by liberal japonicus
Thought we needed an (h)open thread about the midterms. I did like the Guardian graphics, which are here. Comments, observations, and praises to whatever deity manages karmic retribution.
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
Looks like my friend running for GA11 will lose by about 10 points, in a district that’s historically close to R+20. He worked hard, but given that Keisha’s winning by 8.5, and Ossoff by 18, I think more than anything he benefited by the wind at his back. But that’s why Democrats need to recruit/accept energetic candidates (not gadflies) in unlikely districts, so that they have someone to catch the wind when it happens.
It’s been a good night.
Over in Bizarro World (aka Red’s Tate) where the defiance has been turned up loud to cover the sound of despair, the belief is that Goldzilla will just veto everything the Dems send to him for the first several months and then force them to work with him on his agenda if they want to be able to claim any victories. They’ll come crawling soon enough.
I hope the Dems actually pull out their Greatest Hits legislation meant to address all of the issues that voters have been begging for when it comes to affordability and student loan relief and health care access and send it with a big blue bow on it to the Oval Office so that Goldzilla can prove that he’s been the thing standing between working people and their financial security by vetoing it all, while ignoring Congress and focusing on his vanity projects.
That’ll help out for sure.
I went to bed at 4 a.m., fairly sure of the way it was going.
nous, I hope to God the last sentence of your first paragraph is just a reflection of what they’re saying at Red State, not a prediction! As for your whole second para, I approve of every word of it. FYLTGE
It was almost perfect. Better than could be hoped. If the Dems had pulled off Alaska and Mississippi (an amazing thing all by itself), at 56 they might have come up with 4 Republicans to remove him. Each one they don’t get makes it harder. Now comes the really hard part. Congress, even in Democrats hands, can’t enforce anything. They have to overcome a DOJ that will actively support his Executive Orders and will not bring charges on any referral. The courts will be full of cases on the separation of powers, very few will get resolved quickly and Blanche will ignore the decisions he doesn’t like. The strategy has to be exposing the Cabinet and advisor level guys to enough scrutiny they take their pardon and leave.In January. I don’t have high hopes as it will likely make overwhelming victory look like pissing in the wind.
But the alternative would have been way worse, so this morning I will be grateful for the clear rejection of almost everything he has done
If the Dems had pulled off Alaska and Mississippi (an amazing thing all by itself), at 56 they might have come up with 4 Republicans to remove him.
Has Alaska and Mississippi been called? The Guardian still has them as up in the air, (10:30 Tokyo time) with a slight advantage for Republicans in Alaska and for the Democrats in Mississippi.
They haven’t been called but it looks like the Republican won in Alaska and Mississippi is just a few dozen votes so who knows
On another note, It felt like such deja vu early last evening. I felt like we had sat through an election just like this before. Trump is unpopular, the Democrats should win the midterms, a “blue wave”. And I felt that it had turned out to be much less, a disappointing outcome, almost soul crushing in the end. I vaguely remembered the feeling of that midterm, without looking up any numbers, it felt like it happened yesterday and I went into the night in emotion protection mode.
With each hour a little of the defenses came down and by 2am it was hard not to be ebullient, especially in the face of that remembered mourning
Good things can happen and despite the depressing day to day reality, hope remains
at 56 they might have come up with 4 Republicans to remove him
takes 67 to convict.
Current government spending authority expires Dec 11. I don’t know if Thune and Johnson have the votes, but one thing I fear them doing on the way out is to dump the filibuster and pass a two-year continuing resolution with a big bump for defense and more cuts to the safety net. With a shutdown off the table, they can just kick back, tell the incoming Dem majorities to pound sand, and let Trump take the heat for blocking everything.
If Thune’s going to do it he needs to hurry. Two of the new Dem Senators were elected to fill empty seats and will show up as soon as their election is certified rather than having to wait for Jan 3.
Oooh… I didn’t realize that. That’s kind of a big deal. Thanks!
On second thought… first bit of legislation should be to make a law against partisan gerrymandering. Second should be campaign finance reform. Then go after all the kitchen table stuff.
For the record, this was cask strength sarcasm.
67 yeah, forgot that. Then we’re still hoping he quits or Republicans decide two more years makes the blue wave crash into 2028
Completely disagree. Do the kitchen table stuff first.
Number 1, it will get far more attention from the population at large. Doesn’t mean it’s not really important. Just trying to build the public perception that every veto Trump casts is a strike against them.
Number 2, it gives time for the new state legislatures (I believe the Democrats pulled off a couple, including heavily gerrymandered North Carolina) to reverse the existing ones. Give the Republicans in Congress an incentive to override a veto in the interest of trying to save their own skin.
the Dems could kill the filibuster, tho.
they won’t, but that would be nice.
Keep in mind that a lot of the votes Democrat candidates received were not for them, but against Trump and Republicans. In two years, those same voters may be mad at Democrats.
For the record, this was cask strength sarcasm.
Oh dear, and I liked it so much!
Looking at the maps and where the big voter pushes came through, it was in large part driven by minority and youth voting, and the flipping of the independents. These are the populations who the GOP tried hardest to disenfranchise and suppress. They put in a heroic effort to overcome the barriers that the GOP were trying to put in their way. The Dems need to signal that they saw this and are responding to that frustration. If they let that linger on the back burner, I think they will regret it in two years.
Believe me, I want them to get on the kitchen table issues right away, and start making noise about it. But while they are doing that, I’d want to put structural reform on Spraytan’s desk to show who actually supports small-d democracy, and who wants a return to the pre-civil rights era.
And if there are enough Democratic governors, put through that popular vote compact while they have the chance.
Keep in mind that a lot of the votes Democrat candidates received were not for them, but against Trump and Republicans.
[citation needed]
There are some kitchen table issues that Congress doesn’t really have a lot of control over. Price of gas and diesel, frex. And the follow-on costs from the price of diesel, specifically. I’m not sure how much Congress will be able to constrain Trump’s tariff fixation either, a lot of that will likely end up being litigated, which will be time consuming.
All of that said, there are lots of other things they can do to alleviate folks’ sense of financial stress. So yes, do those ASAP. Housing, education, health insurance and access to health care.
I am very much interested in folks being held to account for illegal and unethical actions over the last couple of years. But it needs to be handled in a way that isn’t, and doesn’t look like, a mere exercise in revenge. There are some – probably a lot – of folks who would love that, but also a lot of folks who would feel that that is not really what they voted for.
I’m not in favor of impeaching Trump unless there is a lock on the votes to convict. Just render him irrelevant. Use the money and the advise and consent protocol to cut him off at the knees and let him run around the country giving his stupid rallies for the next two years.
I do, however, think it’s time to begin investigating all of the illegal and corrupt bullshit that has gone on over the last few years. Don’t lead with it, just put the legwork in motion. And then roll it out without a lot of fanfare. Just get it done. If it takes two years, no worries. Just do it clean and above board, by the book.
There’s enough there to keep an army of legal talent busy for years to come.
I haven’t completely caught up here, but even so I thought Brian Beutler today might be of interest:
Don’t Read The Mandate Down
No one wins a historic realignment election because inflation is slightly above trend. The public wants an end to the scourges of tyranny. Deliver it.
Brian Beutler
Nov 4
Winning parties typically overstate their mandates. That’s what Donald Trump and his loyalists did in 2024, when they won the presidency with less than 50 percent of the vote and one of the smallest House majorities in history.
The idea is simple: Winning is fun, but governing is the point. Most people who get into politics—good people, and bad people alike—don’t do so to middle-manage their countries for as long as citizens will allow it. They have an image of the future in their minds that they’re working toward, but few opportunities to sculpt it. Overstating a mandate is a natural outgrowth of exuberance; in the case of megalomaniacs, it may be about delusion; it almost always ends in overreach. But fundamentally, it’s a way of seizing opportunity.
It’s why the world we lived in two years ago is gone.
I can’t recall a winning party understating a mandate, let alone a once-in-a-lifetime realignment election. But at the end of a long night of joy and relief, this valedictory from Chuck Schumer, made me stop short, like a ripe fart on a busy dance floor.
“Republicans made a choice, and followed Trump over the cliff,” Schumer said correctly, before qualifying: “He implemented things that raised their costs: on electricity, on health care, on goods.”
”We never wavered,” he added. “We listened to the American people, what they wanted. We talked to them. We sat down in their kitchens… Americans voted for change, and now, Democrats must deliver.”
Nothing here is false exactly. But it reads the mandate both down, and into a trap. Democrats should surely get caught trying—but they can’t really credibly “deliver” lower electricity, health care, or goods costs. Certainly not in ways the public will experience as a consequence of their votes; possibly not at all.
To the extent any of this correctly reads the electorate, the emphasis of its message is not on costs, per se. It’s on the words “he implemented.” The message wasn’t lower my gas prices, it was: Make him stop.
Inflation was higher—much higher—on election night in 2022, when Democrats held their own in the first and only midterm of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Gas was more expensive, in real terms, on the night Barack Obama won re-election in 2012 than it is today.
But inflation didn’t spike in the first instance four years ago because Joe Biden ruled like a greedy king; gas prices weren’t high 14 years ago because Barack Obama woke up one day in early 2012 and chose war in Iran.
Those differences tell the whole story.
Schumer is right that Republicans suffered as a unit last night because they “embraced Trump.” Indeed, in many cases, Trump chose them, rather than the other way around.
But I beg of everyone to ask themselves what Republicans, in their panic, are telling themselves this morning about how they lost the biggest midterm landslide since at least Watergate: Was it that they mismanaged the marginal price of things? Or was it that Lindsey Graham’s old prophecy finally came true?
“If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”
9:03 PM · May 3, 2016
Look to the South, where Democrats reversed their arrow of misfortune for the first time in decades. By Schumer’s theory of the case, the Civil Rights Movement was only necessary because inflation happened to be low in the 1960s.
What has happened is much more profound. Republicans embraced a style of politics defined by abuse, domineering, lies, and theft. They rewired their entire party to practice politics that way. They convinced themselves the public didn’t really care about the decor of public life. This year, the public finally saw the Trump proposition clearly enough to render a decisive verdict against it.
If Democrats conceive of “deliver[ing]” as forcing Republicans to confront and begin dismantling the evil machinery they’ve built, they’ll be heeding the electorate. Even if gas and health-care prices don’t budge.
We’ll be able to say that Democrats delivered not if the measured cost of living falls a bit, but if we see Republicans experimenting with a new political language that isn’t steeped in bad faith. If they start assessing the world squarely and stop lying about everything.
If instead Democrats help Republicans tame modest inflation, the effect will be to acclimate us to a lifetime of Trumpism, where we’re never not gaslit, and we’re always one election away from another brush with tyranny.
I started Off Message to revive a fighting spirit within liberalism and the Democratic Party. Now’s the moment of truth. Let’s watch it unfold together.
Trump sees this. It’s why he reached out to Democratic leaders Tuesday night and asked to spend the next two years cutting deals. He says he doesn’t want to spend them vetoing things.
This is bait, even if he’s being earnest for once. Trump’s nature is predatory. He may understand this as his least-worst way forward, but that doesn’t mean he can contain himself. When reality sets in, he’s liable to look for an alternative approach that allows him to inflict more pain.
But taking him at his word, what does he mean? He’ll restore health care if Democrats don’t investigate his crimes, and let him build his ballroom? Something along those lines?
By Schumer’s lights, that would be a great deal (assuming Republicans didn’t then move for his impeachment). I’ll confess, I understand the temptation, too. But offers like that need to be rejected.
If Trump can be brought low enough to sign normal legislation on normal terms, so be it. But fascism in America needs to be extirpated, not milked.
“Orange man bad” was always the right operational mantra for our era. Corruption has always been a deadly vulnerability in politics (as it is in real life) and it’s a tragedy that the opposition forgot this obvious fact of the world after 2016. But now it’s clear.
Lying is wrong, and people hate liars. Stealing is illegal, and people hate thieves. Cruelty is evil, and people hate sadists. Even when gas is cheap.
These scourges of Trumpism must once again come at a high cost, or the mandate will have been wasted.
Agree with cleek that if the Republicans don’t kill the filibuster for their purposes in Nov/Dec, then the Democrats need to kill it as soon as possible after Jan 3. Unfortunately, I don’t think Schumer is smart enough to realize that the worst thing he can do is have the Senate pass a few bills per year, hold hearings, and look like they don’t care.
“Lying is wrong, and people hate liars. Stealing is illegal, and people hate thieves. Cruelty is evil, and people hate sadists. Even when gas is cheap.”
Co-sign.
That said, the shorter me version of my earlier comment is basically clean house – go after bad actors and repair the damage they’ve done to whatever degree is possible – but all of that has to be done, and presented, under color of re-establishing the rule of law. As opposed to just payback or revenge.
Jack Smith, not Merrick Garland. But also Jack Smith, not Todd Blanche.
And FWIW and with all respect to Beautler, “the mandate” also does include easing people’s sense of financial distress and vulnerability. It’s not just the price of gas, it’s stability and a sense that everything isn’t being driven by a handful of gazillionaires. It’s re-establishing a basic sense of fairness.
And it might be time for someone else to be Senate majority leader.
Oh oh. Let’s’ hope this was just pre-election stress. It’s only 1.25 mins long, and worth watching til the end to see what the journalist says:
https://news.sky.com/story/michigan-senate-candidate-clashes-with-sky-news-correspondent-13607720?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
No argument. But, the reason they were making the effort was precisely those kitchen table issues.
I have not commented in months because I could not type with my fingers crossed. But now? Now I can finally get a few things off my chest.
Starting with “kitchen table issues”. Corruption is a kitchen table issue. Fascism is a kitchen table issue. Racism is a kitchen table issue. Maybe not at every kitchen table, but let’s not pretend that the price of cheese is the only thing people care about. Let’s not fall for the notion that people can’t be worried about money and morally outraged at the same time.
I worry about the Democrats falling into the “get things done” trap. Even if they abolish the filibuster, the soiled diaper known as He, Trump still has his veto Sharpie. His lickspittles still sit atop the cabinet departments and operating agencies of a federal government beholden to billionaires with delusions of superiority.
“It’s the billionaires and the nepo babies, not the immigrants or the trans folks, who are ripping you off,” should be the Democrats’ mantra. “We’re here to expose the crooks and charlatans, not compromise with them,” Democrats should explain, “because they’ll keep robbing you if we don’t.”
When Hakeem Jeffries had his little kaffeeklatsch with Jared Kushner a couple of months ago, the incoming Speaker claimed they discussed “affordability issues”. Yeah, right: Jarred came begging for SNAP benefits next year for him and the missus, I’m sure. If that’s what Hakeem thinks of the gullibility of The American People, I fear we’re in for another decade of “bipartisanship” instead of the deMAGAfication that we desperately need.
That’s MY kitchen table issue.
–TP
You don’t think that Civil Rights are a kitchen table issue for those who have been losing them?
I think there’s a difference between having to struggle more economically that you used to. And being denied civil rights that you have been denied all along. It’s the difference between being denied something you should have, and losing something you had. The latter routinely upsets people more.
It’s not that I want to defenestrate anyone, but I wonder if anyone has given thought to replacing Jeffries and/or Schumer. If I were King and one sole voice of the Democrats, I would put a woman in.both positions, just to make Trump go off on them.
Elizabeth Slotkin was in the CIA, fluent in Arabic and Swahiilli, Would love seeing her deal with the Trump class battleships. Alternatively, Elizabeth Warren or Mazie Hirono, who both have good forensic rhetoric.
Sliding over to the fantasy side of the dial, AOC or better yet, Iihan Omar for House leader. Imagine Omar pairing up with Sayed and going into meetings with Trump. Hey, a guy can dream?
If you have not had a chance to do so yet, go to the NYTimes and look at the Senate map here and click on the “Shift from 2024” view:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/11/03/us/elections/results-senate.html?unlocked_article_code=1.OFE.mwbH.KGQ4Jn2PHB9E&smid=url-share
That map blew my mind, especially seeing it so soon after having read a Politico interview with Warnock where he was talking about how ready the South was to turn things around:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2026/11/01/raphael-warnock-midterms-2028-south-democrats-01144066
The Supreme Court gutting the VRA absolutely took away rights from black voters. And they fought back. That map at the NYT shows it. Scott Collum shows it.
ICE going after latinos indiscriminately took away rights from latinos. They fought back. Talarico shows that.