Blue tsunami for the Democrats? Donald Trump has only himself to blame - Toronto Star

Voters associate the U.S. president with inflation — and with everything that's gone wrong in their country.

“Voters are not sold on Democrats. They are just keen to sell Trump,” writes Vinay Menon. People cast their ballot in New York on Nov. 3, 2026. 

Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca

Napoleon had Waterloo. Donald Trump has Reflecting Pool.

Heading into Tuesday’s midterms, the pundits wondered what President Dipstick might say in a closing message to voters. Will he gaslight about the sputtering economy? Will he warn Democrats are communists who will spike taxes and confiscate AR-15s and cheeseburgers? Will he rename the moon?

No, Trump mostly wanted to brag about his deranged renos.

He held a press conference on Monday at the Reflecting Pool, his botched and no-bid revamp that cost taxpayers $16 million and counting. He yammered about algae, pipes, caulking, liners, cracked granite. This Home Hardware ad was bizarrely divorced from the pressing concerns of voters.

Imagine if your bungalow was engulfed in flames and the firefighter stood on your lawn with visual aids while sermonizing about hot tubs or migratory birds.

But Trump’s last stand at the Reflecting Pool was the perfect metaphor for his reign of error. Election results are not in as I write this on Tuesday afternoon.

But unless there was a major snafu with polling, that Reflecting Pool is about to morph into a blue tsunami. Now put on your tinfoil hats: Did this lunatic want his party to drown?

If the goal was to maintain Republican control of Congress, wouldn’t Trump have cosplayed as the Invisible Woman and vanished the last few months? Shouldn’t Natalie Harp have twirled him in bubble wrap and stashed him in the Treaty Room around Labour Day?

His orange blowfish of a face is an inkblot voters now associate with inflation, with everything that’s gone wrong. But since malignant narcissism is a powerful narcotic, Trump just couldn’t stay off the campaign trail.

He rambled incoherently as Republican candidates stood nearby with grimacing smiles. Trump even encouraged voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot, the worst possible mental image if he was serious about saving Republicans.

Pretend the head chef is Jeffrey Dahmer.

In recent days, launched racist and Islamophobic attacks on Abdul El-Sayed. Let’s see how that lands in Michigan.

And he hand-picked the worst candidates imaginable.

Noted pen thief Ken Paxton is so corrupt, his own party impeached him in Texas. His ex-wife filed for divorce citing “biblical grounds.” I don’t know what that means. All I know is when Paxton saunters into a room, toddlers bawl and women clutch their purses.

James Talarico should send Trump a gift basket if he wins Texas.

Then there is Trump’s pick in South Carolina. Darline Graham seems nice enough. But she knows less about foreign policy than Paris Hilton does about off-the-rack.

The final New York Times-Sienna poll before the election contained several gut punches to Republicans who are already curled up in the fetal position. The Senate race is tied in ruby red South Carolina? Democrats have the edge in Michigan, Texas, Maine, Ohio and Kansas, a state that has not elected one of theirs to the Senate since 1932?

I don’t want to overdose on hopium.

But as the Times framed it: “Dissatisfaction with President Trump and frustration over his management of the economy are dragging down Republicans … Just 38 per cent of likely voters approved of the president’s job performance in the seven states in the poll, a strikingly low figure given that Mr. Trump had won five of the states by double digits just two years ago.”

The priest performing last rites on MAGA can use sign language when the time comes. He just needs to shrug and point at a sepia photo of Dear Leader.

Did George Soros secretly pay Trump billions to help the Democrats win the midterms on Tuesday? If a blue tsunami washes the Republicans out to the Red Sea, where they will spend the next two years bobbing in the chop next to buoys with ground beef and diesel prices, there is only one person to blame.

Trump is guilty of political sabotage.

Voters are not sold on Democrats. They are just keen to sell Trump.

On Monday, during his last stand at the Reflecting Pool, he mumbled in a lifeless daze: “We’ve achieved more in less than two years than any administration in American history and I’ve kept every single promise I made — except far more. I’ve actually kept far more promises than I made.”

The last sentence sounds logically impossible. It’s like hearing someone say, “Look at all the colourful blooms of the flowers I did not plant.”

But Trump accidentally told the truth.

He did not promise to turbocharge the cost of living. He did not promise to turn America into a global pariah. He did not promise to stop sucking up to Vladimir Putin. He did not promise to avoid grifting, lying, lawlessness and all tangerine shades of treachery. Now we await the election results …

He did not promise to help the Democrats win.

Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details

Vinay Menon is the Star’s pop culture columnist based in Toronto. Reach him via email: vmenon@thestar.ca