NEW YEAR'S BREEZE

The political winds are changing, and Democrats will flatten Trump's weak, grotesque Republicans in 2026 ...

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

On December 22, 1944, on a brutally cold and snowy battlefield in Bastogne, Belgium, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe's rough-and-ready 101st Airborne Division was surrounded and outnumbered by German armor units, which had literally come out of nowhere.

The fighting had been bloody and intense, and the Germans, sensing victory, made a final push to prevail in World War II. Before hitting the Americans with everything they had, the German command sent a message to McAuliffe demanding he surrender his army.

McAuliffe snatched the missive, and then typed one of his own: “NUTS!”

When the Germans asked what “NUTS!” meant, an American officer clarified, “In plain English,” he snarled, “It means ‘Go to hell!’”

Buoyed by the defiant McAuliffe the Americans went on to prevail in what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge and turned the momentum of the war in the European theater in the allies’ favor …

For the past 341 days the sick and depraved Donald Trump’s fascist, bigoted, lawless regime has thrown everything they’ve got at a country and people they provably hate, by dint of their consistently repulsive actions that hit a boiling point on January 6, 2021, and have been on full simmer since.

-They have moved to poison our air and water, and battered our government and our White House.

-They have stained our armed forces by pitting them against American citizens, and demanded they follow illegal orders by carrying out murder on the high seas.

-They have banned books and tried to bastardize our checkered history and those hard truths they hate most of all.

-They have wrecked our healthcare system, attacked clean energy, and degraded science and vaccines that have saved millions and millions of lives.

-They have coddled fascists, and taken a hammer to allies that have stood with us and people like General McAuliffe for eight decades.

-They have propped up soulless, greedy billionaires, and covered for pedophiles.

-They have pardoned thousands of crooks for cash, and gone after judges.

-And those prices they promised to bring down? Well, they’ve only gone up thanks to Trump’s idiotic tariffs.

The past 341 days have been a bombardment of the senses, and an attack on human rights and just plain decency.

And it has all been by evil design.

Because Donald Trump, and Stephen Miller, and JD Vance, and Elon Musk, and the rest of the grotesque Republicans that spin out of control in their evil orbit want you to feel like America’s defeat is inevitable.

The repulsive and sickly Trump is doing everything he can to step on our necks with those fat little feet which are swallowed up by inner tubes for ankles. He’s a garbage-mouthed, lying lout, who can only find true pleasure in administering the pain that has lived inside him his entire stinking, miserable life.

Well, here’s what I say to that:

NUTS!

We’re still here, and by God we’ve more than proven we can give as good as we get.

Because buried in the rubble and amid all that the smoke, Democrats have been winning elections at an astonishing clip, and if 2026 looks anything like 2025, Republicans are heading for a bloodbath in the coming months.

And they damn well know it.

The failing Trump is in deep trouble, and as we swing hard toward the midterms, his subservient cowards in Congress will have a choice to make: Stay with the man who is trying to end us and them, or run to the Left toward freedom and programs and initiatives that lift all of us up.

Or … there’s a third option: They can just flat surrender.

Already, there have been a record amount of retirements in the House and Senate and as Republicans made the choice to cut and run away from their deeply, deeply unpopular president and toward the safety of their homes.

Here’s a fact: If the midterms were held this Tuesday, Republicans would lose the House by 40 to 60 seats, as well as the Senate. Big races, small races, and medium races would swing toward the Left, because that is exactly what has been quietly happening among the carnage of Trump’s continued attack on America.

Major races that were supposed to be nail-biters in places like New Jersey and Wisconsin went to the Democrats by double-digits. Democrat Abigail Spanberger absolutely demolished her opponent in Virginia’s governor race.

In fact, the last time the Central Virginia town of Waynesboro voted for a Democratic presidential nominee, Lyndon Johnson led the ticket in 1964.

This makes it a Republican stronghold.

Well, last month, Democrats swept to victory in every race on that town’s ballot, including the governor’s race, when Spanberger became the first Democrat to ever win the majority of the voters in Waynesboro.

That’s change we can believe in, good people.

And there are hundreds of examples like Waynesboro all over the map.

Republicans can’t point to ONE election that they over-performed in this year, — NOT ONE — while that is all Democrats have been doing.

Republicans are scared, folks, and it’s about damn time we shook off our doubts and started carrying ourselves as winners. Winning begets winning. It’s OK to walk with a swagger just as long as you are prepared to keep going hard on your way to the finish line.

Who here isn’t prepared to do that????

And let me get this out of the way because my ears are already burning: You are saying what happens if Trump somehow rigs the elections, and calls a national emergency or some damn thing to throttle our vote? Then what, Earl?

If these things were to come to pass, and I don’t believe they will, what does that change exactly?

Are you just going to take your toys and go home and cry? Are you just going let him do it, and whine about things not being fair?

Or are you going to show some damn resolve and keep doing whatever is necessary to protect your country and her people?

Here’s something I hope you consider most of all today:

Trump isn’t even close to as powerful as he wants you to think he is, and you are far, far more powerful than you think you are.

Please read that again, dammit.

I am no Pollyanna, and demand as much from our leaders as I do myself. In fact, I’ve caught a lot of guff for going after Democrats like Chuck Schumer from time to time for their half-assed efforts in the face of fascism.

After last year’s terrible election I thought too damn many Democrats were taking that beating lying down, and man, it-made-me-furious. Turns out there were a lot of people like me …

I saw them by the thousands at all those rallies. I see them by the thousands in this space every day. We aren’t standing up for Democrats as much as we are standing up for America, and against the fascist Trump.

We want fighters.

Dammit you know me, and I know you, and NONE of us are quitting. That’s tens of thousands of us right here alone standing up for what’s good and right. And if everyone of us plants the seeds of democracy and does the necessary work in the field, thousands and thousands more will rise up and join us in this epic battle.

WE are leading the change and the charge.

And we will win.

I swear to God we will.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)