Boy, how about that midterm election, eh? Wow! That was really something, right? And I hope it was something good, but to be honest, I really don’t know.
Before you decide I’ve lost my mind, let me explain: Because the Flyer goes to press on Tuesday afternoon, I had to write this column before I knew the election results. As my fingers merrily tapped on the keyboard, I was flying blind, chugging Hopey-Changey juice (aka sipping a nice Malbec), and mightily resisting all the ingrained pessimism I’ve carried about this country since Donald Trump’s first election in 2016. I was hoping that the pre-election polls got it right, that somehow the majority of American voters would finally reject this self-absorbed, mentally damaged president and his amoral enablers; that somehow the MAGA cult would shrink to irrelevance — for a while, at least.
So, to reiterate, as you read these words, you know what I didn’t know when I typed them. You know if a Muslim physician named Abdul could win a senate berth in Michigan; if a “progressive lumberjack” could beat an aristocratic GOP waffle iron for a senate seat in Maine; if a soft-spoken minister falsely accused of the heinous crime of being a vegetarian could defeat a philanderer who’s been impeached by his own party and charged with security fraud felonies in cowboy-red Texas. It seemed crazy that any of that could happen, but a guy can dream, right? At least on the night before the election.
I mean, seriously, Kansas, of all places — which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1932 — was supposed to be in play. And other states that Trump won by double digits two years ago — including Alaska, Iowa, Ohio, and South Carolina — all had polling showing toss-up senate races.
According to a story in Politico, the GOP’s problems were even creeping into the Deep South, where early voting suggested Republican turnout was low and Black and Democratic engagement were at near-record levels for a non-presidential year. In Georgia, Florida, and Louisiana, Black voters’ early participation far exceeded that of the prior midterm election. Georgia has already turned purple and the GOP pulled all funding from North Carolina, basically conceding that state’s senate seat. Trump even went to Mississippi for a rally to support Confederate Senator Meemaw Hyde-Smith. Mississippi, y’all.
And speaking of the South … I hardly allowed myself to breathe the thought that Tennessee’s obscenely gerrymandered Ninth District might decide that electing penis photographer and Trump tribute-artist Brent Taylor was a bridge too far. Likewise, it seemed absurd to hope that muffin-brained Trump-fluffer Marsha Blackburn could lose the governor’s race to Democrat Jerri Green. Tennessee is still one of the reddest states in the union, and Hopey-Changey juice only goes so far. But I really hope I was wrong.
The Democrats needed just four seats to flip the Senate, and that seemed like a good bet, especially when uber-pollster Nate Silver said on Monday that the Democrats had a 79 percent chance of doing it. As for Congress, you couldn’t find a single legitimate poll that saw the GOP keeping control there. Given all those favorable predictions, I was fairly confident I would be watching Steve Kornacki analyze a real blue beatdown Tuesday night.
But I also feared I’d be seeing reports about Trump utilizing his “Homeland Security” forces to intimidate voters at polling sites, and about his “Justice” Department filing frivolous lawsuits challenging any election results that didn’t please their Fearless Leader.
As we’ve learned in recent election cycles, definitive results in tight races can string out over several days, as millions of mail-in and absentee votes are counted. And in those long days, as we’ve also learned, we can be quite confident that President Man-baby will bleat and whine and pull out every tired trick in his con-man toolkit to convince his followers that the election was rigged. I mean, the guy is still bitching about an election he decisively lost six years ago.
Trump is not a well man. Witnessing a massive rejection from the nation’s voters is going to be hard on the old guy. As will the next two years, if what I hoped would happen has indeed happened. If it hasn’t, well, then we’re the ones who are in deep trouble.
