On Election Day, our finely-honed political instincts led us to expect that the Democrats would win the House of Representatives by a respectable margin. A slim win on the Senate side seemed possible, but a prolonged period of uncertainty seemed equally likely. So, caveat lector, i.e., reader beware.
On Wednesday, obviously, we had to re-assess our forecasting skills. That sobering moment aside, the day seemed to have been scored by Louis Armstrong: “What a Wonderful World.” After waking up four thousand times in a row in a nation dumber than it was the day before, suddenly things were different.
Obviously, nirvana is not yet here. But, after a decade in which the world’s greediest and most powerful lunatics have waged a largely unobstructed campaign to make Margaret Thatcher’s dictum come true—“There is no such thing as society”—America’s voters had finally said, “Nah, let’s try something else.”
The New York Times published a map showing the results in the House. Red and blue arrows of different lengths indicated which way districts swung, and by how much. It looked like the Battle of Agincourt, if Henry V’s archers had used blue arrows. Scores of them, all over the map: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Missisippi, Louisiana, and, for God’s sake, Texas. And, to be fair, up in southwestern Minnesota, one teeny-weeny little red dot.
The final tally on the Senate side had not come in by our deadline. Surprisingly, though, at least to us, the balance of power was clear that night. It was another lopsided victory, both in the aggregate, and individually.
Here in New Hampshire, it looks like the Sununu dynasty may have finally run out of runway. Pardon us, please, while we regain our composure. For such a mild-mannered guy, Chris Pappas packs a pretty good punch. Over across the river, after winning the nomination through the unlikeliest of processes, Troy Jackson finally—finally—relieved Susan Collins of her many concerns.
Around the country, in North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper beat Michael Whatley, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, by a margin of nearly 20 percent. Pretty clear message, there. Jon Ossoff did nearly as well in Georgia. Michigan had looked pretty dicey, but in the end, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed overcame a whole raft of challenges and won a solid victory over a former FBI agent with a white-bread name.
Then there’s Texas. It has always been a case unto itself, but dang! James Talarico whupped Ken Paxton by an impressive 12 points. It may be wise, though, not to read that as an entirely political result. Nominating a seminary student to run against someone with a record as sordid as Paxton’s… that almost seems unfair; even in a state with more than its share of sinners, half that result may just be personal revulsion. Then we have Gina Hinojosa—a female Hispanic Democrat—defeating Greg Abbott, who’s been in office since Trump took his famous escalator ride.
Alaska and Mississippi were still undecided at press time. Mississippi goddamn. All in all, compared to these results, more people probably expected the Spanish Inquisition.
We’re not sure exactly how many there were, but according to news reports the GOP’s unprecedented mid-decade redistricting push ended up creating what are now called dummymanders. Our cup of schadenfreude runneth over.
After so many relentlessly depressing years, that one good day allowed us, for one brief, shining moment, to feel irrationally exuberant. Then, inevitably, our rapidly deteriorating Grifter-in-Chief burst that bubble. Reportedly, as faint whiffs of reality wafted into the Oval Office, “Big Mac” Donald screamed at Susie Wiles, his long-serving, long-suffering Chief of Staff, until she fled the room.
Taking her place as the one person who controls who does or doesn’t get to enter that gussied-up playpen will be Stephen Miller—a humorless homunculus forced to shave his head lest he be mistaken for the zombified corpse of Joseph Goebbels.
To be fair, Miller is several inches taller than Hitler’s propagandist, and there’s little he can do about his head’s unfortunate resemblance to a lightbulb. The only effective way to avoid such comparisons, though, would be for him to eschew, rather than embrace, his predecessor’s world view, philosophy, and prejudices. A simple way to start would be to quit paraphrasing his speeches. Maybe try watching some PeeWee Herman videos.
As for right now, we live in blessed ignorance of whatever cruel shenanigans the pack of cornered rats in the White House are going to get up to. The only thing we know for sure is that it’s likely to be worse than anything the likes of us might imagine. Well, that’s not entirely true; we just don’t want to give these bozos any ideas.
Whatever is to come, at least we rest assured of one thing: it’s bound to be a little easier to live with now, because we know that, by and large, we’re in better company than we had suspected.