With the midterm elections approaching, American Thinker has published an op-ed by J. Robert Smith that reads less like a routine get-out-the-vote pitch and more like a warning shot โ aimed squarely at voters on the right who are considering sitting out November or casting a protest ballot for Democrats.
Smith’s argument, in short: the stakes are far higher than a normal midterm, because the Democratic Party is no longer merely progressive but is crossing over into socialism, and a Democratic Congress would spend the final two years of Trump’s presidency grinding his agenda to a halt.
The protest vote, and why Smith says it costs too much
Smith opens by directly addressing the disaffected voter. Maybe you’re thinking of staying home, he writes. Maybe you’re thinking of voting Democrat as a protest โ over the length of the Iran war, over higher gas, diesel, and grocery prices. He acknowledges the frustration, conceding that Trump “miscalculated the war’s duration, no doubt,” and that the price squeeze is real.
But he pushes back on both counts. On Iran, he argues that months of conflict is not the same as Vietnam, that casualties have been minor, and that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose a constant threat to U.S. security. He cites Victor Davis Hanson’s framing that “breaking Iran is a gift” that is simply hard to appreciate while it’s happening. On gas and grocery prices, he says relief is coming โ pointing to Secretary Scott Bessent’s September 27 comments, as reported by the New York Post, that Iran would likely make its final oil deliveries to China within two weeks and then “have nothing,” a sign the economic pressure campaign is biting. Smith also notes that WTI crude had fallen to $91 a barrel from a high of $105 on September 14, and that the Strait of Hormuz was open.
The claim at the center of the piece
The op-ed’s central claim is that the midterms are a threshold election for Democrats, who are undergoing a generational shift away from the party establishment and toward the Democratic Socialists of America. Smith writes that the rising generation of Democrats is embracing the DSA, which he says wants a government-run economy and has declared for gutting the Constitution.
He quotes from the DSA’s “Our Campaigns” webpage, which states that the party will be united around a democratically created program that, enacted together, will “allow the working class to rule and end capitalism.” Smith interprets that as translating into an agenda that includes writing a new constitution to create a “democratic socialist republic,” abolishing the Senate and Electoral College, replacing the president and Supreme Court with an executive committee and high court selected by a unicameral legislature, and extending voting rights to permanent noncitizen residents. He calls these “anti-liberty and anti-American propositions.”
Smith also singles out Zohran Mamdani, asking readers not to assume he’s unserious โ “He’s serious as hell,” Smith writes โ while predicting he’ll fail. The risk, in Smith’s telling, is that even failed socialism leaves wreckage and ruined lives, and if enough people embrace it first, that damage won’t stay confined to New York City.
The last Democratic presidency, as Smith remembers it
To make his case for what a Democratic Congress would do, Smith reaches back to the Biden years, which he characterizes as a mix of bad economics, open borders, “degenerate woke social policies,” a corrupt FBI, soft-on-crime policing, the Afghanistan withdrawal, and deference to China and Iran. He also revives a critique of Nancy Pelosi’s first measure as House speaker in 2019, which he describes as legislation to gut fair elections by federalizing temporary state-level 2020 election measures that he says caused half the country to doubt the legitimacy of Biden’s win.
Looking forward, Smith predicts that a Democratic Congress would resurrect investigations and impeachment efforts to hamstring Trump, bring back the worst of Biden’s policies, and introduce hard-left legislation to satisfy its growing socialist wing โ which, he argues, won’t be content merely to triple or quadruple down on those older follies. He notes that many pro-abortion advocates have dropped the “pro-choice” framing, writing that “Marx idolaters” now openly promote socialist and communist ideas they picked up at universities. That, he adds, is why university administrations and faculties need to be confronted and cleaned out โ though he punts the details to another day.
Smith then invokes the historical record of socialism worldwide, from Russia and China to Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, and Cuba, describing them as bleak testaments with body counts in the tens of millions โ and asking, rhetorically, whether it can’t happen here. He points to a September 23 Gallup finding that 40 percent of Americans view socialism positively, with the skew among 18-to-34-year-olds, 57 percent of whom he says think going hard left is fine. For readers who distrust polling, he suggests visiting a college campus or a Starbucks, where he says your eyes and ears won’t betray you.
The case for two more years
Having argued that Democrats would obstruct, investigate, and legislate from the left, Smith pivots to what he says voters would be giving up. He credits Trump with a list of 20-month accomplishments: border and immigration victories, falling murder rates, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” and its ongoing tax relief, no tax on tips and Social Security, trillions in new foreign investment, tariffs revitalizing domestic steel, higher energy production, modernized Venezuelan oil facilities with more oil arriving soon, the elimination of federal DEI programs, and protections for female athletes.
His closing question is the emotional hinge of the piece: imagine how much more Trump could achieve in his final two years without Democratic obstruction. He also returns to Iran, noting Trump’s stark warning at the United Nations to quit or face annihilation, and referencing Operation Economic Outcast as biting hard amid fuel shortages and a faltering Iranian economy. What remains of the regime, Smith writes, understands that as food grows scarcer and nights grow colder, its citizens will grow bolder, and its rule hangs in the balance.
The op-ed ends where it began โ with a direct appeal to the frustrated voter. Vote Republican, Smith writes, because the alternative is full of regrets, and because keeping a GOP Congress is critical to stopping socialists from gaining a foothold.
Whether that argument lands with the voters Smith is trying to reach is, of course, the question the midterms will answer. What the piece makes clear is the shape of the argument many on the right will be making between now and November: that this is not a normal midterm, and that a protest vote is a luxury its author believes the country cannot afford.
Source: www.americanthinker.com โ https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/10/you-really-don-t-want-democrats-to-win-the-midterms/