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There are lessons to take from last week’s blue tidal wave which swept Republicans from power in Congress and across much of the country, just as there were from the 2024 ejection of Democrats from office. Among other things, party turnover underlines the futility of relying on government to maintain predictable conditions and to protect cherished liberties. The midterm elections may have been primarily a rejection of corruption and ineptitude among GOP officials, but they also empowered Democrats to enact an agenda in many places wildly at odds with what prevailed before.
Americans who dread the loss of school choice, violations of gun rights, and increased regulation—or who two years ago feared attacks on reproductive liberty and immigrants—must accept that much of the future of freedom requires defying and undermining intrusive government, no matter who holds office.
Wild Swings in Political Power Don’t Indicate Support for Crazy Agendas
Last week’s elections removed Republicans from office across the country, much as Democrats were crushed in 2024. Notably, Texas—recently a refuge for those fleeing Democratic dominance in California—flipped largely blue. “For the first time in more than three decades, Democrats have broken Republicans’ grip on statewide elections in Texas,” observed David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio. Political refugees must wonder whether the conditions that drove them to move will follow them.
It’s true that elections have consequences. But majorities have no more right to impose authoritarian visions than do solo tyrants. And it’s not clear that voters booting one party from office are eager to embrace what the other major party has to offer.
Last week, the Associated Press asked voters why they cast their ballots as they did. It found “the cost of living and government corruption weighing heavily on many Americans’ minds as they cast a ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections.” In addition, “the survey also found that while Democrats have at least a slight advantage on several major issues, including the economy and government corruption, the Democratic Party is not much more popular among U.S. voters than the Republican Party.”
Americans are hate-voting in election after election. While the shrinking ranks of hardcore partisans still like their parties, Pew Research’s Steven Shepard reported last month that majorities of independents who just favor one party “say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is that the other party’s policies are harmful.” But “relatively few Republican leaners (34%) and Democratic leaners (27%) say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is the perceived good of its policies.”
The Major Parties Are Taking Turns Alienating Voters
Even so, in our seemingly immutable two-party system, rejecting one of the political tribes means handing the reins of power to the other. Politicians aren’t very good at accepting that they’re regarded as slightly less awful than the alternative and acting accordingly. They always take the ball and run.
“Democrats will use their new trifecta status in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to dismantle union reforms, progress on taxes, school choice and litigation reform,” cautions The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel.
Sure enough, Democratic governors in Arizona and Texas immediately renewed vows to roll back overwhelmingly popular school choice programs, just as their colleagues in Virginia earlier attacked that state’s once robust protections for self-defense rights once they gained power.
Voters will have an opportunity in 2028 to reconsider their choices. After all, federal Republicans were spanked this year after they replaced Democrats who sent government spending and resulting inflation soaring, only to implement tariffs and a war that kept prices rising, along with unpopular immigration enforcement. But the wild political swings of recent years suggest the result will be dramatic changes in law and unstable policy environments, with more of the same to follow in the next round of elections.
Americans Tend To Do What They Please, No Matter Politicians’ Desires
That doesn’t mean we should stop voting for candidates we find less bad than the alternatives; none of us want to live under intolerable governments. But to live our lives through cycles of severe policy changes, engaging in activities that are forbidden under one party and encouraged under the other, we should emulate those Americans of the past who largely ignored government dictates.
Prohibition was famously defeated by noncompliance. “There were twice as many speakeasies in Rochester, New York, as saloons closed by Prohibition. That was more or less true throughout the country,” the Cato Institute’s Mark Thornton noted in a 1991 analysis.
Likewise for laws against same-sex relationships. “As far back as the 1890s, there were establishments in the Village catering to lesbians and gays,” Bedford + Bowery reports, although same-sex conduct wasn’t fully legalized in New York until 1980. The modern gay rights movement kicked off after a fiercely resisted 1969 police raid on the Stonewall bar.
Gambling has long been targeted by law, though restrictions loosened in recent years. While many people who dislike games of chance want bans reimposed, “the result of an attempted ban, as we have seen, is that gamblers go underground,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute warned in 2014.
And modern gun control laws have repeatedly met defiance, including “a compliance rate of about 4 percent” with New York’s mandatory registration for so-called assault weapons as described by Hudson Valley One. The modern DIY movement to encourage people to manufacture their own firearms is specifically intended to make such laws unenforceable.
Ignoring the law isn’t a completely satisfactory replacement for living under a predictable and permissive regime. There’s always the risk of arrest. People have little recourse when they get ripped off or otherwise mistreated when engaged in illegal activity. And underground markets empower organized criminals, who are not the safest people to deal with.
But defying laws also helps compel political change. It forces politicians to choose between looking impotent as laws go ignored, or as if they’re responsive to popular opinion. Over the years, officeholders who agreed to legalize booze, marijuana, same-sex relationships, concealed carry, and the like weren’t always true believers in the cause. But they recognized unbeatable popular resistance when they saw it.
In the years to come, political power will probably continue cycling between two major parties who do their best to overreach and offend the American public. Homeschoolers, reproductive rights advocates, gun owners, and anybody else who votes in hopes of being left alone should consider the lessons of the past. The tenure of dominant parties turns rancid at a seemingly accelerating pace, but living your life as you please without regard for politicians’ whims has timeless appeal.
The post The Wild Turnover of the Midterms Shows That Living Life Requires Ignoring Government appeared first on Reason Magazine.
