Votes are still being counted and reported, but mostly in places where we either know or can confidently guess what the outcome will be, so I feel like now is the right time to share my thoughts on what just happened.
We already know that the Democrats will retain control of the Senate and Republicans will have a very narrow majority in the House of Representatives. The Georgia senate race between Raphael Warnock and, God help us, Herschel Walker is going to a runoff, the result of which will determine whether Joe Manchin’s vote will continue to matter or not. Either way, confirmations of President Biden’s federal court appointees will continue apace and Hunter Biden and Anthony Fauci need only worry about appearing before and defending themselves against kangaroo committees in the lower (and now dumber) chamber.
Yesterday we learned that at the end of the current congressional term, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic Majority Whip Steny Hoyer will be stepping down from their leadership roles in the House Democratic caucus—although they will continue to serve as members of the Congress. Time for new blood, they are saying. I’m cautiously optimistic that this is a good thing. Especially with regard to Pelosi. Say what you will about the woman, and there’s plenty, but she knows how to control her caucus and get done what she needs to get done. Not something anyone can say about the last few Republican speakers—or the next one. Yes, I’m looking at you, Kevin McCarthy. The good news for the rest of us is that the best that can be said about McCarthy is that he is a craven, careerist dullard who will surely get rolled by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and her coterie of fellow lunatics and weirdos in the chamber, and while they will undoubtedly make a lot of noise over the next two years, they will get absolutely nothing accomplished. Thank the good Lord.
But what does it all mean? What does it mean that in a historically horrible economic and political environment for Democrats, Republicans were only able to muster a tiny majority in the House and failed to take control of an evenly divided Senate?
I think what it means is that a great many Americans, a number now growing day-by-day, have come to see the Republican brand as toxic and the party itself as a malevolent force in the life of the nation. And it is all the party’s own fault.
Party leadership allowed itself to be taken and held hostage by Trump and Trumpism. They did this because, despite their initial revulsion, they realized that there was an electoral advantage to be gained by having, albeit a minority, a super-animated base of rabid, angry people, having all of their anger, grievance and hatred reflected back at them by a useful avatar, namely Trump, that the party could use to its advantage in grabbing power for itself in spite of a total lack of any ideological desire or programmatic design to take advantage of that power to improve the lives of the very people who would give it to them. No, their only desire was power for its own sake and for the sake of the billionaire, sociopathic donors who support them.
On top of this, the Republican party is both morally and intellectually bankrupt. There are no policy proposals to reduce inflation or programs to combat crime or improve the national defense. They have no ideas for how to combat China or to do anything that Ronna McDaniel—bless her black, uncaring heart—and Republican candidates and their surrogates yammered about constantly for the past year on Fox News. Oh sure, Rick Scott tried to put forward a policy platform of sorts, but it was so colossally bad and predictably unpopular that even Mitch McConnell ran away from it as fast and as far as his varicose-veined legs could carry him. Sunset Social Security and Medicare and force a vote to keep them going every five years? Both terrible and politically moronic.
No, instead they went, with hate in their hearts, after immigrants and teachers, after women and their doctors, after trans kids and their parents. They threatened the lives of local election officials and school board members. They told ridiculous lies about schools providing cat litter boxes for kids who identify as cats. They nominated insurrectionist goons, election deniers, conspiracy theorists, minor celebrities with connections to Trump and other assorted dimwits for state and federal-level offices that might have a role to play in future elections. They played Q-Anon anthems at their campaign rallies and promised to make it harder for people to vote and told us that if people still found a way to vote that it wouldn’t matter because they would see to it that only “real Americans’” votes would be counted. They said all of these things out loud and in plain English. And you know what? We heard them. We listened and we believed them when they told us exactly who they are. Then we walked into our polling stations or we filled out our mail-in ballots and said, “No.” No to all of it.
As crazy as it might sound, all of that gives me hope. My gut tells me that despite all the post-election recriminations and “distancing” from Trump, Republicans won’t learn a goddamned thing from any of what just happened to them. They will continue to believe what they tell themselves on Fox News and Newsmax and Truth Social or wherever. They will continue to believe that the problem is the media and not the message or its messengers. They will double down on all the awfulness and their base will nominate Trump or a clone of Trump in 2024.
And maybe all that new blood in the leadership of the Democratic party will recognize, understand, and fully seize the opportunity that this presents to them to continue to do good things for the maximum amount of people, especially the ones who need help the most, and show Americans a vision for a fairer, more just and tolerant America. Not just, “hey, at least we’re not crazy and dangerous.”
If all those things happen, then there is a very good chance that the great big bunch of us who said no the last time, and a whole bunch more, will see that the GOP is still up to the same old shit and worse and that both sides are really not the same. We will once again say no, except the next time it will be louder and with bigger margins and larger majorities. And then, as Doc Brown told Marty McFly, we’re gonna see some serious shit. We are going to watch in real time as the Republican party tears itself apart and, hopefully, ceases to be a meaningful force in American politics. Forever.