Well, they’re still counting votes across the country, particularly in Arizona and Nevada, so it is unclear at this writing which party will have control in both houses of Congress. Control might be the wrong word to describe having a majority of seats, as the last two Republican speakers of the House could attest.
Having followed Daddy’s admonishment that those who expect nothing shall not be disappointed, I am proud to report that the election results, such as they are, have not proven upsetting to me. Hope springs eternal, and there were races that I wish would have gone differently, but they didn’t, and I didn’t expect them to do so. Thanks, Daddy.
As October dragged on, it seemed that every time the pundits and prognosticators opened their mouths fifty yards of “red wave” chiffon rolled out, either with giddiness or horror, based on the bias of the speaker. America, it seemed, was going to get a cosmopolitan with the portions of vodka and cranberry juice reversed, a blood red cocktail served up with too little Grey Goose. They were wrong. Again.
Instead, looks like we’re having a vodka tonic, in a low tumbler with a splash of cran. The ratio of vodka to tonic is still being determined.
On election night, the disappointing results for the Republicans were not in evidence when Kevin “the man who would be speaker” McCarthy spoke. Watching him talk of how the Republican congress, which he was already claiming, would give America “a new direction,” I couldn’t help thinking what an excellent speech he was delivering, even if it was untethered from the political reality on the ground.
McCarthy, no doubt, was whistling past the graveyard, knowing full well that his dream of being speaker of the House hinges on the support of the Freedom Caucus of his party. His previous effort to be elected speaker was circumvented by exactly that same body back in 2015 when John Boehner resigned. Who else remembers that? And isn’t that group even more unmanageable today than when Boehner left Washington on a seemingly endless wine tasting excursion? And what price can McCarthy pay to get that support, seeing how he’s already given Trump his spine and a couple of other more private body parts just to be in the position he’s in today?
Despite his best efforts to reframe it, McCarthy was not the Republican who came out on top. That would be Rick DeSantis. Trump called him Rick DeSanctimonious, and Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post just this week named him Rick DeFuture on its front page. I agree with Trump on this one, and I suspect Rupert—who may have a significant hand in making it so—will prove correct.
DeSantis won reelection in a landslide in Florida, winning just shy of 60% of the vote. His aggressive pursuit of partisan gerrymandering may allow him to claim personal credit for a potential single digit majority in the lower chamber for his party. DeSantis seems uniquely positioned, for now, to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024. His boots may not make the right fashion statement, but they sure may be made for walkin’. And runnin’.
The presidency of Joe Biden did not go up in flames this week, as many seemed to expect. Regardless of how it sorts out, the next two years are going to be a challenge for him. But, assuming it’s still a thing, I wouldn’t mind seeing Uncle Joe going on Lip Sync Battle doing “I’m Still Standing,” addressed to his detractors—in both parties.
And then there’s Trump. At best, he was instrumental in preventing the Republican party from taking advantage of an opportunity to gain a significant numbers of seats in Congress. At worst, he may have single handedly cost the party a majority in either one or both chambers with his endorsements and support for contenders lacking in what Mitch McConnell referred to as “candidate quality.”
Sitting on the edge of all these goings-on is Tiffany Trump. Bless her heart. She’s getting married in a couple of days at Mar-a-Lago. Most of the rest of the country is looking for decisions out of Arizona and Nevada, the sooner the better. But if those two senate races go in the Democratic column, Donald is likely to be in a very bad mood for the wedding.
So I’m kind of hoping, for the sake of the forgotten Trump child, that we don’t find out until after the wedding. After all, it’s got to be hard being his daughter. And being named Tiffany.
