Only Angry Candidates Can Push MAGA Aside

July 18, 2026

This piece first appeared in Rawstory.

A lot of Democratic nominees for elections this fall just “don’t get it;” voters are angry, and candidates better learn to meet those voters where they live – or lose.

By every measure, this should be a blue wave election of historic proportions (Momentarily set aside fears of an election canceled, one being run by the military, all legitimate fears, but not relevant for this discussion.) First, the president’s party nearly always loses seats in the mid-term election, and the Republicans don’t have seats to lose in the House. The supposedly safe seats in the Senate look less safe by the day. Second, President Donald Trump is polling at a near 36% approval rate, and that number may be very soft; many MAGAs are too embarrassed to say they disapprove of Trump. Inwardly, they are breaking.

And understandably so, given the nation itself is also breaking, breaking under the weight of inflation, underemployment, stressed social services, wars, AI, and so much more. It is also all happening under the comprehensive control of the Republican Party. Conditions are set for a continent-spanning tectonic “slip,” unleashing blue water barreling down toward a red government situated on a hill that won’t be high enough.

Winning back the House – assuming even close to a normal election- is all but baked in. But now even the Senate is suddenly within reach. States like Texas, Ohio, South Carolina, Kansas, and more are watching their red political blood turn purple for lack of oxygen of the type produced only by hope. So Democrats provide hope, the oxygen to breathe again, and that’s good.

But this country doesn’t need good. Unfortunately, we passed that off-ramp long ago. At the very least, it needs “great” – because even good government cannot turn around one this bad. Never in history has any administration or Congress done more to cement in its control and cement out its accountability than this one, from bunkers and troops in DC, to a redistricted South all but disenfranchising American blacks, and the looming threat of a federal government willing to manipulate elections themselves – “RIGGED” applied to every Democratic win.

Good can’t and won’t cut it, only greatness.

But greatness requires risk. Traditionally, DC-based consultants play it safe, happy to simply move some numbers up from the last election as self-evident proof of their value, fortifying their reputations, charging more next cycle, all while blaming the candidate for the actual loss. The country can’t afford such conservative and self-interested advice right now, even in areas where they might produce even a small win with a safe candidate. We don’t have that kind of time. It is a time for heroes, the ones who make noise, even if that noise narrows their victory.

Maybe a full generation ago, someone could run with a slogan like “Less politics, more problem solving,” and maybe even such “consultant-speak slop,” it might have been helpful, or at least not hurtful. This is not one of those times. This is really not one of those times.

Sure. Take a survey, do it today. You will get a very high number of people who say they want “less politics” and more getting along. After all, that’s the grown-up answer, and it is the right answer in the right country. We just don’t happen to live in that country right now. Because voters will say such things in a survey and then vote the opposite. Voters want more politics. Or, put more accurately, they want more fight, they want a hero, and that has never, ever, been as remotely close to true as it is in this term.

This column’s last theme was dropping the “social Democrat” or “Democratic Socialist” label from recent young winners, and instead, without changing a thing about their beliefs, messaging themselves as “real Democrats, or “FDR Democrats.” The theme, here and now in this column, is whatever one’s platform may be, whether “Left-Left, Mushy-Jeffires Left, or even Independent,” the beliefs themselves matter far less than running as someone furious with where this nation stands. Someone angry. A person willing to go to DC and be a hero, by creating a wholly new message, one rejecting the entire status quo. Change for the sake of change, all of it. Firesale.

Mike Johnson loves to quote Jesus. Send someone to Washington DC who plans on acting like Jesus. The one and only time Jesus went sh*t storm insane was in the Temple in Jerusalem – effectively, “the Capitol.” He arrived in fury, tossed the tables of the money changers and vendors, screaming at the rich for doing all they could to keep their power over the poor. Send someone willing to stand in front of a microphone and figuratively toss some tables around, and ask Mike Johnson to point to the portion of the MAGA movement Jesus would support. Pulling healthcare from the poor? Shooting immigrants?

Send a hero who will toss over tables.

We see that pattern emerging in primaries and races all over the country, and it’s not confined to Democrats – even the Republicans who are currently busting onto the scene are fighting a system they see as too moderate, and winning primaries. They are winning due to their anger, despite a message so batspit insane even Trump would say, “Whoa, wait, what?” The point is, they are winning primaries because the country is angry.

It is all just so awful. It is too hot, too expensive, too stupid, too corrupt. We bomb girls in school, we slam the doors on women and POC in our military, we shoot people on the way to work, we take healthcare away, we’re regressing by the day, inviting diseases of the past to our present by politicizing science, research, modernity itself, all in favor of raw milk and the freedom to live “all naturally,” like people 125 years ago, when one could get an infection or have a baby and then die “all naturally,” and with no governmental interference, including healthcare or vaccines that could’ve saved that baby.

If a candidate can’t be bothered to be mad about such a situation and commit to being the hero who helps fix it, fine – but that candidate has little hope of turning a red district blue, or almost worse, that timid baby-blue Democrat won’t be much help in turning any of this around, a wasted opportunity in a country that can’t afford to waste anything, much less the remaining oxygen.

Fortunately, outside of a certain set of consultants, most based in DC and extremely well paid, people outside of the beltway are figuring it out. Mamdani didn’t win by accident. Tamarico isn’t polling ahead of Paxton simply because Paxton’s too corrupt – it’s that Tamarico is too indignant, insulted by the nation’s direction, Paxton’s party, and Tamarico is willing to quote Jesus and fix it. We don’t know who will eventually be nominated as the candidate in Maine, but we do know that nominating another nice moderate will get them run over; they already have their Susan Collins. They need a hero.

And the beauty of all this is that the voters want that hero. A very typical American may totally disagree with a candidate who wants universal healthcare, but vote for him anyway because “the guy is as sick of those people as I am and is going to change things.” That is the message this time, this election – oppose Trump and MAGA however you believe is the best opposition, but damn it, have some attitude about it, refuse to be intimidated, find one’s inner AOC, take some risks, be brave, do a little Jesus, and promise to upend tables, it is what voters want to hear and want to see.

To the candidates out there? Don’t try to persuade voters with your great ideas. Inspire voters by noting this country was great and will grow again, be angrier than they are, promise to make them proud, promise them something heroic – the winning, especially this time, takes care of itself.

Jason Miciak is a Rawstory Columnist, former editor of Occupy Democrats, author, political consultant, attorney, and single parent girldad. Please follow him on Bluesky, or reach him at [email protected]. He also appreciates and reads comments.