So much happened last night. Kevin McCarthy’s 60-seat red wave never even came close to materializing. It’s not even certain if the House will pass to GOP hands and if it does, it will not be by a huge margin. The margin could be single digits, even.
As to the Senate, ostensibly control of the Senate could pass to the GOP if Catherine Cortez Masto loses her seat. I say don’t worry. Yes, votes did come in for Adam Laxalt during the night but I’m going with the prediction of Jon Ralston, who reads the political tea leaves in Nevada better than anybody. Even as of two weeks ago he was waffling and talking about Hispanic turnout, but a couple of days ago he predicted for Cortez Masto and that’s good enough for me.
The key Senate race was John Fetterman’s and I feel confident that the Senate will stay in Democratic hands, even if Warnock would lose in a runoff and I’m just going to bet no on that happening. My prediction is that Herschel Walker will continue to make a flaming ass of himself until December 6 and I don’t think he alone can turn out the vote in a run off.
And if Warnock did lose, that one seat alone would not be determinative of Senate control. There is no reason to assume that Mark Kelly won’t win at this point. Bottom line, the GOP failed to flip even one Democratic seat this election cycle and we flipped one of theirs, for a 51-49 control of the Senate, barring something changing.
So what does that say about Donald Trump and his roster of MAGA superstars? They washed out bigly. Their defeat was yuge. Oh, yes, Trump posted proudly on Truth Social that he had 174 wins and 9 losses, but alas and alack, the nine losses, and more to come, were all high profile races.
Trump is now acknowledged as an anchor and Fox News is turning on him. Here’s what that looks like. We are told that Caesar never suspected that the dagger would be held by Brutus and I’m going to bet Trump never would believe that Kayleigh McEnany would be the one to knife him, either. Rupert’s signing her check now, Donald, wake up.
Trump press secretary turned Fox host Kayleigh McEnany says Trump should put his campaign declaration on pause until after a Georgia Senate runoff, pointedly does not recommend he go campaign for Walker but says DeSantis should. pic.twitter.com/bklkjUxqa1
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) November 9, 2022
“We’ve got to get through December 6 and get back control of the Senate.” As I’ve already outlined, that one race in Georgia is not going to determine that. At least for what is known at this time. Fox News may be calling the race in Nevada for Laxalt, that wouldn’t surprise me, but they have to pick up two seats, not just one. So they’re dreaming. And they’re desperate, you can hear it in their voices.
Here’s something comical that I found.
Here’s another.
Imagine being a Republican, and realizing only now, after previously losing the House, Senate, and the presidency, after his losing the popular vote twice, two impeachments and multiple criminal offenses, topped off with a Clorox injection chaser, that you have a "Trump problem." https://t.co/qfRKKO96RN
— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) November 9, 2022
Trump is gone. Fox News has been edging him out for some time now, but after DeSantis surged to glory last night, with people chanting “two more years” meaning they want him to run for president in 2024, Trump is history. He is now an embarrassment that the GOP needs to figure out the easiest way to dispose of.
And I’m sure he knows it. And I’m equally sure that he won’t go gently into that dark night — not with his bills and the desperate need he has to fundraise.
We are seeing the passing of the Trump era. The final sign that I find compelling is that the Republicans who lost races last night promptly conceded. Lee Zeldin, Dan Cox and even Doug Mastriano conceded their races and these are all three vociferous election deniers. It’s going to be interesting to see them carry the torch for the stolen election fantasy of 2020, when they admitted that their own elections in 2022 were not stolen, they simply got beat. I cannot wait to see the follow through to this.
Even Tudor Dixon and Tim Michels conceded their gubernatorial races, albeit with a bit of delay.
So the stolen election drama is for all intents and purposes dead, except in hard core MAGA world. And it doesn’t look like hard core MAGA world is enough people to win Trump a reelection. Not with DeSantis’ star on the rise.
Trump will still try to beat DeSantis, because he has to. He has to stay in the political game, it’s the only business he’s making money in right now. Plus his ego will not allow him to simply accept reality. If that were the case, the Big Lie never would have been cobbled together.
The GOP publicly and unanimously, so far, dropped the Big Lie last night. And they’re going to drop Trump in the days to come.
Stay tuned. This is going to be fun to watch, the Last Days Of Trump.
I watched some of Morning Joe this morning and one of the pundits brought up a Churchill quote – the one about it not being the end, or even the beginning of the end but perhaps the end of the beginning. That’s where I think things stand when it comes to the GOP/conservatives having their reckoning with Trump. Think of it as a really ugly divorce case with both sides having skilled, high profile and media savvy lawyers. The “plaintiff” really doesn’t want to have to file for divorce – and would be happy to quietly move out of the house and establish a zone of separation that will hopefully cause people’s memories of the marraige everyone knew was a fucked up mess all along to fade. But the other partner won’t be having ANY of that! Think of that person as an egotistic control freak obsessed with their public image and knows damn well that for a while at least people will know they’ve been dumped and that folks will speculate about it. So their response is scorched earth!
The “end of the beginning” might finally be here. The GOP might finally be accepting that they HAVE to “dump Trump.” Wishing and hoping he’d quietly fade into the background not only has not worked, but he’s setting things up to be their nominee again! And the GOP is facing the awful (for them) realization Trump will fuck over each and every one of them AND the Republican Party if he doesn’t get his way. And they are hoping beyond hope that Democrats (like Merrick Garland, Fanni Willis and Letesha James) will do the dirty work of burying Trump for them. They DON’T want to have to get their own hands dirty. And that’s why I say it’s perhaps only the end of the beginning of shoving Trump aside.
The GOP has I think come to the decision they really want him neutralized. But they don’t have the guts to be the ones to do it so we’ll have to just wait and see how it all plays out.
Gee, denis, yet another Republican mess that the Democratic party has to clean up for them? 🙂