Does Donald Trump secretly want Republicans to get annihilated in the midterms? Because he’s certainly acting that way. He continues to brush off concerns about the cost of living, saying last week that high gas prices are a very “inexpensive price to pay” for the war on Iran.

And, of course, the president seems to have no plans to end that disastrous war, apart from making vague threats about blowing the entire country up. Trust me, he keeps saying, everything will get better after the midterms. But by the looks of his dismal polling numbers, not many people are swallowing his empty promises anymore.

Still, despite the mess the Republicans have made of the country, I wouldn’t feel too optimistic about the Democrats returning to power: the party is famous for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead of evolving, it has a tendency to do the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

See, for example, the fact that there are once again loud murmurings that Kamala Harris plans to run for president in 2028. The former vice-president hasn’t made any sort of official announcement yet – she told voters in Detroit this week that she’s still deciding what to do – but she seems to be testing the political waters through midterm campaigning.

This week she flew to Michigan, one of the states she lost to Trump in 2024, to join the Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed at a roundtable focused on Black maternal health. Harris will also be campaigning with the senator Jon Ossoff in Georgia next month and attending an event in Las Vegas with the Nevada attorney general, Aaron Ford, for his gubernatorial bid.

Harris’s appearance in Michigan wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment attempt to be helpful; it was a highly calculated move designed to put her back on the national political stage.

The New York Times reported this week that Harris’s aides had circulated a donor prospectus in July “that showed how she would try to........

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