THE HOTTEST NEWS IS MURDOCHLAND IS ABOUT TWO PEOPLE WHO AREN'T EVEN IN OFFICE ANYMORE

Republicans obviously want the 2026 midterms to be about anything other than Donald Trump's presidency, so it's no surprise that at 9:00 Monday moring, the lead story at Rupert Murdoch's Fox News and the lead story at Murdoch's New York Post were about two guys who aren't even working in the government anymore.

At Fox:

And at the Post:

The Fox story focuses on Lindy Li, a former Democratic fundraiser who's been flipped by the GOP and is now a professional Democrat-hater. Her upcoming book, Unburdened: A Former Democrat Insider’s Shocking Account of Political Power, Betrayal, and Party Collapse, will be published (by Murdoch's book-publishing company, HarperCollins) on September 15, just around the time early voting starts in the midterms. That's how the Republican media machine wants to motivate voters -- not just by saying Democrats are evil, but by saying Democrats were evil two years ago.

Or according to the New York Post, six years ago -- that's the point of the lead item there. Anthony Fauci, who is Democratic-coded in the eyes of Republicans even though he served presidents of both parties, is (according to the Post's Miranda Devine and outgoing director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard) linked to a lab leak that brought us COVID (even though we still don't really know where the COVID virus originated, and even though Republicans have long insisted that COVID is no worse than the flu). This is meant to motivate Republican voters who never feared COVID in the first place, and who are sure that it can be easily cured with ivermectin in any case. And it will motivate them.

The average D.C. Democrat will denounce Trump and his or her election opponent, but not Republicans as a whole, and certainly not a wide range of Republicans. Republicans, by contrast, incessantly denounce Democrats (and figures presumed to be Democrats), not just for what they're doing now but for what they did many years ago. Republicans stir up grievances, then sustain those grievances forever.

And this works. The GOP is a party with a hugely unpopular president, but it might survive the midterms with minimal damage.

The Dems midterm warning sign is pretty clear:

There are high quality polls (Ipsos, MU Law, & NBC), which show Dems shy of their generic ballot benchmark in past wave years.

Their Dems avg. lead is just 3 pts... & Dems need a 3-4 pt win to take the House given redistricting. pic.twitter.com/qPy5CsxFZS

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) June 15, 2026

Some Democrats are doing a decent job of directing voters' rage, but Republicans have a huge head start -- and a massive back catalog of grievances.