Drop the right amount of crazy

How Trump worked the media to divert attention from Gaetz

Not yet wall-to-wall coverage, but we're almost there. The corporate media is fueling Trump’s desire to dominate the headlines with chatter about Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Is there any logic behind his plan? Of course not.

It’s clearly a tactic to generate headlines, and now the media is diving deep into these nonsensical proposals, which serve a singular purpose: to shift the conversation away from the disastrous prospect of Matt Gaetz becoming Attorney General of the United States.

Trump wants to avoid this discussion because it highlights his poor judgment in selecting candidates to lead the country over the next four years. The more we scrutinize Gaetz, the more his credibility suffers, and as a result, the pressure to examine his outlandish nominees—Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, Robert Kennedy Jr. for Health and Human Services Secretary, and Kash Patel to head the FBI—grows exponentially.

In the last 48 hours, the MAGA world has been scrambling to manage the fallout from Matt Gaetz. The only reasonable solution they’ve landed on is to have him double down. They want him to make a comeback to Congress. Some big names in the MAGA propaganda world are urging him to be the "comeback kid." But it’s not going to happen. The more he steps into the spotlight, the more ammunition he gives for it to shine on his past deeds.

He’ll likely remain out of sight. Not a bad choice, given the sordid details that emerged from the House Ethics Committee report. His past is now global news.

This incident should serve as a stark warning for GOP Senators running in any state within reach of Democrats. Every state they won last cycle with a margin of less than 5 points is now in play.

Midterms are never kind to the party in power.

Even the MAGA world isn’t immune to this trend. Trump took a devastating blow in 2018, just two years after entering the White House. Biden faced a similar setback in 2022. It's easy to see why—voters of the party in power lack the urgency to rally, while the opposition feels the exact opposite. This trend will be very difficult to break.

Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control of the Senate in two years. Kamala Harris won in Maine, where Susan Collins will be running for re-election in 2026. Collins won by 9 points in 2020, but her chances are far from guaranteed in 2026. Senator Tom Tillis is up for re-election in North Carolina, a state Trump won by 2.2 points, but where Republicans lost the governor's race by a massive 14 points. Tillis won’t feel comfortable either, especially without Trump on the ballot to boost turnout.

The Senate seat in Ohio held by J.D. Vance will be up in 2026. GOP candidate Bernie Moreno won the race against Senator Sherrod Brown in 2024 by less than 5 points. If Brown runs again in 2026, Ohio will definitely be in play for Democrats.

While I'm not sure what the fourth option for the Democrats might be, these three states are clearly in play for them in 2026.

There is exactly zero chance Trump will manage to bring housing and grocery prices down. He made a ton of promises he cannot keep. He claimed to have no involvement with Project 2025, only to fill his administration with its architects. He said he would not touch Medicare and Social Security, though, to be fair, he has contradicted himself on that. If he taps into Social Security benefits to feed the money-hungry billionaires, many states outside the 5-point margin will come into play.

All those Senators will remain worried. The Matt Gaetz story is a cautionary tale for them. If they vote for RFK Jr. or Kash Patel, and these men do what most of us expect them to, or if any sordid pasts come to light as we near Election Day, it will hurt any senator who voted them in.

Democrats will surely use that vote against them in their campaigns.

The Gaetz story, along with 34 Republicans in the House defying Trump over the funding bill passed this week, has given vulnerable senators some breathing room to vote against Trump’s crazy nominees. While it's not a guarantee, the chances of knocking these nominees out have brightened in the last 48 hours.

Every victory counts.