THE WINNER:  DEMOCRACY

Greetings, blog reader on the day after the mid-term elections of 2022. On yesterday, the American people went to the polls to vote for the entire House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, and many state races. The turnout was heavy. My polling place had twice the usual numbers of voters.

So, on the day after, what do the election results tell us? Votes are still being counted and numerous races are still too close to call but the big picture is clear. Yesterday was a major victory for the great democratic revolution over the reactionary anti-democratic counter-revolution. The historical importance of this should not be underestimated.

As of this moment, it looks as if the Democrats will keep control of the Senate and the Republicans will have a slight majority in the House of Representatives. Historically, the party out of power (the Republicans in this case) gains a big win in the off-year elections. This did not happen yesterday. There was no "red wave." In effect, we have a split Congress.

If the big winner of the day was democracy, the big loser was the Republican Party even though they won the majority in the House. This is true for several reasons. In the first place, voters all over the country arose to stand for a woman's right of freedom over her own body. Even in conservative states, the people arose to defend women's rights. Everyone knows it was the Republican Party that packed the Supreme Court with anti-abortion justices. 

Even more serious for the Republican Party is the lurking Frankenstein's monster they created and is now threatening to devour them. The ex-president, Donald Trump, is not leaving the stage. His ego will not allow it. He still dominates the Republican Party. As of this moment, he will still get the nomination of the Party in 2024 if he wants it. He has shown every sign of going for it. Along the way, he will destroy anyone who gets in his way, just as he did in 2016. He has already zeroed in on his main competitor, the governor of Florida. It will be very interesting to see if Desantis puts up a fight or quietly steps aside for Trump. As of now, the Republican Party is the Trump party.

If Trump gets the Republican nomination in 2024, he is almost certainly going to lose, and drag down much of the Republican Party with him. He has never won a popular election. This will be bad for both the Party and the nation. Democracy works best on a strong two-party system.

As the good folks of lower South Carolina know all too well, the culture war is far from over, but I have the sense that it has passed an important milestone. Donald Trump and his followers tried to overthrow our constitutional democratic republic. He unleashed a mob on Congress. He watched gleefully for hours as the mob sought to capture and or kill his own vice president and the Speaker of the House. The American people have arisen to reject Trump and his threat.

Bottom line:  the American experiment in building a democratic nation-state is safer today than it was two days ago. It is safer because the people have made it so.