Opinion: Hugh Hewitt Says a Blue Wave Would Hurt, but Republicans Should Not Panic

This is a summary of an opinion column. The views below belong to its author, Hugh Hewitt, not to RightNewsRightNow.

One month before the midterms, Hewitt asks what is actually on the line. His answer is blunter than most campaign pitches: a "blue wave" would do real damage, but not the end-of-the-republic kind.

On the damage, he starts with national security. If Democrats win, he writes, "the sort of defense spending the country definitely and urgently needs will not be appropriated." A lame-duck Republican Congress could try to pass a three-year defense appropriation between Nov. 4 and Jan. 3, he says, but if it fails the military could face a repeat of the budget "self-harm" of the sequester years. He adds that the hard-left Democratic Senate nominees this year, naming Abdul El-Sayed, James Talarico, Peggy Flanagan, Sherrod Brown, Chris Pappas and Mary Peltola, would join the doves already in the caucus, and that a steady demand for the defense industry and for American shipbuilding would "flicker out."

He also expects a judicial and appointments freeze. If Chuck Schumer becomes majority leader, Hewitt argues, almost no federal appeals court or Supreme Court nominee would pass, and he would block most of the president's other nominees. He predicts Schumer would point to Mitch McConnell's "no hearings, no votes" stance after Justice Scalia's death as precedent.

Then comes the part aimed at his own side. Hewitt says even the best case for Democrats does not give them veto-proof majorities, so they could not turn America into California or New York. Their wish list, he writes, including abolishing the Senate and packing the Supreme Court, would need supermajorities and likely constitutional amendments. The result of a divided government, he says, would be shutdown fights that "can annoy and even destroy some things, but cannot bring about fundamental change." Nor would a wave touch the president's command of the military or the court's return to the Constitution over the past decade.

His advice to Republican candidates: warn about the mess a Democratic Congress would make, but "avoid hysteria." And to voters: "Vote Republican to keep the country defended and the Constitution intact. But don't do so because the Republic is in peril. It's not. Yet."

Readers should weigh that against other coverage on this site, including a Fox News poll showing the president's approval at 36%. Opinion pieces argue a side, and the predictions above are the author's.