc; They're the biggest liars of all, with zero accountability
• Democrats don't support voter fraud; they just worry about disenfranchising the deceased
• Voter ID: Apparently not allowing minorities to cheat is a form of racial oppression
• Let’s dispense with the myth that liberals are really against voter fraud; Voter fraud is actually an essential part of their election strategy
• If the Democrats learned anything from their 2016 debacle it’s that they didn’t cheat nearly enough
• Isn't America Being Governed by a Mafia Family Dynasty, setting things up so that there will always be Democrats in power?
• Inside of a month, Democrats have redefined riots and election challenges from the highest form of patriotism to an attack on democracy — And by “democracy”, they mean the Democrat Party
• Voter Fraud: A Note to Leftists Who Claim that "Not a shred of hard evidence has been produced"
• Dennis Prager: The Numerous (and Sweeping) Anomalies Regarding the 2020 Election That Cannot Be Ignored

Despite America's Cuban Embargo, the Main Supplier of the Island's Food Products is None Other than… the USA Itself

As we commemorate (or ought to commemorate) international Victims of Communism Day, note that last week, a member of Republicans in France (RIF) was a guest on the English-language version of France 24 for a debate on the Cuba embargo: Why does the US continue to reject UN moves to end it? Needless to say, in the debate produced by Antonia KERRIGAN, Alessandro XENOS, and Mark OWEN, the conservative was, as usual, outgunned, not least by the "moderator" himself, but Erik Svane fired back at the drama queens with both barrels…Among the guests were :

• Anne Kraatz, Historian, US Foreign Affairs Expert
• Luis Miguel Cabrera, FRANCE 24 journalist
• Pascal Drouhaud, Associate Researcher in Latin America, Choiseul Institute
• Carlos Alzugaray, Cuban diplomat, former Cuban ambassador
• Erik Svane, Member of 'Republicans in France', Author of "La bannière Etalée"

Now 60 years old, the trade embargo on Cuba has been perpetuated primarily at the behest of Washington. When it was imposed in 1962, John F. Kennedy was US president and Fidel Castro was the revolutionary leader of Cuba: a Communist too close for comfort for Washington at the height of the Cold War. Arms sales to Havana had been banned four years earlier and Cuba leant on its major ally, the Soviet Union, to fill the gap. Our panel discusses why the embargo remains in place today and if there is any hope of lifting it.

Thanks to myself, notably for an article I wrote almost 20 years ago, Romanticists Overlook Allende's Many Faults, the second half of which included a discussion on Cuba, notably Gustavo Arcos Bergnes's New York Times article, A Prisoner Becomes A Warden… 

Update: I should like to address a common criticism on Youtube — the alleged lack of compassion for eight sick Cuban kids.

First of all, I should like to reiterate the two or three opening points which I said about Cuba, namely, that contrary to what is regularly said about the Caribbean island, what is imposed upon it is not an American blockade but an American embargo. Meaning, that nothing prevents Havana from engaging in commerce with countries such as France, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Russia (indeed, it is hardly a secret that Moscow supported the régime for decades), Japan, China, etc (not least as a tourist destination).

Second, given the way that Uncle Sam's heartless imperialists are described by Havana's communists, you would think that (rather than be outraged) they would be delighted — positively delighted — that none of the capitalist pigs' despicable products come to pollute the minds of the Cuban people.

Third, the many arguments charging the Yanqui imperialists as responsible for Cuban citizens' misery are moot, given that there are exceptions to Washington's embargo, namely for humanitarian reasons, i.e., in the very fields of (wait for it…) food and medicine. Indeed, as it happens, the main provider of both food and medicine is none other than… los Estados Unidos de América.

Having mentioned those points, I will now turn to the criticism, and point out what Luis Miguel Cabrera does towards the middle of the debate is a typical leftist trick. Or a typical leftist tactic, if you prefer. He brings in some unknown tidbit, usually a very personal kind of tragedy, one which uses the epitome of innocence — "children's lives!" is his outburst — and one which none of us has heard about and none of us can — conveniently — verify or retort to. The leftist goes on to pinpoint exactly where and with whom the blame lies — "The U.S. prevents Cuba from acquiring custodial" he says, perhaps reading from a news source (Granma? Juventud Rebelde?) — and thus he shames his opponents into silence, with no alternatives being considered.

But let us assume that there is truth in his example of eight Cuban kids who needed organ transplants but had to wait for months for the medicine. 

Notice that everybody assumes that none of the eight ever got the medicine (from whatever source in whichever country) and indeed that all eight have since died, even though neither of those things are ever stated outright. And although Luis Miguel Cabrera uses what must be called weasel language, saying that "I know some of these children who didn't make it" (suggesting that none of them made it) — although "not making it" might not mean what it is assumed to mean — I will go out on a limb and suggest that, for precisely the very reason that the France 24 journalist never states outright that any of them are dead, it is likely that most, if not all, of them are in fact alive today.

Again, assuming everything he says is true, however, the first question to ask is, How long would the embargo have had to be over for the calamity not to happen? Two months? Two years? Twenty years?

Besides, I thought that health care was one of the communist government's biggest sources of pride. (Indeed, wasn't that the subject of one of Michael Moore's "documentaries"? Related: Cubans wait months, sometimes years, for something as basic as a wheelchair.)

Second, why didn't we hear about the tragedy until today? Is it perhaps because of the communist media's censorship?

Imagine the French government, or a Danish hospital, or a Canadian NGO (not to mention a similar institution somewhere in the… USA) learning about the heart-wrenching tragedy of eight dying kids (in any foreign country) in dire need of a "chemical solution" for an organ transplant. You would imagine that any, or all, of them would immediately open their doors to welcome the kids to their country, as much to save innocent lives as for the good publicity and to mark points against Uncle Sam.

Having said that, it is inconceivable that Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis or Senator Marco Rubio (not to mention the President of the United States, whether it is Joe Biden or Donald Trump, or either of their secretaries of state) hearing about this calamity and, insofar as the situation is correctly described, not immediately demanding that the State Department be overridden (is that who is allegedly responsible? Don't people know that most bureaucrats in the federal government seem to lean left? — see Elián González) and the medicine be dispatched forthwith.

This suggests that when Luis Miguel Cabrera charges that "there are a lot of restrictions," said restrictions regarding medical purchases are not coming from the political world, but from the medical sector.

I'm guessing here — I have no other choice — but maybe the restrictions are quite reasonable, for instance insisting that any operation involving this type of medicine must be administered by a doctor who has at least, say, 18 months' experience in a particular field of study. (Meaning that the US might export the medicine to a — specialized — hospital in Paris or Copenhagen or Tokyo or Bogota, but not to a hospital in Kampala or Havana — in the latter case, one reason being because the island's communists will not let its medical students travel abroad for study; for that matter, it just might be that the restrictions might prevent them from sending the chemical solution to just any hospital in Kansas, in Colorado, or in California…)

This in turn would mean that the situation can — easily — be solved, by another solution: not to export the medicine but to "import", i.e., to welcome the patients to the USA. If it is true that "the rest of the world was afraid of having sanctions from the U.S." (hardly believable, certainly not regarding humanitarian aid such as food and medicine), why is there not another option: the "Cuban-Americans in the US gathering money" to fly the Cuban eight (and their doctors and at least some members of their families?) to, say, Miami for the medical treatment they needed?

There, indeed, is the final question: whether they had foreign invitations or not, why did the kids along with their families not travel abroad for care (the care that would presumably have been free)? Is it because of communist governments' habit of denying travel outside of the mother country? For fear that they, or some of them, might learn things about the communist system abroad and/or, worse, defect?