As political parties swing between power, true freedom depends on resisting overbearing laws.
There are insights to be drawn from last week’s blue surge that swept Republicans from control of Congress and many corners of the nation, just as there were from the 2024 ouster of Democrats from office. Among other things, turnover of party control highlights the futility of counting on government to keep conditions stable and to safeguard cherished liberties. The midterms may have chiefly signaled a repudiation of corruption and incompetence among GOP officeholders, but they also empowered Democrats to push an agenda in numerous places that runs counter to what prevailed before.
Americans who fear losing school-choice options, encroachments on gun rights, and more regulation—or who, two years ago, worried about threats to reproductive freedom and to immigrants—must recognize that a good portion of the future of freedom will depend on resisting and undermining intrusive government, regardless of which party is in power.
You are reading The Rattler by J.D. Tuccille for Reason. Get more of J.D.’s commentary on government overreach and threats to everyday liberty.
Wild Swings in Political Power Don’t Indicate Support for Crazy Agendas
Last week’s elections removed Republicans from office across the country, much as Democrats were crushed in 2024. Notably, Texas—once a refuge for those fleeing Democratic dominance in California—turned largely blue. “For the first time in more than three decades, Democrats have broken Republicans’ grip on statewide elections in Texas,” observed David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio. Political refugees must wonder whether the conditions that drove them to move will follow them.
It’s true that elections have consequences. But majorities have no more right to impose authoritarian visions than do solo tyrants. And it’s not clear that voters booting one party from office are eager to embrace what the other major party has to offer.
Last week, the Associated Press asked voters why they cast their ballots as they did. It found “the cost of living and government corruption weighing heavily on many Americans’ minds as they cast a ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections.” In addition, “the survey also found that while Democrats have at least a slight advantage on several major issues, including the economy and government corruption, the Democratic Party is not much more popular among U.S. voters than the Republican Party.”
Americans are hate-voting in election after election. While the shrinking ranks of hardcore partisans still like their parties, Pew Research’s Steven Shepard reported last month that majorities of independents who just favor one party “say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is that the other party’s policies are harmful.” But “relatively few Republican leaners (34%) and Democratic leaners (27%) say a major reason they lean toward their preferred party is the perceived good of its policies.”
The Major Parties Are Taking Turns Alienating Voters
Even so, in our seemingly unshakable two-party system, turning away from one political tribe means handing the reins to the other. Politicians aren’t very good at admitting they’re seen as only marginally worse than the alternative and acting accordingly. They routinely seize the moment and push forward.
“Democrats will use their new trifecta status in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to dismantle union reforms, progress on taxes, school choice and litigation reform,” cautions The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel.
Indeed, Democratic governors in Arizona and Texas promptly renewed vows to rollback broadly popular school-choice programs, just as their counterparts in Virginia earlier attacked that state’s once-robust protections for self-defense rights when they gained office.
Voters will have a chance in 2028 to rethink their preferences. After all, federal Republicans faced a setback this year after replacing Democrats who had driven spending and inflation higher, only to enact tariffs and a conflict that kept prices climbing, along with unpopular immigration enforcement. Yet the era of wild political swings suggests lawmakers will enact sweeping changes to the law and create unstable policy climates, with more of the same likely in the next round of ballots.
Americans Tend To Do What They Please, No Matter Politicians’ Desires
That doesn’t mean we should stop backing candidates we judge to be less terrible than the alternatives; none of us wants to live under intolerable governance. But if we navigate our lives through cycles of radical policy shifts, engaging in activities prohibited by one side and encouraged by the other, we should emulate those earlier Americans who largely paid little heed to government dictates.
Prohibition’s downfall came through noncompliance. “There were twice as many speakeasies in Rochester, New York, as saloons closed by Prohibition. That was roughly the nation’s experience,” noted the Cato Institute’s Mark Thornton in a 1991 analysis.
Similarly, the prohibitions on same-sex relationships have faced resistance. “As far back as the 1890s, there were establishments in the Village serving lesbians and gays,” Bedford + Bowery notes, though same-sex conduct wasn’t fully legalized in New York until 1980. The modern gay-rights movement began after the famously resisted 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn.
Gambling has long drawn legal scrutiny, though restrictions have loosened in recent times. While many who dislike gambling hope for new bans, “the outcome of an attempted ban, as we’ve seen, is that gamblers retreat underground,” warned the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2014.
And contemporary gun-control measures have repeatedly faced defiance, including “a compliance rate of roughly 4 percent” with New York’s mandated registration for so‑called assault weapons as detailed by Hudson Valley One. The DIY movement encouraging people to manufacture their own firearms aims precisely to render such laws unenforceable.
Simply ignoring the law isn’t a fully satisfactory substitute for living under a predictable and permissive regime. There’s always the risk of arrest. People have limited recourse when they’re defrauded or harmed during illegal activity. And underground markets empower organized crime, which is not the safest company to keep.
Nevertheless, bending or breaking laws can help drive political change. It forces politicians to choose between feigning impotence as laws go unenforced or appearing responsive to public sentiment. Over time, officials who legalized booze, marijuana, same-sex relationships, concealed carry, and similar measures weren’t always true believers, but they recognized irresistible popular resistance when they saw it.
In the years ahead, political power will likely continue to shuttle between two major parties that strive to push too far and end up alienating the electorate. Home-school families, advocates for reproductive rights, gun owners, and anyone hoping to live largely free from government interference should take to heart these lessons from the past. The tenure of dominant parties tends to sour at a pace that seems to accelerate, yet choosing to live according to your own preferences—without bowing to politicians’ whims—retains a timeless appeal.
