In fact, an AP poll last month found that 65% of adults directly blamed Trump and his policies for high prices, while just 17% liked his handling of cost of living issues.

That proved to be an insurmountable mountain, and the heavy anti-GOP turnout indicated a big majority of voters had seen and heard more than enough of him.

As such, this was much more than an ordinary vote of no confidence in a party and its leader.

At its core, Tuesday was total beatdown of the president, his policies and personality. And it was predictable.

It is not uncommon for presidents to suffer losses midway through their terms. In 2014, halfway through Barack Obama’s second term, Republicans picked up a whopping nine Senate seats.

In the House, combined with the results of 2010, Republicans had gained a net total of 77 House seats during his presidency.

Obama appeared chastened after the 2010 results came in, good-naturedly calling them a “shellacking.”

But he didn’t understand the full meaning of the message, and change his ways accordingly. And so his second midterm beat-down effectively ended his presidency and paved the way for Trump’s Oval Office upset in 2016.

Depending on Tuesday’s final results, Trump has so far fared much better. In his first term, he lost his majority in the House, with Dems picking up 41 seats in 2018.

That paved the way for Nancy Pelosi’s “trumped up” impeachment, which had no lasting impact because of what happened in the Senate.

But Republicans actually picked up two Senate seats in 2018, for a total of 53. That may not sound like much, but those seats turned out to be crucial when it came to the narrow confirmation votes of Trump’s final two Supreme Court justice nominees, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Still, tomorrow begins a new challenge for Trump and his beaten-down White House. It would certainly help if he ate some crow in public and took full responsibility for the outcome.

He could do worse than quote the Bob Dylan lyrics, “I threw it all away.”

Not that he will because he specializes in excess, and deems it a badge of manly pride to thumb his nose at tradition.

But even he has to signal to the American public that he still intends to serve their interest. To do so, he will need to curb his tendency toward excess and in going too far in testing what is acceptable and defensible.

Whether the topic is the effect of tariffs on domestic prices, his seemingly insatiable desire to put his name on everything, even currency, and permit his family to gorge itself on self-dealing all make him vulnerable.

All these must be dialed way back if the president is going to have any positive effect on the country in his final two years.

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His legacy certainly has some high points in that he has twice won the White House and dominated not just American politics, but also the world stage during his terms.

He is the most famous man in the world, and yet his own country is now showing weariness of his leadership.

As for Democrats, the smell of blood will likely prove to be irresistible again. Rep. Robert Garcia is clearly in the mood for a war, as he wasted little time in sending his message to the president and his team: “LAWYER UP,” Garcia posted on X.

That’s not a mere back bencher spewing hot air. Garcia is almost certain to be the head of the House Oversight Committee in a Dem-controlled Congress, which effectively does the most important investigations.

So the president and his aides would be smart to take his warning to heart.

New Yorkers, of course, could not escape the blue sweep, with the dominant re-election of Gov. Hochul attesting to how deep and wide the Dems’ base is.

Gop nominee Bruce Blakeman ran a campaign heavily focused on the cost of living in an attempt to turn the national Democratic message on its head.

He targeted high taxes, and utility rates that are 70% higher than the national average.

But with early results giving Hochul a 3-1 edge, the landslide raises not only her power, but also that of Gotham Mayor Mamdani. He babysat Hochul across the finish line, and she is now behold to the socialist antisemite for the next four years.

Batten down the hatches. The barbarians are not only inside the gates, they control all the seats of power.

Good luck and Godspeed.