When Democrats emerged triumphant in midterm elections in November 2006, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote that the “elections marked a disaster in American history.”

At the time, some challenged that warning, tossing it aside as partisan exaggeration and fearmongering. To be sure, Mr. Flurry’s article in the January 2007 Trumpet was specific and unswerving. It left no doubt as to the Trumpet’s outlook on the ultimate impact of those midterm elections on the future of American politics.

“I believe the 2006 midterm elections changed American politics forever,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “Time will prove this to be a deadly curse on the United States” (emphasis mine throughout).

On Sunday, that “time” arrived.

Voting late at night, the U.S. House of Representatives approved President Obama’s health care bill. Chaperoned through Congress by House Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the health care bill was the brainchild of Mr. Obama and is to this point the defining achievement of his presidency. For Americans, the bill is the most significant piece of social legislation in the past 70 years and will in the coming years transform one sixth of the American economy.

Now one might have thought such a historic and transformative bill would have been embraced by the majority of the American people, that it would enjoy some measure of partisan support in the House, and that it would pass vote with a substantial and enthusiastic majority. Alas, it was not to be.

To pass, the bill needed 216 “yes” votes. Not one of the 178 Republicans in the House approved Obama’s health care bill. Moreover, House Republicans were joined by 34 dissenting Democrats. In the end, after a year of zealous campaigning and millions of dollars spent in promotion, the president’s health care bill passed with 219 votes to 212—a remarkably narrow margin.

Rather shocking, isn’t it? The difference between success and failure of one of the most radical and far-reaching pieces of legislation in American history came down to a mere four votes.

The passing of President Obama’s health care bill would have been impossible if the Democrats had not been successful in midterm elections in November 2006. So, for those who oppose the health care bill and fear its ramifications, the 2006 midterm elections were exactly what Mr. Flurry warned they would be: “a deadly curse on the United States.”

In a very real sense, Sunday’s vote was the manifestation of the deadly curse that is America’s leadership!

After the midterm elections in 2006, Mr. Flurry explained that the election of extreme liberals to positions of influence in Washington would be morally (and economically and politically) detrimental to the American government. In time, these radical liberals would go to extreme lengths to advance their dangerous agenda, he warned.

Talk about a prescient warning. For months, polls conducted nationwide showed that, for one reason or another, large majorities of the American people opposed this health care legislation. Nevertheless, the president and Ms. Pelosi worked overtime, employing a vast array of tactics, to garner the votes they needed.

“Never before has the average American been treated to such a live-action view of the sordid politics necessary to push a deeply flawed bill to completion,” noted Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal Monday. “It was dirty deals, open threats, broken promises and disregard for democracy that pulled Obamacare to this point, and yesterday the same machinations pushed it across the finish line.”

With the vote looming, the president and his team last week displayed Herculean effort in gaining the much-needed votes. “The final days were a simple death watch, to see how the votes would be bought, bribed or bullied, and how many congressional rules gamed, to get the win,” Strassel noted. The president apparently cleared his itinerary of everything not pertaining to the health care bill, including an important trip to Australia and Indonesia. Then “President Obama flew to Pennsylvania (home to five wavering House Democrats), Missouri (three wavering), Ohio (eight), and Virginia (four) to hold rallies with small, supportive crowds. In four days, Mr. Obama held 64 meetings or calls with congressmen” (ibid.). It was an impressive exertion of energy and focus.

Until the president joined the fray more intensely last week, the brunt of the strong-arming was left to his chief generals in the Democratic Party, Pelosi and Reid. After Sunday’s vote, liberal pundits fawned over Ms. Pelosi as the “hero” and real architect of the victory. Pelosi was the “steel” behind Obama’s determination, said one California Democrat.

No doubt she was. But how did she achieve that success? Over the past year, as the Economist put it last week, Pelosi has been “coaxing waverers, calling in favors, breaking fingers and pulling toenails” in an effort to get Obamacare passed. Pelosi revealed how desperate she was to see the health care bill passed last November, when she “reportedly told fellow Democrats that she’s prepared to lose seats in 2010 if that’s what it takes to pass Obamacare” (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2009). Pelosi’s dedication to passing the bill is also evident in the sweetheart deals and strong-arm tactics she employed in the final days and hours before the vote.

This was not surprising. When Pelosi became leader of the House after the November 2006 midterm elections, Mr. Flurry identified the Democratic representative from San Francisco as a radical liberal who could one day seek to institute dangerous changes in America. San Francisco “is a seat of liberalism and one of the most morally and spiritually bankrupt cities in the country. Now a leader saturated in San Francisco values and beliefs is one of the most powerful politicians in the land,” he wrote.

Perhaps these comments lead you to believe the Trumpet takes the side of the Republican Party in American politics. We do not! We believe and warn consistently that critical, and ultimately fatal, problems are inflicting the entire national leadership of the United States. We believe that the quality of both “liberal” and “conservative” leaders in Washington is appalling. In the wake of Sunday’s calamitous vote by Democrats, many believe Republicans could make significant gains in midterm elections at the end of the year. Many say it’s likely that a Republican will win the presidency in 2012. But whatever party emerges victorious, it will not solve America’s problems!

Why?

Because as Bible prophecy warns, and as Mr. Flurry explained in that January 2007 article, the tragic state of America’s national leadership is a curse from God!