1  I believe that poll like I believe in the Easter Bunny. The repubs lost because they had too many Vances on the balllot. Wishy washy losers. Oil dropped by better then 8% and I want to know why. Have the IRGC had a change of heart from wanting us all dead?Have they changed their minds about possessing and using nukes on anybody including their own people? I blame this lost on the Republican party and the people pulling their strings.  I only blame Trump for not doing enough  house cleaning in his own party. 

2 Agreed on all fronts Mike. This poll is only what the public could put into words; they were mad because they were told to be mad by the news media and the GOP simply refused to correct the record. Like always, they listened to Karl Rove "move on" and hoped for the best rather than defend the record. 
The GOP was spineless and feckless. Look at how they failed to move any legislation! Thune just said "the votes aren't there". Why didn't he go out and GET the damned votes? 
Vance pissed off the Jews by cozying up to Tucker Carlson and the other Alt-right folks. So no help from him - and you are right, he's always been wishy-washy. I have never forgotten that he called for Trump's removal from office in his first term.
The GOP is now the permanent minority party and the MAGA revolution is finis. Now America will start to slide into oblivion at an accelerating rate, and Trump will probably be removed from office, and if not he's still going to prison as soon as he gets out. He had better have a contingency plan.
He's going to wind up Bolsinaro-ized. And they will go after his children sooner than they go after him. 
We just had the Revolution. Now we are going to be mopped up, like dirt stains on the floor. 
Goodbye America; we loved you while you were here. 

3  I dont share your doom and gloom. Its not that I dont see the wall and the hand writing. I still see real Americans everyday on youtube living the American dream. People who started farming when all odds were stacked against them and yet made it work. This is America and there are other Trumps out there. People not afraid of labels nor getting their hands and feet dirty. Maga isnt dead it just needs a new leader that will clean up the republican party and make it great again. I have faith in the people in this country. 

4 I don't know why so many people believed that "things" were so "unaffordable." I guess it was because the media were telling them that they were. My wife and I are NOT rich, but we were able to afford our groceries -- including our eggs, which were going for around $4 a dozen at Trader Joe's; and we even were able to buy some luxury items from time to time.

And we filled the gas tank for $4.09 a gallon today at the local BP station, which is the cheapest price I've encountered since September 1, when I was buying gas at Sam's Club, a practice I've discontinued since I recently saw a YouTube video saying Sam's gas is of substandard quality and will eventually ruin your engine. So that Sept. 1 price would likely have been almost twenty cents higher at a regular station.

5 Mike I  appreciate your point Mike but how's that going to happen? The Democrats now control both houses of Congress and they will eliminate the filibuster. They wILL prosecute Trump, and his whole family, and anyone who worked for Trump as Elissa Slotkin just said. They now control the money and will end the Iran war (as the Mullahs hoped) and Iran will counter-attack and we'll be able to do nothing. They are going to change the rules, repeatedly Mike. They had been building a political machine already and it will be more terrible and unbeatable than ever, and how are these good American people going to fight? With what? This is just how it went down in Russia at the end of the Tsarist era; the radicals were in every aspect of society and there were plenty of good people who opposed them but nobody had the power to stop them. We desperately needed to maintain control while we ferreted out all of the imbedded activists pushing all of this, but that program has just blown away with the wind. I read that USAID is still alive and well despite being defunded because a lot of NGO's and international organizations are still in place giving them money and Trump couldn't actually kill the organization (and also the organizations that corrupt agency built are all still in place) because Congress refused to act against it. Now it never will and the next President - who will probably be a Democrat - will use his pen to erase everything Trump did, including border security. Who is going to stop them? How? Every nation or civilization that has ever fallen had plenty of good people. Rome had plenty of good people. But that doesn't matter when the political system is owned by the enemies of those people.
God has passed judgment on America and I fear that judgment is going to be carried out. Americans cared more for their own ease and comfort and pleasure than about what is right or good.
In my home state of Missouri we had a ban on abortion and on transing kids on the ballot. It got creamed, even though Missouri has always been a big pro-life state. The opposition to this was ferocious, with commercials on every break and often two or even three commercials against the ban in one break, but still the amendment went down in flames. How can God honor a place that will allow the slaughter of innocents like that? We also voted to restore the old gerrymandered election map, the one put in place by the Democrats years ago.
America has been flipping God the bird; now He flipped it back at us.
Mike, I understand you don't want to despair but I am nothing if not a realist and we lost TEXAS for crying out loud; the largest Red state in the Union. The new governor is going to move swiftly to do what they did in Colorado. Texas was the whole ball game. Now, unless the Democrats screw up big time (and they are too savvy politically to do that) they will begin the route of America. Plenty of good people but none will try to stop them, much less be able to do so.
It's going to be like the Spanish civil war. Remember, the Communists were the side in power and the "rebels" were the good Spaniards. But Franco saved the nation by driving the Communists out of power (they were in the process of turning Spain into a one-party state) and he did it only with help from foreign powers. There are no foreign powers to help us, and no Franco who will lead a military battle to kick them out. Americans are too pacified to fight. So we'll let them systematically destroy the institutions that restrict their power and impose a new order that will permanently overturn ours. Packing the Supreme Court is one such move and they'll do it without hesitating while our side will never cross the Rubicon and go to war over it.
Certainly the GOP never will have the stomach for such a thing. So they will keep playing the rigged game and all those good people will hope someone else is doing something about the problem. It's how Marxists always take power in a nation.
I'd immigrate if there were a country to go to at this point. It's going to be as bad as any of the worst historical disasters. Just look at how bad it was in Russia during the '20's.

6 I agree Dana. Restaurants, even the expensive ones, remained full. Brewpubs remain full. Starbucks and other high priced coffee shops are booming. Shops were always busy and I had to hike a healthy distance from the parking lot to Walmart to get my insulin because there were no parking spaces near the door ever. I haven't seen anyone wandering the streets in ratty clothes. I haven't seen any increase in beggars around town (they did that when Trump first won the election and it was obvious to me someone was paying them). The streets are still full of cars, and gas stations are still busy. None of this would have happened had things become "unaffordable". Young people still all have the newest smart phones. In fact, everyone has a smart phone and I am a dinosaur because I still use a flip. When I go to the doctor I am the only one sitting there quietly; everyone else is playing on the newest Galaxy or iPhone. For an "affordability crisis" everyone seems to be doing pretty well.
And that will all change with the Democrats in charge of the purse strings. We WILL have an affordability crisis, and Trump will take all the blame, of course, but it will be because Congress will blow vast sums of money, refund everything (including groups like USAID) and the Fed will have to print more money to cover it, meaning more inflation. We were still adjusting the inflation from the Biden era, and trying to get inflation down (something impossible to do while the Fed keeps increasing the money supply and won't lower interest rates to supercharge the economy out of fear of it "overheating", the Keynsian fantasy.)
People were sold an impossible standard, one that depended on Deflation, something entirely out of the President's control, but the public expected that because the media told them they should.
Economic growth was the answer, of course, and we had that and it was growing all the time. But the public expected instant gratification (like a bunch of babies) because the media told them they should.
I saw a Facebook post claiming the economy was better under Biden and gas prices were better and a host of other bald-faced lies. Yet I am sure a bunch of people read it and agreed. I rebutted it and the author did not acknowledge me at all - because she (a union thug) couldn't. So typically liberal; lie and just ignore any facts that get in your way.
I filled up yesterday for $3.80 a gallon. Expensive by the standards of the pre-Iran war, but still affordable, far better than the $5 plus a gallon under Biden.
People just have champagne taste on beer budgets and think they should be able to live like the rich. Well, I would like that too but if you really want that you have to get out and bust your hump. Wealth is something anyone can acquire if they are prepared to sacrifice for it. Few rich people got that way by sloughing off.