After the decisive victory for Republicans in the midterm elections, Rand Paul declared: “Make no mistake, tonight is a repudiation of Barack Obama’s policies and leadership.” That word, repudiation, seemed to being make the rounds in the wake of last night’s results which left Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House in Washington. But according to an Obama aide, latching on to our word of the day: “[Obama] doesn’t feel repudiated.”

If last night doesn’t give Obama a feeling of repudiation, I don’t really know what could. Apparently, Obama thinks that this year’s electoral map just wasn’t in his favor. I fully understand that Obama wasn’t expecting to pick up seats in the deep South, but Colorado and Iowa? And what about the president’s home state of Illinois, which elected a Republican governor? I don’t think you can blame all of this on 2014’s electoral map. No. Repudiation is quite the appropriate word for this year’s election results. Shellacking (Part Two) also works.

But though Republicans should be pleased with the midterm elections, they need to make sure they don’t get complacent. For one, 2016 is just around the corner. And if the election results this year were indeed a repudiation of Obama’s policies, Republicans need to make sure they make good on the country’s confidence for the next two years. Americans obviously don’t want a continuation of Obama rule. And a decisive shift needs to take place. No more establishment garbage, please.

Democrats and their media lapdogs have already said that the midterm elections mean that Americans want Republicans and Democrats to work together to make change. That is probably not true. I would say what the electorate has really said is they want Republicans to stop working with Democrats. We want a change. And not the one Obama promised. If Republicans are going to make any more gains in the civil government, they need to prove that they can change the direction of this country. The sooner the better.