On 1 May 1915, the Lusitania, loaded with over 100 tons of ammunition and shrapnel shells, set sail from New York with over 100 Americans on board (warned by German diplomats in New York that they were in danger.) New York Customs Collector Dudley Malone had advised U.S. President Woodrow Wilson that “practically all her cargo was contraband of various kinds.” Furthermore, William Jennings Bryan had warned Americans not to travel on British ships. The Lusitania would be blown apart to sink in only 18 minutes.

Along with Barack Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush, Woodrow Wilson heads my rogues gallery of America’s most destructive U.S. presidents in history

On Tuesday the Marxist-tinged policies of Barack Obama led to a wholesale Election Day slaughtering of Democrats. Among the day’s big winners were two of my most favored candidates, Rick Scott for governor of state income tax-free Florida, and Joni Ernst for senator in Iowa. Gun-toting, states rights advocate Ernst campaigned with a pledge to fight federal subsidies to businesses and to shutter the U.S.Department of Education as well as the EPA.

Barack Obama will now become as irrelevant as any second-term president in modern history. Obama will go down in history as little more than a footnote, not qualified to have been elected president in the first place. Obamacare, his one signature piece of legislation, will be picked apart faster than your Thanksgiving turkey. Instead of dragging along, Obamacare will quickly morph into a two-tiered system where those who can afford it will exit O’Care for a cash-only, concierge-based private clinic system.

There is little reason for jubilation in America, as the Republican party, as now configured, is controlled lock, stock and barrel by big government—bought and paid for foreign-policy interventionists. This constitutionally bereft and shameless crowd has drifted far from the federal republic-based principles of Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams and Patrick Henry. The sad likes of John Boehner, John McCain and Lindsey Graham offer nothing for Americans beyond more big government and the butting of our noses into the business of radical Muslim monarchies.

As I have learned first hand over our many recent trips to France, the French have finally awakened and now provide a warning for their American cousins. Wealthy French citizens are packing up by the thousands and abandoning socialist-oriented, high-tax-based, radical-Muslim-plagued France. The radical far right and nationalistic Front National is making such shockingly fast inroads that a takeover of the French government at the next national election is betting odds today. France could well be looking at a strongly anti-E.U., anti-Muslim Marine Le Pen (FN) as the country’s next president.

….as Rand Paul indelicately put it, writes Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute. Here is a short, top-down look at Mr. Tanner’s take away from the midterm elections.

• Republicans were not so much the winners as Democrats were the losers. Voters held their collective nose as they pulled the lever repudiating Obama’s agenda.

• Opposition to Obamacare was a major advantage to every winning Republican candidate. But as Mr. Tanner wrote several weeks ago, although substantial changes can now happen, Obamacare is not going to be repealed and will remain an albatross for Democrats.

• Rand Paul, with “his brand of libertarian-tinged Republicanism,” was in high demand among candidates as well as voters.

• It’s important, of course, that Republicans block some of Obama’s worst initiatives. But Republicans cannot be the party of do-nothing. It needs to show that it can “accomplish something, anything.” Mitch McConnell, as majority leader, will face a tough balancing act between Ted Cruz & Co. wanting to confront the president versus the priorities of half of Mr. McConnell’s caucus “either running for president or thinking of a vice-presidential nod.”

As Mr. Tanner points out, “virtually the entire Republican party is at least considering running.” That means all eyes and ears are going to be on the Iowa caucuses, just 440 days away, which makes for a narrow window to accomplish anything.

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William Pfaff (a veteran observer) asks “is it fully appreciated in Washington that the ‘New Caliphate’ has every intention of taking over the existing role in Islamic society of Saudi Arabia? It wants to conquer and occupy Mecca. If it succeeds, the Saudis themselves will be submitted to the ferocious discipline the ISIS practices.”

One would think that the Saudis might adopt a bit more of an active military posture against ISIS. But nope, they simply sit on their hands and wait for the Americans to do the job.

Scott McConnell, co-founder of the American Conservative (along with Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos), writes about the Saudis lack of active anti-ISIS effort in his excellent The Middle East Doesn’t Matter Any More. Scott also puts a laser focus on the lack of offense from Turkey (more concerned about the Kurds) and Israel (a do-nothing Muslim antagonizer).

Scott concludes, “The Mideast may now actually matter much less than we think it does. We do have the option of pretty much ignoring it, if we choose. Its contribution to the world economy is negligible. Its oil will reach the market one way or another.”

I agree on all accounts here and also with the Cato Institute’s Justin Logan mentioned in Scott’s article as believing “that virtually nothing that goes on in the Middle East can threaten us very much, that no country in the region is worth starting a war over.”

As a final nail in the Mideast coffin, I refer to a recent Chronicles Under The Black Flag feature from the above-mentioned Taki Theodoracopulos. Taki writes, “Saudi Arabia created the monster that is radical Islam.”

Americans did not just vote for the John Boehner, John McCain War Party. Americans voted against Barack Obama, Obamacare, Marxist-tinged income redistribution, and Obama’s cozy relationship with the radical Muslim despots of the Mideast.

Here Pat Buchanan sends an important multi-purpose message to Americans. Pat leads with “The Kumbaya Temptation.” Pat’s first area of concern is the “rising clamor from Corporate America for the newly empowered Republicans to grant Obama fast-track authority and support his Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement.”

Pat writes, “This would be a Republican ratification of the policies of Bush I and II that produced $10 trillion in trade deficits, hollowed out our manufacturing base, and sent abroad the jobs of millions of Reagan Democrats.”

Read more here from Mr. Buchanan regarding border security, immigration reform, and the Islamic State.

A third temptation will be Obama’s request for Congress to formally authorize the war he has begun in Syria and Iraq. If the GOP signs on, the party will own that war going into 2016, as it owned the Iraq war going into 2006, when it lost both houses of Congress.

That the Islamic State is brutal, barbaric and anti-American is undeniable. But its occupation of northern Syria and western Iraq is the problem primarily of Syria and Iraq, and their neighbors in Lebanon, Turkey, Iran, Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

This is, first and foremost, their war, not ours.

As Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno said last week, “The long-term war against [the Islamic State] needs to be fought by the indigenous capability there. It needs to be fought by Iraqis. It needs to be fought by Syrians. It needs to be fought by other Arabs, because it’s their country and they need to win that back.”

Before succumbing to the kumbaya temptation, Republicans should ask themselves not how to find common ground with Barack, but how to get America out of this Slough of Despond.

And anyone who thinks last Tuesday was a call to compromise with Obama has either an ax to grind or a serious hearing problem.

Republicans didn’t win last Tuesday. Democrats lost. In a grim, bitter, graceless news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama took no responsibility for what The Economist called a “massacre.” His lack of political humility is disturbing. “I’m the guy who’s elected by everybody,” said Mr. Obama.

As Peggy Noonan writes in the WSJ, the election was not about charisma or personality or movement. The election was about policy and governance. The president was not on the ballot, but as Mr. Obama pointed out, the policies on the ballot were his. And as Peggy notes here, “Those policies were resoundingly repudiated.”

In his news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama was grim and grudging, barely bothering to hide suppressed anger. “Republicans had a good night.” He was unwilling to explain or characterize what happened. “I’ll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterday’s results.” He took no personal responsibility: The people sent a message and it is that Washington must work “as hard as they do.” He was unwilling to say what went wrong, why his party’s candidates didn’t want him near them on the trail. His answers were long, filibuster-y, meant to run out the clock. It was clear the White House wanted to say he met with reporters for more than an hour. He did. At one point he tried to smile but couldn’t quite pull it off; it came across as a Nixon-like flexing of the rictus muscles. (I tried to describe it in my notes. “Hatey” was the best I could do.)

There were airy generalities—“This town doesn’t work well”—and a few humblebrags: “I have a unique responsibility to try and make this town work”; “I’m the guy who’s elected by everybody.”

Most seriously and consequentially—the huge mistake—is that Mr. Obama said he will address immigration through executive action unless Congress sends a comprehensive bill to him that he finds attractive. He said this just after a news conference in which the presumed next Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, in a post-election statement that was actually conciliatory and constructive, said any such move by the president would “poison the well” with Congress. It would be experienced by Republicans on the Hill as pure aggression.

The president’s use of broad executive action would kill any chance of compromise or progress with Congress. And the amazing thing is that this isn’t even in his interests.

My recent trip to France produced further shocking testimony to the cratering popularity of Socialist French president Francois Hollande. Now Hollande is going to take to the French airways with some half-witted scheme to explain to French citizens that his government of high taxes, income redistribution and coddling of the radical Muslim horde is not killing the country.

Forget it! The guy’s goose, like Barack Obama’s here in America, is cooked. Over the last five years, Debbie and I have watched the emergence of Marine Le Pen and her far right Front National. We were at a FN demonstration in Paris that, if you had seen it, would have taken your breath away. These are not kidding around folk. The theme for FN is simply France for the French. The strongly nationalistic FN wants out of the EU, a return to the French franc, and deportation of Muslims who refuse to integrate into the French culture. FN is not going to stand for the Muslim riots that have plagued Paris of late. And the brakes will be slammed on immigration from North Africa and the troubling countries of the Eastern Block, especially Romania.

As this article explains, 97% of French believe Hollande has failed the French. Hollande’s approval rating is 13%. Obama is heading on exactly the same Marxist-tinged course and does not appear to comprehend the depth of his problem. Obama is done in America. Unfortunately for Americans, the leadership of the Republican Party is little better and in many ways more dangerous. Just as former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is on the wrong track and not getting the “time for real change message,” John McCain and John Boehner are out in left field and deaf to the voice of the American voters.

Americans have awoken to the folly of nation building and foreign intervention. These forays into the radical Muslim world, controlled by criminal monarchies, have not made America safer and have zero to do with protecting American citizens. Quite to the contrary. These wars have been about oil and gas and, more specifically, pipelines.

How much do most Americans know about foreign influence in America’s government? How much do Americans know about the incestuous meddling of the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Muslim countries multi-million dollar donations to “independent” think tanks like the Brookings Institute?

Robert Spencer has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the FBI, United States Central Command, United States Army Command, and General Staff College, the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare group, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. Intelligence community. Mr. Spencer has a detailed message of truth and deep concern for all Americans. It is spelled out in detail in Arab Spring Winter Comes to America. (By the way, who is responsible for glossing over the radical Muslim issue with the “Arab Spring” catchphrase?)

Americans need to pay close attention to chapter six, “Not Just in Egypt Anymore—The Muslim Brotherhood in The United States.” Regarding the Brotherhood, Mr. Spencer writes, “Their stated goal: eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within.”

Debbie and I have learned from repeated trips to France that the French have gotten the message. And it looks like the Swiss, British, Dutch and Germans are also on the same track.  Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, writes, “The Arab Winter will be on America, unless America starts listening.”