by W.D. Ehrhart
As far back as high school, and I’m now 78, I’ve always been a glass-half-empty kind of guy. Looking at the world that way means that I’m almost never disappointed. And every now and then, I get to be pleasantly surprised. One of those pleasant surprises—and a very pleasant surprise it was—came with the recent U.S. mid-term elections.
Only a few weeks ago, I wrote an essay called “It’s Election Time Again” in which I warned people not to get too excited about some anticipated Big Blue Wave this time around. We’d been here before, most recently with Hillary Clinton in 2016, who couldn’t possibly lose to the windbag buffoon she was running against.
But when I woke up the morning after this election and began to see the results, I had to admit that I had badly misjudged how things would turn out this time around. It really does seem to have been a Big Blue Wave. I haven’t felt this good about my fellow citizens or the country I live in since Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., won the presidency in 2020.
Here in my home state of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro was easily reelected, which was no surprise, but solidly reliable incumbents like Mary Scanlon, Madeleine Dean, and Chrissy Houlahan were also returned to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Moreover, Democrats Bob Brooks, Bob Harvie, Paige Cognetti, and Janelle Stelson all unseated incumbent Republicans. Philadelphia’s Chris Rabb became the first openly Democratic Socialist elected to the House from Pennsylvania. And to top all that off, the Democrats held onto their majority in the state assembly in Harrisburg, and have gained control of the state senate for the first time in three decades.
Throughout the rest of the nation, results have been equally stunning. Both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate now have Democratic majorities. In Texas, Greg Abbott is soon to be an ex-governor, defeated by a Hispanic woman, and James Talarico has demonstrated that Republicans don’t have an exclusive claim to Jesus and Christianity.
Maine’s Susan Collins, who like some vampire always seemed to make it back into her crypt every election day before dawn, has finally been caught out in the sunlight. Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed will represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire will be the first openly gay man in the U.S. Senate. Kansas sends a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in 94 years. Peggy Flanagan, a member of the Ojibwe White Earth Band, becomes the first Native American woman ever elected to the Senate.
Democratic governors will soon be in the majority, too. The results of this election just go on and on and on. You certainly don’t need me to tell you this. I’m sure you’ve been reading about it yourselves.
But a zebra can’t change its stripes, nor a leopard it spots, and I feel obligated to remind you that the results of this election do not mean that it’s finally “Morning in America.” (Gee, that sounds familiar. Where have we heard that before?)
Even with the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, they do not have a so-called “super majority” in the Senate, and thus Republicans still have enough votes to stymie much of what we’d like to see Congress do.
And even if both houses do enact the legislation to restore our national parks; honor our treaties and commitments to our allies; renew funding for Medicaid and the Environmental Protection Agency, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and so many other programs that our Destroyer-in-Chief has gutted; demand an end to unprovoked wars of aggression; and challenge the chaos and lunacy that MAGAMan and his Lickspittle Minions have created, any legislation passed by Congress will end up being vetoed.
And the Democrats do not have the votes to override a presidential veto.
If that were not bad enough, the Democrats can do nothing to change the current composition of the Supremely Unjust Court.
Oh, and don’t forget that it was Democrat Bill Clinton who turned the Democratic Party into Republican Lite in the 1990s. And Democrat Barack Obama who brought into his administration some of the very people responsible for the economic disaster of 2008. And Democrat Joe Biden who was elected to remove Donald Trump from American politics, but failed miserably at the one thing he was elected to do.
And Hakeem Jeffries will be the first Black Speaker of the House of Representatives. But don’t forget that while ordinary people like us were out in the street participating in the NO KINGS rallies in June 2025, Jeffries was eating wagyu beef and truffle agnolotti at a billionaire’s mansion with a bunch of other party bigwigs.
This recent election is a very good thing indeed. A wonderful turn of events. I am more than happy to admit that I was completely wrong about how this election was going to turn out.
But this is no time to sit back and relax. There is still work to be done. Given the reality of the American political landscape, there will always be work to be done. And what lies ahead is at least as daunting as what we are leaving behind.
Indeed, it might do well to remember that the glass is still half empty.
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W.D. Ehrhart is a retired Master Teacher of History & English, and author of a Vietnam War memoir trilogy published by McFarland.