Wednesday Morning Coming Down
The scope of Donald Trump's victory last night is still sinking in, but American politics will never be the same.
Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. I offer insight, analysis and context on Texas and national politics, as well as entertaining stories of life its ownself in the Lone Star State. If you like what you read, please 1) smash the Like button at the bottom of this installment, 2) subscribe to this newsletter, and 3) tell your 1,000 best friends to read and subscribe. Also, feel free to comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
But first, your moment of Zen … a storm system north of Johnson City dumps rain across the Hill Country, Monday, November 4, 2024. Photo by Yours truly.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Quote of the Day: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." – H. L. Mencken.
I.
Here is what I knew Tuesday morning:
Kamala Harris would win the popular vote (of course).
The battle for the Electoral College would be tight, but …
… the Blue Wall – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania – would hold.
… North Carolina and Georgia were in play, and Harris had a chance to take one or both of them.
… Harris likewise had a shot at either Nevada or Arizona, or both.
… Heck, even Iowa might could go for Harris!
I was wrong about every single one of those.
As of noon today, Donald Trump is winning the popular vote. His 71+ million votes is three million less than he got in 2020, but Kamala Harris’s 66 million votes is 15 million less than Biden got that year.
Trump currently sits at 292 electoral votes, winning the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and leading in Michigan, Nevada and Arizona. The “Blue Wall,” it turns out, is made of bleu cheese crumbles.[i]
Iowa, which gave us hope with that outlier poll Saturday, went 57%-43% for Trump. Not even close.
II.
My route to electoral catastrophe was uncharacteristically untroubled. I woke up bright and early Tuesday morning in Austin, having driven in the afternoon/evening before from West Texas. (By the way, I cannot recommend arriving in Austin at the tail end of rush hour when it’s full dark and raining, but I kept calm and carried on.) I probably would have left earlier, but a new friend and I sat up in the Broken Wheel Bar until 1:30 Sunday night, drinking some concoction she’d created that required liberal doses of mezcal. The conversation was socially redeeming, though, so I do not mind that I was feeling the worse for wear Monday morning.
Anyway, I exercised my civic responsibility by voting yesterday afternoon.
Through the day, my mood shifted from “nauseously optimistic[i]” to “cautiously optimistic” before ending up just plain nauseous. I went to the Texas Democratic Party soiree at the Driskill Hotel in downtown Austin, a quadrennial ritual for me. I always love the gathering, seeing old friends and, especially, meeting new people who have become involved.
In 2008, in the ecstatic glow of the election of Barack Obama, the police had to close off the street in front of the hotel, there were so many revelers. In 2016, I went to the Hillary Clinton of-course-she’s-going-to-win victory party, only to find out the polls had misjudged the American electorate. I assumed last night was going to be more like the former than the latter.
But it was not to be. The bad news was flowing even faster than the beer and wine. The big screen in the ballroom spit out bad update after bad update, following from east to west the sun setting on the American Empire.
III.
There is still a lot to unpack about this election. One big mystery to me is, how is it that 155 million people voted in 2020 but only 137 million people[i] voted this year? To add insult to injury, there are six million more Americans than in 2020. Even Travis County, that bastion of civic virtue, saw turnout decrease from 71.06% in 2020 to 63.31% yesterday. 30,000 fewer people voted in the presidential race. What is that all about?
Another mystery: who are these people? As Charlie Sykes wrote this morning:
Whatever the final margin, the American people have returned this blatantly, dangerously unfit man to power. In the end, nothing mattered. Not the sexual assaults, the frauds, the lies, or the felonies. Not the raw bigotry of his campaign; not the insults, nor the threats. In the most graphic terms imaginable, the American people were warned of the danger. His previously loyal vice president refused to endorse him; his top general called him a “total fascist”; some of his closes aides and cabinet members described in detail his erratic character and his indifference to the Constitution.
This is the hardest part about today: realizing that our fellow Americans saw all of that; watched all of that; listened to all of that, and still said, “Yes, that’s what we want.” That’s who we are.
IV.
What next? It’s hard to underestimate the scale of Trump/Trumpism’s victory last night. He convincingly won the Electoral College and, it seems, will win the popular vote as well. The GOP picked up three seats in the Senate, which promises smooth confirmation sailing for Trump’s appointees – including possible additions to the right-wing Supreme Court majority. The GOP will also narrowly hold on to the House of Representatives, giving it unified control of the government for the first time since 2017. He also has hundreds of appointees in the judicial system, and a newly-minted get-out-of-jail cardcourtesy of the Supreme Court. Whatever a “mandate” means in this fractious political environment, he has one.
Before 2017, the concept of “guardrails of democracy” was foreign to us. We did not talk about norms because, like water to a fish, they were just part of the environment. It turns out the American government had operated on the honor system for 230 years, and Donald Trump destroyed every guardrail he ran into.
Here’s a word to store away for a rainy day: kakistocracy. You may be needing it soon.
V.
As the academic Ali Michael says, “Today we wake up in the same country we lived in yesterday. But with more data.” Our worst nightmares about his illiberalism and corruption will not come true quickly, if at all. We have time to regroup and prepare for the next battles.
When I find myself in times of trouble, Molly Ivins often appears to me. A quote of hers is particularly apropos today:
So keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Be outrageous... rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through celebrating the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was!
[i] I am indebted to the estimable Jim Moore for that analogy.
[i] Kudos to Charlie Sykes for that turn of phrase.
[i] Not the final number, but close enough for government work.
It made me feel slightly better that everything you thought Monday night I thought Also and I was just surprised Tuesday night. You are an exceptional writer and I only wish there were enough of you to take over the house and not just in the United States Congress.
"What do we do now?" was the thought that awakened me this morning. Voters steeped in ignorance, anger, and resentment joined with a worse group (in my opinion,) those who shirked their duty to vote: the lazy, selfish, uncaring, and irresponsible. Both groups should be ashamed of what they elected directly and by default. So, what do we do now? What do we do when this isn't our president and doesn't appear to be our country either. How do we start what needs to take place?