It may have been the Republicans’ assault on abortion rights that made the difference in this election. Or perhaps it was the obvious, unmistakable threat that Republicans posed to our democracy by their enthusiastic embrace of Trump’s Big Lie. Or simply the fact that they fielded some really, really lousy candidates. Those are all good, plausible explanations for the complete absence of the much-anticipated ‘red wave’ that was supposed to have summarily swept Democrats out of power in 2022, paving the way for a brave new Republican Congress. And those are the reasons being cited -- more or less collectively — by the media, as they struggle to explain away the GOP’s abject, unprecedented failure here.

But those explanations, while certainly valid, all skate away from a more imposing elephant (no pun intended) in the room, one that’s been treated with curious diffidence by the beltway press: The reality that the Republican Party has at this point in time transformed itself into a soundboard for some of the ugliest, nastiest, most hate-driven people in the country. People who literally make your skin crawl with their performative cruelty and sheer meanness. People who no decent human being would want their children to emulate, let alone associate with — or vote for.

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