Spuds woke me at 5:30 am, so I might as well get this up now….
1. The good news is that there’s not going to be any violence: the one scenario that makes civil unrest vanishingly unlikely occurred. There was no GOP “wave,” but the party still will get control of the House, albeit unimpressively, and can eke out a bare majority in the Senate, although we might not know for sure until December. Yay.
2. I watched Fox News and CNN track the election returns. Neither were overtly biased; both played it straight.
3. The unavoidable conclusion from the night’s proceedings is that the vast majority of voters will vote for inanimate carbon rods it they have the right party affiliation. This is not a healthy, competent or ethical way to behave in a democracy, and it plays into the hands of manipulative power-seekers.
4. The Stopped Clock Award: I hate to say this, but Mitch McConnell was right: his party shot itself in both knees by running too many sub-par, extreme or otherwise unqualified candidates.
5. Both #3 and #4 above are illustrated by John Fetterman’s victory. He is wildly unfit to serve and was irresponsible to stay in the race. Dr. Oz was a foolish, needlessly poor choice to oppose him.
6. Pennsylvania’s election procedures are a disgrace, unfair to its citizens and the nation, incompetent and irresponsible. Fifty days of early voting ensures uninformed ballots, and there’s no excuse for it. Fetterman’s cynical ploy of stalling a debate that would finally reveal the disability he had been hiding worked, winning one of the night’s Harry Reid Memorial Awards. (“Romney lost, didn’t he?”)
7. Pennsylvania voters are a disgrace for letting Fetterman get away with it.
8. Stacey Abrams lost, as she deserved to, and finally conceded. Good May she have a wonderful career as a Star Trek guest. I sure hope her sabotaging Atlanta’s All-Star Game with the dumb virtue-signaling complicity of Major League Baseball played a part in her defeat. Beto O’Roarke, an equally ridiculous Democratic “star,” also lost his race. There is justice.
9. Another Harry Reid Memorial Award goes to the Democrats for manipulating Republican primaries to get weak, Trump-endorsed candidates nominated. Most of them went down in metaphorical flames. After they were nominated, the Democrats flamed them as “election-deniers” and, along with President Biden, claimed that they were existential threats to democracy—even though they had spent millions to get them into races across the country. The mainstream media helped out by barely publicizing the Machiavellian, hypocritical strategy. Somewhere in Hell, Harry is beaming.
10. Stopped Clock Award #2: On MSNBC, smug propagandist Chris Hayes said that Donald Trump was substantially to blame for the inability of Republicans to pull of even the historically typical mid-term “wave” expected when the economy is lousy and the incumbent President is unpopular. Correctamundo!, as Fonzi would say. Just as Trump helped give the Democrats control of the Senate by shooting off his mouth before the two Georgia run-offs after the 2020 election, he made the 2022 election as much about him as Biden.
11. Now the control of the U.S. Senate could well depend on another Georgia run-off in December, resting on the GOP’s worst Senate candidate by far, Herschel Walker. I’m sure we can count on at least one more Walker one-night-stand showing up with tales of his urging her to get an abortion. This is no way to run a Republic.
12. Third party candidates like the Independent whose 2% vote is forcing the Georgia run-off are narcissistic democracy vandals. Once they know they can’t win, it’s their ethical obligation to drop out.
13. Another Trump-endorsed fool, Yesli Vega, allowed Virginia U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger, a Pelosi lapdog, to win one more term in a race that any competent Republican would have won. Vega was caught on an audio recording saying that women who are raped cannot become pregnant, an especially brilliant observation in a year when abortion is hot-button issue. Then Vega went full-Jumbo (you never go full-Jumbo) denying that she said what anyone could hear that she said.
14. Back to Trump: he decided that it was a perfect time to remind any voters on the metaphorical fence what a toxic asshole he is by beginning Election Day with a threat to Ron DeSantis, who delivered one of the night’s most impressive wins to the GOP. Trump warned the popular Florida governor not oppose him for the Republican nomination in 2024, intimating that the ex-President has a cache of embarrassing revelations that he would use to destroy DeSantis’s reputation. Nice. Also yecchh!
15. If, as mentioned here earlier this week , Bismarck was right when he said, “There is providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America,” the that “providence” will figure out some way to sideline Donald Trump within the next two years.
Ethics Alarms 
I have prayed this week for no political violence. Maybe McConnell can put in place some rigorous training on the part of the newbies to bring them in line and make them less…I dunno…stupid?
Maybe he and the rest of the Republican leadership can reach across party lines to Democrats who have not gone insane and come up with some bipartisan progress?
Maybe Trump will find something else to occupy his time?
Maybe I’ll sprout wings tomorrow, but there’s always hope.
Half of the voters in the country voted for censorship, political arrests, open borders, sexual mutilation of children, endless war, national bankruptcy, and the most monstrously evil and incompetent administration in history. The most discouraging election of my lifetime.
“Vega was caught on an audio recording saying that women who are raped cannot become pregnant. . .”
From the link:
“Vega was then asked, “I’ve actually heard that it’s harder for a woman to get pregnant if she’s been raped. Have you heard that?”
Vega responded: “Well, maybe because there’s so much going on in the body. I don’t know. I haven’t, you know, seen any studies. But if I’m processing what you’re saying, it wouldn’t surprise me. Because it’s not something that’s happening organically. You’re forcing it. The individual, the male, is doing it as quickly — it’s not like, you know — and so I can see why there is truth to that. It’s unfortunate.”
Vega’s response is not quite what I would say as her saying that “raped women cannot become pregnant”.
I read this as the query being merely have you heard this theory and she responded maybe. I don’t know. At worst she is trying to explain or rationalize in her mind the possibility of some truth in the hypothesis.
My question is why do women that have been raped not automatically take the morning after pill? That would obviate the issue almost entirely. I have difficulty understanding why a violent assault on a woman would not be reported immediately in today’s world. Given social ideas of the 21st century it is unlikely that any woman would be shamed for being raped. I am more likely to believe rape claims when they are timely; meaning when it happens and not months of years later.
A lot of them do. I believe there is also a shot that can be taken within the first day or so that will prevent pregnancy, but I am not a doctor, and I do not know the medical details of that shot or if it is still used. I think it’s completely responsible to do those things to head off greater problems later. It’s bad enough for a woman to go through the trauma of being viciously attacked or betrayed (i.e. date rape or rape by a friend), there’s no reason that she should be saddled with a child who she does not want and who will everyday remind her of what happened. That said, maybe not everyone is a candidate for those drugs and there is of course the question of who pays for them.
Close enough. “Maybe” is still ignorant and idiotic. Once this sock drawer is organized, I’ll look up the male GOP candidate who said something similar and was run out of politics on a rail, but I would assume that was such a scandal that no fit candidate for office would ever get near such a statement.
Todd Akin
Right. I had erased that fool from my memory banks!
Do we even know if the GOP is in fact going to get the house? No one else seems to have called it.
Seems as if gridlock is the best the non-Left can ever hope for or achieve. No legislation may be the best we can hope for. I guess people really have a strong desire for free stuff.
Given the quality of the legislation that Congress routinely turns out, regardless of who’s in charge, the “no legislation” option is almost always the best choice, anyway. If Congress is gridlocked, our system functions closer to the way it was intended, with most political activity on the state level. Yeah, it might be better still if the federal government behaved responsibly and spent its time concentrating on just the few issues that are within it’s natural purview, but that sure ain’t gonna happen…
OB
Based on the voting patterns it appears that subdivisions that rely heavily on big government expenditures will continually vote for leftists/ progressives who will allow them to maintain their above average standards of living.
Perhaps we ought to float the idea that we should have federal tax rates in different jurisdictions that would reflect the percentage of federal expenditures received by that jurisdiction. That is real equity. The only way to check the desire for more federal spending and larger government is to have those areas who receive the largest share of government spending pay the largest share of the taxes.
It is not rocket science to understand why the counties surrounding DC are the wealthiest in the nation yet produce the least amount of durable goods because the economies are services oriented.
Chris, good idea but I doubt it would survive federal courts. Look what’s happened to school taxes. Wealthy neighborhoods used to pay for their own schools. Now the feds have made states equalize school expenditures. In our current government, money just flows downhill.
It’s likely – best anyone can say at the moment.
GOP has won 201 so far. Leading in 21 right now. Some both ways are really close. We’ll have to see.
It’s possible it could come down to Alaska. How’s that ranked choice voting working for you?
Late night, day after the election, about to collapse, here’s an answer.
If every candidate with a current lead in the house races ends up winning, it’ll be 219 R- 216 D. Some races have a spread of a couple hundred votes, Bobert’s district has a spread of under 100 (if it stays under 100 there absolutely should be a recount.)
Hence no projection yet. Incidentally, having checked the election centers of abc cbs nbc nyt and fox, this is the one I’ve found the most useful.
https://abcnews.go.com/Elections/2022-us-house-election-results-live-map
Agreed.
re: #10:
https://notthebee.com/article/a-red-wave-turned-into-a-purple-puddle-thanks-to-an-orange-man
I think that is probably correct.
I wonder if there is anyone Trump would listen to?
*sigh*
Most disappointing to me were the voters who reelected their Dem governors (Whitmer, et al) despite their dictatorial policies during the Wuhan Plandemic. An “inert carbon rod” would have been a better choice. Well, they certainly deserve what they get when the next lockdowns occur; the problem is that those who didn’t vote that way will have to suffer along with them -unless they vote with their feet, that is.
People knew exactly what they were voting for, and it turns out that half of the population wanted the lockdowns, the racial and gender madness, the pro-crime and pro-illegal immigration policies, the censorship, all of it. They think that those of us who don’t want that are evil. And the younger generation has been completely captured by a lifetime of propaganda, so the future looks grim.
CNN exit poll:
Age 65+: R+12
Age 45-64: R+10
Age 30-44: D+4
Age 18-29: D+28
Good thing is that I’ll likely be dead before many of those D+28ers reach positions of governance. Bad thing is my grandkids risk living in a country that is vastly different – and vastly weaker – than mine.
In 1789, Ben Franklin was asked what kind of government had been created after the Convention. His response: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” D+28 for the upcoming generation – given what the Democratic Party has come to stand for – makes me very skeptical that they’ll keep it.
This election convinced me that I just have to live forever, so that’s the way its going to have to be. For the greater good.
My guess is that the demographics show that those who grew up assuming the the government, society and the culture approved of women having the power to kill unborn babies for whatever reason they chose were motivated by abortion access, didn’t consider or think about the issue ethically or substantively beyond “I want that option” and voted accordingly.
“You’ve got to fight,
For your right,
To PAR-TY!”
How many millions of voters cast their ballots in AUGUST? There should be a law, and I mean that. All it means is favor for the familiar name (the incumbent), thoughtless party-line voting before seeing even one tiny debate, and of course, since I do not feel kindly toward the USPS, more chance of fraud.
Agreed that certain populations benefit from not having to go to the polls, but the current system promotes only laziness: I am too damn lazy to pay attention for two whole months to try and differentiate between the candidates, and I am too damn lazy to do more than fill out a form a lick it closed and sign it. (And lots of use can’t even do that!)
What a great exemplar of a healthy Republic at work? It makes me just sick. We really are a nation of morons.
So, what’s the ethical analysis for the situation we see in Arizona? It can’t possibly be ethical for a Secretary of State to oversee an election where she is running for another office. If nothing else, our old friend “the appearance of impropriety” rears its ugly head, no?
What I find interesting is that apparently the 19-29 year olds turned out in much higher numbers than previously seen at Presidential elections for this midterm election and voted D+28.
I’m not saying anything was screwy necessarily, but with the mail-in voting and Sunny Hostin’s admission…
My husband voted by mail a week ago because he had to work out of state on voting day. Aside from understanding why he did what he did, I’d be totally against the idea of voting by mail.
Something that has been reinforced with his election is that there’s a very clear ideological division between rural populations and urban populations. After the last couple of elections, it’s become very evident to me that this ideological division is nation-wide and that urban America is rapidly starting to dominate our politics across the board and rural America is being shoved aside the Democratic Party. Rural Americans are now considered to be a bunch of fly over rubes. Rural America is being bulldozed in more ways than just with a physical D9 bulldozer.
This is a map of Wisconsin…
Here is a map of the Governor’s election vote distribution…
Here is a map of the Senate election vote distribution…
Here is a map of the Attorney General election vote distribution…
I’m thinking that Jim Hodgson’s suggestion, quoted below, is a very valid suggestion but probably unattainable especially in the current political environment.
I think I have to eat a little bit of Humble Pie, this is the first election I’ve called egregiously bad, and I’m trying to think what I’ve done wrong here. Few thoughts…
I think that I overestimated the importance of polls. I’ve often said that a variation of the Bradley effect was suppressing Republican support in polls, meaning that you could trust Republican turnout to be at or above the poll rates. The only other time I can think that polls grossly overstated Republican support was Romney. And then this happened. I think what happened was that younger millennials and Gen Z finally got their butts to the polls, and the pollsters are so used to ignoring them and their chronically digital lives that they weren’t counted properly.
And frankly… That might actually mean that the Democrats did win on the stupid issues… Jan 6… Abortion… Millenials and Gen Z are generally awful at pairing off and reproducing, so while they feel the economy, they don’t feel it quite the same way as people with families. Young people have always been susceptible to Democrat marketing because Democrats have an unrealistic but positive outlook juxtaposed against a more realistic but comparatively dour outlook and it feels good to be positive.
Libertarians made up the margins on two of the senate races, getting around 2% of the vote. While I’m sympathetic to the cause (generally), functionally they act as spoilers. While they might not support the policies of Republicans generally, the fact of the matter is that their votes were the difference between the yes-guns-party and the no-guns-party, and I think they need to be realistic about their vote, particularly in close, meaningful races… Do they want Democrats in control of the senate or not? At some point reality asserts itself and rubber hits the road.
I understand the Fetterman vote. I don’t like it, but I get it. No one voted for Fetterman. He was a stand in for Democrats the same way Walker was a stand in for Republicans. Like I said in the last paragraph, at some point, reality asserts, rubber hits the road, and someone needs to win that seat. Oftentimes it really is as simple as whether they have a D or an R beside their name, you win marginal votes along the way, but I’m not sure there’s anything truly disqualifying anymore… Remember all the support Roy Moore got after he was credibly (actually credibly, not Democrat credibly) accused of soliciting minors? Fact of the matter is that the Pennsylvania senate election is basically a carbon copy of the 2020 election results, which means that voters probably weren’t swayed much in the last two years.
Which leads me to the last point: Candidates matter. I still think Oz was an acceptable candidate in that he was alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic, and he hadn’t stuck his dick in a minor or animal. But he obviously wasn’t very relatable or inspiring. As far as I can tell, Trump tapped him for no reason that because Oz was on TV, and there’s this really cynical expectation that celebrities make good politicians. That’s not true. For every Reagan, Schwarzenegger, or Ventura there’s a Shirley Temple, Caitlyn Jenner, Walker, or Oz.
Agree literally completely, except for your including Shirley with the other celebs. She was a talented and substantive adult who performed well as a diplomat. Her status as a cultural icon certainly helped her rise, but she proved that she was no Kardashian (before there were Kardashians, of course).
Otherwise, spot-on.
I mean, she lost her race (as a Republican) in California’s 11th…. Which had been held for 8 terms by a recently deceased Republican.
In that case, her public image hurt her. Nobody cared about her record of public service, they just thought they would be voting for an older version of the moptop who sang “On the good ship lollipop.” I watched her at the UN, and she was sharp. Can you imagine Jenner or Walker at the UN? Oz might be glib enough to skate.
Jenner did speak at the UN, although she botched it, and your point is taken.
As you may know, I am friends with Paul Peterson, the former “Donna Reed Show” kid who has been a child star advocate, fighting abuse of the exploited group for decades. He has often said that child stars end up screwed up unless at least one of two factors are present: if they are really smart, or if they have responsible, ethical parents. Shirley, he told me, was lucky enough to have both, which is why she had a distinguished career unrelated to show biz. Paul’s very smart too; his parents, not so great.
Absolutely amazing that the child star of ALL child stars survived. She was an INCREDIBLE talent at show woman at a microscopic age. Incredible charisma and control.
Indeed. We will never see anything like her again
I think the American electorate is now being dominated by the youngest voters. Here’s Roger Kimball’s conclusion: “Perhaps Americans no longer care about prosperity, border integrity, physical safety or nurturing traditional bourgeois virtues. Perhaps they have signed up en masse for the woke agenda of political correctness and socialist conformity. I do not know.” I think HT’s Gen Z point hits the mark. Depressing.
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/get-midterms-wrong-red-wave/
As far as I can tell, the Donald Trump boat anchor dragging candidates into the abyss of failure was only effective to drag down some of the candidates he endorsed, but the fact that it did drag down prominent candidates in prominent swing states IS signature significant as in an act that is so remarkable that it has predictive and analytical value, and should not be dismissed as statistically insignificant and the Republican party needs to take notes.
I would truly like to see Republicans across the board distancing themselves from all things Donald Trump and essentially disarm Trump, don’t talk about Trump at all, stick to the political issues and blow off Trump thus stripping him of his political clout. It’s time to ostracize the political troll Donald Trump and let him flail his loose cannon rhetorical mouth about without giving his narcissism any satisfaction.
It’s very clear that it’s time for Republicans to move on and pin the badge on a new Sheriff.
Steve,
I think I agree with you. On the other side of the aisle, we saw the Clintons do very much the same: hang around, staying involved in a desperate attempt to stay relevant, and their party paid heavily in 2016. President Trump was an important fixture during his time in office, and history will be kinder to him as we move ahead. But yeah, I think this election proved that President Trump’s influence is neither as strong as many (including himself) suppose, nor is it as beneficial as many (including himself) would believe.
Frankly, there’s a reason that historically, ex-Presidents fade into the background, play golf, and build libraries.
Everyone is very busy rending limbs and gnashing teeth over Trump candidates today. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but half the swing states haven’t bothered to count half the votes yet. We do not actually know the election results. Apparently we will not know them until some time after hell freezes over. Why don’t we wait til the douchebags rigging the elections get the votes tallied before we decide to ditch 30% or so of the GOP base?
Going back to neocon establishment political issues will lose the GOP a significant chunk of their voter base. Probably permanently. I’m not voting for old men to line their pockets via insider trading and foreign bribery schemes while starting wars in random geographic areas I don’t care about, outsourcing all the good paying jobs to countries engaged in slavery to improve stock performance on their insider trading schemes, and importing foreigners to clean their houses for 15 cents an hour. Those days are over. Maybe if the GOP didn’t spend all their time looking down their noses at the unwashed masses who oppose genital mutilation of children and plunging the middle class into poverty, they might have actually managed to spend some campaign funds on the candidates the voters selected to run for their party. Maybe they would have lifted a finger to fix the election integrity issues the democrats keep creating. They might take a look at the places where the politicians try actually doing what the voters want, like Florida, and take notes on how to win elections.
If the GOP doesn’t want Trump in charge, then maybe GOP leadership should try sucking less so people aren’t drawn to the handful of icky Trumpy politicians who will listen to them.
Spot on NP
Bingo! They just don’t get it!
It is not Trump’s policies that are dragging us down. They are a big reason he got elected in the first place, and he did a lot of good things. Sadly it is the person. We have to be able to separate the two, I think.
It is not altogether Trump’s fault, although he is not the ideal person to be president. The left extremists so poisoned the waters that it’s a wonder he got anything done in office, but he did. Sadly, I think the waters are poisoned, though.
We don’t need (or want) to go back to Romney or McCain, but we need to move forward and not be stuck in the past, which is where Trump seems to be.
All that said — if Trump is the candidate in 2024, I will vote for him and hope for the best.
Trump is a wrecking ball. The proverbial bull in the China shop. He got elected because there was a swath of the population that had no representation in government and that swath got tired of being ignored. The establishment, of both parties, would very much like to go back to ignoring that swath of the population. They have done everything in their power to marginalize, demonize, oppress, and persecute the deplorable people who want “far right” things like secure borders, secure elections and secure incomes that provide a decent standard of living. Trump isn’t going anywhere until one of the two parties starts listening to the swath of the population making use of him as a wrecking ball.
Excellent point, and I can’t argue, except that more than anything else I want the Democrats out. I don’t think the wrecking ball people are enough by themselves for the GOP to win.
So how do you think Desantis stacks up along those lines? Do you think of him as establishment or will he work on these issues?
I’m not sure I buy the “third party as spoiler” narrative when we’re talking about such small numbers. The people who voted for the Libertarian (or Green, or whatever) candidates in those tight Senate races were never going to vote for either of the major party candidates. They are people who are casting protest votes, and if there weren’t any Libertarian candidates on the ballot, most of them would not have voted at all, or written in Mickey Mouse.
Now, Ross Perot pulling 18% of the vote in 1992, you can call that a “spoiler”. A third-party candidate getting 1% of the vote in an election that has the potential to be as consequential as this one? Not a factor. Those votes were never really “in play”.
That was supposed to be a reply to Humble Talent’s comment above…
I disagree. I’ll go so far as to say that you’re objectively wrong, but I understand, because I used to hold that position as well. Look, whether you agree or not, whether you buy it or not, Fetterman is going to win by less than 30,000 votes in a state where at least 70,000 people voted Libertarian. Those votes were in play, those voters made it to the polls.
America politics are a two party system reinforced by mutually assured destruction… If a party fringe breaks off because of internal dissonance, that just means that your common opponents win for the foreseeable future until you can coalesce.
The only argument against this is that if the Libertarians had been forced to vote either Oz or Fetterman, they would have supported Fetterman and he would have won anyway… But I don’t think that’s true. I think Fetterman’s policies are antithetical to Libertarian principles, again… If you asked point blank whether you wanted to give control of the US senate to the yes-guns-party or the no-guns-party, I don’t think that’s a hard choice for libertarians, and that thought process scales to almost every other issue. Libertarians in America are really just Republicans in denial.
I’m Libertarian. I’m in Canada. There’s a Libertarian Party in Canada. I vote conservative. This is not complicated.
These voters were motivated enough to turn out to vote, knowing that the Libertarian candidate had absolutely no chance of winning, knowing that the balance of the Senate might be at stake, and still cast their vote for the Libertarian candidate. They were standing right there, able to vote for Oz, and they didn’t. We’re to believe that if there were no Libertarian on the ballot, they would come out to vote for Oz? That doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t they just stay home in that case? They clearly found him an unacceptable candidate to the extent that they cast a protest vote rather than suck it up, hold their nose, and vote for him. If they didn’t vote for him this time, when they were already at the polling place and the additional effort required was literally zero, there is no way such voters are going to come out and vote for Oz in any scenario.
This argument is bolstered by the evidence from Arizona, where the Libertarian dropped out and endorsed Masters, but still got 2% of the vote. Even when the candidate they chose asked them to vote for the Republican, they didn’t. Those are not in-play votes. Those are not persuadable voters.
I think you’re missing my point… If they weren’t in play, they should have been. If they weren’t, that says more about the voter than anything else. Your party wants you to vote Masters, but you’re going to show them! You’re going to vote Libertarian, even though you don’t have a candidate, and make sure that the Democrats get in…. That’ll show… them?
I am willing to entertain the idea that some of those voters are victims of early voting, however. I can imagine a scenario where a voter might have cast an early protest vote when the polls showed Oz trailing and before Fetterman’s horrifying debate performance. Such a voter might have been willing to change his mind later, but had no ability to do so.
Alternately… A lot of Libertarian Party voters are shallow, surface level thinkers and adult children. I will never forget the candidate who strip teased on stage during the presidential primary that resulted in Ron Johnson.
America’s foremost libertarians are probably Ron and Rand Paul. Guess what party they belong to?
So, then, in the U.S. perhaps the question we should be asking is — what is the point of having the Libertarian party, or the Green party (I think that’s the left equivalent, sometimes thought to have sunk Clinton in 2016)?
In a parliamentary system, minor parties can actually have representation in the legislature, right, depending on how your system is set up? Has there been a Libertarian congressman in the last century or so?
I’m not disagreeing with your argument — I would probably fit best in the Libertarian party, but I don’t see a point in voting for hopeless causes (especially since they beclowned themselves in 2016).
“Has there been a Libertarian congressman in the last century or so?”
Ron Paul. But he flipped to Republican for about half of his tenure.
Actually, looking at his records he ran as a Republican in his first stint in the House, switched to Libertarian for the 1988 presidential campaign, and then back to the Republican party for his second stint in the House. At least according to Wikipedia, every House race was as a Republican.
I noted that he was a supporter of Pat Buchanan, whose campaign against and subsequent virtual refusal to support George H.W. Bush I believe was a major factor in Bush’s losing the White House in 1992.
But at least he never did a strip tease at the convention (can you tell that that really, really annoyed the hell out of me?).
You’ll get no argument from me on that score. I don’t know what Canada is like these days, but “shallow, surface level thinkers and adult children” describes about 70% of America, regardless of political affiliation…
I blame all the lazy, cynical, apathetic, non-democrats, for not voting in one of the most important elections in their lifetime. Carbon based sleepwalkers.
If the Senate is supposed to be a deliberative body, I have to ask why will we spend so much money in salaries and benefits to cognitively impaired or intellectually shortchanged persons for simply being placeholders for Schumer or McConnell. Let’s just save the money and have the voters choose a D or R.
So here is one takeaway from this year, as it looks like the GOP is on track to take about 220 seats in the House, or thereabouts.
You will recall that the New York legislature decided to get ultra (mega?) greedy in their redistricting and drew up maps that likely would have given them 22 of 26 seats in the House. A state judge nixed that plan and had someone impartial draw new maps. The Republicans look like they are going to win 11 or 12 New York seats, which possibly is where we’re seeing New Yorkers discontent this year, rather than the governor’s race.
Given everything else that happened yesterday, that overreach by the New York legislature may well have cost the Democrats control of the House. Plus, as Jonathan Turley has remarked on several occasions, the radical gun control laws that they keep passing are the gift that keeps on giving for Second amendment supporters — they keep serving up case law that the Supreme Court has no choice but to strike down.
At any rate it was a bad night for Republican expectations — we really need to rethink our message and our candidate selections. But it did continue the 2020 trend towards GOP control of the House.
Looks like the Republicans now have 49 seats in the Senate, with Arizona, Nevada, and a Georgia runoff to determine the final tally. Ugh. Hopefully Mr. Trump will not be driving Republican voters to stay home instead of voting in this runoff.
Cindy Axne conceded to Zach Nunn in Iowa’s 3rd District this afternoon…my district. That’s a flip from blue to red. It’s a bit surprising given that the district – which includes Des Moines – tends to go about +10 to the Democratic side. I will say that voter turnout in our town, which is more conservative, appeared to be quite heavy.
It took a lot of scrolling to get to this point. Lots of people have many opinions about what went wrong, and who is to blame. It all boils down to my two go-to adages when asked to prognosticate on elections.
1. No PoLL counts but the Poll on ( or I guess I must now say on or about) election day.
2. Never underestimate the stupidity, gullibility, or emotion of the American voter!
Now two hopes:
1. While I agreed with Mr. Trump’s policies, He needs to assume the attitude of Truman and Eisenhower, who went to their farms after leaving office. The reigns of the Republican party need to be handed over to someone like Mr. Desantis. From the Florida election map, he proved he could win in an assortment of ethnic, and cultural milieus. When was the last time an R was victorious in MIAMI DADE or PALM BEACH?
2. I hope as the various maps show, ( California, PA, NY, to name a few) we as the above commentator suggested, duplicate the electoral college at the state and local levels.