It seems clear by now the Dems lost the House majority. Would like to be wrong about this. Might even be wrong as some smart guys are still leaving it up in the air that the Democrats have a path, if an extremely narrow one, to 218 seats. Literally 218 seats, not 219 or 220. 218 seats.
That sucks. The barest of a GOP majority in the House means Jim Jordan gets the Judiciary Committee gavel and – if Democrats don’t get their act together and pass some legislation defanging the debt limit in the lame duck period – the serious and ever-present threat of a catastrophic default with Social Security and Medicare being held hostage to MAGA psychopaths. Same story with Ukraine. The pro-Russians in the House will hold up any further military aid unless a blank check is passed in the lame duck. It’s critical that happens amid Kyiv’s momentum.
Then there’s the lost opportunity to make other things happen: Just a few more House seats and a win for Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin would’ve opened the door to filibuster reform, Supreme Court reform, the Voting Rights act, DC and Puerto Rico statehood, all that pie in the sky shit is out of reach barring a sudden death or resignation of a Republican Senator in a state with a Democratic governor plus some similar attrition in the House within the next two years.
“Evidence points to a re-emerging red wave that could sweep in GOP control of both chambers. In the Senate, Republican officials are now bullish they'll gain at least the one seat necessary to regain the majority.”https://t.co/RkMCQsdni3
— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) October 23, 2022
All that said, Democrats fucking kicked ass this year relative to expectations. Hard to describe how good it feels seeing “horserace” circlejerkers like Axios political reporter Josh Kraushaar crying in their Fruity Pebbles this week after the “Red Wave” failed to materialize.
Make no mistake, Tuesday was pretty goddamned close to the worst of all potential possible outcomes for Republicans that were realistic beforehand. In raw mathematics it was the weakest midterm for the opposition party since 2002, gaining (so far) zero Senate seats, net losing one governorship and at least two state legislative majorities, while net gaining at most like eight House seats. In the abstract political implications, when so much was at stake for the MAGA Republican Party, it’s really, really, fucking bad for their plans to subjugate America. Consider:
?? Impeachment isn’t happening: Joe Biden will not be impeached. We’ve been wrong before and could be again, but on this one we feel pretty goddamned confident. The votes won’t be there if they need to count on noobs, particularly the ones from New York who will be vulnerable in 2024. Same with Merrick Garland. Slightly less confident about DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The border is catnip to the MAGA pussies, might prove to be too hard for them to resist, even though they’ll overdo it and make themselves look like complete assholes in the process.
?? It is really hard to see what happens to Kevin McCarthy now: He is so fucked it’s not even funny – it’s hilarious. He better be praying for the Dems to squeak out a one-seat majority so he can save face. With at least several Republicans in the House publicly coming out against him as speaker – before the dust is settled on whether or not they even have a majority – it’s really hard to see him winning the gavel. The Freedom Caucasians have a knife to his throat, a gun to his crotch, and a pot of boiling water over his head. Moscow Mitch is supposedly in similar trouble in the Senate, but remember the math is completely different there. Mitch only needs a majority of the Republican conference in his chamber to remain in charge. The Speakership in the House requires a majority of 435 seats. Probably the most likely outcome is still an even weaker and more diminished than expected Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but there’s a more than plausible shot for a moderate consensus Republican to emerge with support of the Dems. That’d be fucking wild, to say the least.
?? Where to start with Trump, holy shit, lol: He’s reportedly still on track to announce his 2024 campaign on Tuesday, but damn he does not have the wind he expected at his back at all. Exit polls are shit, but if the one in which more Republican voters described themselves as more loyal to the GOP than to Trump himself had any truth to it then it speaks to an ongoing decline in his popularity that was only briefly interrupted by the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in August. Seriously the best thing that could happen to the GOP right now is for Donald to drop dead of a heart attack or stroke or for a Secret Service agent who’s had enough of his bullshit to lock him in the SUV and leave it parked at a railroad crossing (they’re in a good area for that too). Barring that, the GOP are in a bad spot. The coming Trump-DeSantis war is going to be costly and destructive and there’s no way it ends without alienating a lot of their voters. The bottom line is Trump is in better position to win the primary while DeSantis is in better position to win the general election. There’s no untangling that knot.
?? Trump again: His plan to elect 2020 conspiracy freaks in key states so he could steal the presidency in 2024 worked brilliantly if you leave out the “getting elected” part. Seriously the only MAGA statewide candidate in a battleground who won is Nevada gov-elect Joe Lombardo. Hard to see how one Republican governor guarding six electoral votes with a Dem Attorney General and likely a Dem Secretary of State taking him to court is going to bring down democracy the way Steve Bannon and all these rest of those scumbags dreamed for two years.
?? On a related note (one better writers have already made but worth repeating): Republican leaders are whining about “candidate quality,” which is their new code for “Trump fucked us by backing all these mutants in the primaries” since a lot of them are too afraid to call him out directly. It’s not untrue, he did endorse unelectable mutants who then won their primaries but lost in the general. But Republican primary voters still turned out for these candidates, at least several of whom would’ve won with or without Trump endorsing them. Yeah, Trump put Mehmet Oz over the top against David McCormick but Doug Mastriano didn’t need Donald’s help at all (endorsement came two days before the primary when the bald QAnon freak was already surging). The point is that their Trump problem obscures their much bigger problem: Their voters. Arizona Republican voters wanted Blake Masters, Pennsylvania Republican voters wanted Doug Mastriano, Michigan Republican voters wanted Tudor Dixon. “Establishment” Republicans have to reckon with the fact that in a lot of key states their primary voters are fucking assholes. All this shit about “Glenn Youngkin is teh future, he’s so vest dad suburbs candidate. Such appeal to soccer minivan moms” means nothing when your base in other states want a pro-QAnon Christian nationalist radioactive to swing voters.
It’s not the vest that makes the man, but content of his chara- Wait wait wait… Time to in-vest in better candidates!
So dear reader, fret not over Democrats losing the House. It’ll be a headache in practical terms and is a heartache in missed opportunity. But it is in every other way possible a win for Democrats and democrats alike. Tuesday left the Republican Party and the Trump Reich in such bad shape that is only going to get worse over in the short, middle, and long term. Buckle up for a fun two years.