It's been a real pleasure to sit back and take in all the reactions, comments, and general sense of joy on the left after the Republicans' defeat last week in off-year elections across the country. The Republican Party took, as former President Obama once said of his own midterm defeats, “a beating.”
Prop. 50, California's move to neutralize President Trump's attempts to take advantage of his party in next year's midterm elections? It happened in a landslide. A Democratic woman for governor of New Jersey? Mikee Sherrill won by more than 13 points. And in Virginia? Abigail Spanberger won by more than 14 points.
And what about New York City, which dragged social democrat Zohran Mamdani into the mayor's mansion? Fearmongering and Islamophobia from Republicans, and even fellow Democrats like defeated former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, did not stop a million New Yorkers from embracing Mamdani's left-wing politics and the promise of a more equitable and affordable future.
“I finally feel like there is light at the end of this horrible tunnel,” my very Democratic stepdaughter texted me after learning Tuesday's results.
It's not that what voters say they want has changed. Trump won a second term by promising to fight inflation and reduce the cost of living. Voters still want that; Trump simply has not delivered. And the reaction is happening in places where you would least expect it.
“We are getting calls about the polls being closed,” Republican Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams posted on (In a later post, he reflected on the importance of civic education.)
Trump promised to deport criminals who are here illegally, but instead he has unleashed a reign of terror against the brown working class. He promised to lower grocery prices and instead allowed SNAP benefits to end for the poorest Americans, while destroying the East Wing to make way for a grand ballroom, decking out the White House in Louis XVI-style gold ornaments, and throwing a Great Gatsby Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, with scantily clad women frolicking in oversized champagne glasses. Let them eat well-cooked steak!
On Tuesday night he also beat up House Speaker Mike Johnson, whose channeling of the television show Sgt. Schultz (“I See Nothing, I Know Nothing”) has transcended absurdity and is now verging on abdication. Johnson's continued refusal to name newly elected Arizona Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva, who may provide the final vote needed to make Epstein's files public, reeks of obstruction. As Kentucky's Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, put it: “There is no political advantage in not doing your job. And the American people are watching.”
As the government shutdown continues with no end in sight, it's worth reminding Republicans that if they can't keep the government open without the votes of at least five more Democratic senators to overcome the filibuster, then maybe it's time to sit down and negotiate over the Obamacare subsidies that Democrats want to extend. Republicans thought they could refuse to negotiate with Democrats and then watch them bow to public pressure. But that's not happening. Most Americans blame the president's party for the current situation.
Maybe Trump should follow his own advice. As he once told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “You are not in a good position. You don't hold the cards right now.”
The most stimulating news of the week (at least for some of us) is that New York's newly elected mayor is a Ugandan-born Muslim democratic socialist who has promised to freeze rents, provide free child care, free city bus service, and create city-run grocery stores, none of which are particularly revolutionary and all of which have been tested in different cities. To pay for those things, he has proposed raising taxes on millionaires by 2%.
Mamdani, a 34-year-old millennial whose striking orange and blue campaign logo wouldn't look out of place on the cover of a superhero comic, has made the word “affordability” his own. Generation Z voters flocked to him (78% according to exit polls), galvanized by his politics and moved by his Obamaesque rhetoric.
Wall Street tycoons campaigned hard against him, including hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who spent more than $2 million in vain to elect Cuomo. “He's spending more money against me than I would charge him,” Mamdani noted on a recent episode of the “Flagrant” podcast hosted by Andrew Schulz.
But the billionaires' campaign against Mamdani failed and now they are changing their tune. As one New York Times reader wrote in a letter to the editor: “The hostility of the elites became their drive.”
Republicans have struggled, sometimes comically, to find a silver lining to their losses this week.
Republican Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan told CNN's Jake Tapper that Republican turnout was low because Republican voters are so happy with the status quo.
“Using that argument,” Tapper responded, “your voters might be just as happy that Democrats take control of the House of Representatives next year.”
Let's cross our fingers.
Blue sky: @rabcarian
Rags: @rabcarian
