Light In The T**** Darkness

On Tuesday night of last week, I slept more soundly than I have slept in the past two years.

That's not an exaggeration.  Two years of the T**** nightmare has put more stress on me, my family, our business, and just about everyone we know than anything else that we can remember.  The knowledge that there will be at least some relief from that stress can't possibly be understated.

I had hoped, as I had in the 2016 election, for a Democratic "blowout," by which I specifically mean not the type of "blowout" we had in that election, where the Democrats were completely blown out of power.  Truthfully, I would not describe this election as a "blowout" for either side.  As of the time I'm writing this, it appears that the Republican hold on the Senate may grow at least a little bit.  The majority of states will still be under GOP control, to varying degrees (including, sadly, here in Maryland, where an amazing number of voters decided that mediocrity in the Governor's Mansion was just fine with them).  And, at least for the short term, T**** himself isn't going anywhere.

But, if you want a gauge by which to measure how much Tuesday's results, as well as the results that continue to trickle in from several states, have disrupted the D.C. status quo, T****'s behavior is an excellent one to use.

He fired his Attorney General, and replaced him with a loyalist of dubious constitutional standing, one he feels will protect him from Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian influence in his election.  He has publicly berated members of the media for daring to criticize him, suggesting that doing so is somehow unpatriotic, and even going so far as to revoke the press credentials of CNN's White House correspondent (something I don't recall being done even by Richard Nixon).  He has openly challenged the legitimacy of close elections in which votes are still being counted (and, in the case yet again of Florida, recounted), even to the point of suggesting that the counting should be frozen in favor of Republican candidates.  This latter suggestion is an unbelievable insult to men and women serving overseas, who are allowed an extra ten days to have their ballots received and counted.

And, in perhaps the ultimate insult to those men and women from a Commander-in-Chief, he failed to make a public appearance at a Paris military cemetery to commemorate the centennial of the armistice that ended World War I.  His excuse?  It was raining.  Lightly.  All of the other heads of state who had come for the ceremony somehow managed to suck it up and show up.  The only exception was the man more worried about his combover than about those who sacrificed to make his abominable Presidency possible.

As someone who lost an uncle in World War II, and with three other relatives who served in uniform (my father, my father-in-law, and my cousin), I have no words for this.  The public insult, the dereliction of duty, the unfathomable narcissism of this, can't truly be captured in any words.  And yet, it gets even worse:  Vladimir Putin was there, and for their public greeting of each other, T****'s face lit up as though he was a little boy on Christmas morning.  One is force to wonder whether T**** missed the cemetery ceremony to huddle with his Russian master and get fresh instructions.

All of this only magnifies my sense of relief that Tuesday's results ensure a House of Representatives that will, without any doubt, serve as a check not only on T****'s behavior, but also the actions of Cabinet officials and departments, and other agencies under the executive branch's control.  I have noticed that there has already been some degree of debate about whether or not the new House should focus on investigation or legislation.  Personally, I see no reason not to do both:  the need for the former speaks for itself, and the latter process, even if (as is likely) stymied by the Senate and/or T****, will at least help to set a Democratic agenda for 2020.

My other takeaways from last week's elections:

• I remember thinking, after the GOP wave election of 1994, that the outcome was sort of the second wave of the Reagan Revolution.  The comfort level people developed during the 1980s in voting Republican reached a stage in the 1990s where people were willing to take a chance on congressional candidates bearing the same essential message.  The New Deal era was, as of that point, over, and the Reagan Era, with a Democratic President whose authority was compromised by his personal life, was on the ascent.  We now have record numbers of women and people of color in the next majority of the People's House.  Does this foreshadow the beginning of an Obama Era?  Time will tell.  Even the losses produced rising stars like Amy McGrath and Beto O'Rourke (no relation, to my knowledge) who, hopefully, will stay in the process and run again soon.
• Meanwhile, in not only Florida but also Georgia, the election results are being challenged by Democrats as a consequence of actions by the Republican candidates, both of which reflect conflicts of interests on their part.  In the case of the Georgia gubernatorial election, the Republican running was also (until a few days ago) the secretary of state overseeing the election process and disqualifying large numbers of voters, while in Florida, the sitting governor is attempting to interfere with the recount of the elections for the Senate seat (for which he was running), and for the man to replace him in the Governor's mansion.  Two more reasons to think of the GOP less as a political party, and more as a crime syndicate.
• Even if the Senate remains in Republican hands by a vote or two, it looks as if that outcome is largely due to the embarrassing process of putting a probable sexual assailant and perjurer on the Supreme Court.  At this rate, Mitch McCONnell may want to consider expanding the size of the Court simply so he'll always have a nominating process to use in skewering election results.  That's assuming he'll be around for a while, and that might be less than a guaranteed proposition--and not just because he's up for re-election in 2020.  Take a look.
• The gains that were made by the Democrats at the state level, combined with the pressure that can be applied by the new Democratic House, offers some hope that the systematic abuse of the redistricting and voting processes by Republicans in the past decade can at least begin to be dismantled.

But none of this will matter unless all of you stop treating Democratic waves as something that should only happen once every decade.  They need to happen every single election year.  Think about how different things would be regarding income inequality, climate change, immigration, the composition of our court system, if Obama (and Hillary Clinton, for that matter) had benefited from a steady succession of Democratic waves.  Never mind them, even; we all would have benefited.

Don't make voting a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Make it a habit.  It's the only way to ensure that Americans continue to make democracy a habit.  And the only way we're going to end the T****/GOP nightmare once and for all.