Programming note: Based on the e-mails we've gotten, we are going to have politics questions tomorrow, and non-politics questions next weekend. We kind of thought that things would turn out that way.

TrumpWatch 2026: The Rats Are Preparing to Flee the Titanic

If you are a high-profile Trump insider, and in particular if you are a high-profile Trump insider who might have broken the law, now is a pretty good time to think about getting out. Congress is about to start investigating six ways to Sunday, and Donald Trump is going to be in a perpetual state of rage from here on out. Neither of these things are pleasant prospects for folks in the administration.

The (apparently) sinking ship has actually already had its first desertion. Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, resigned yesterday. On her watch, the venerated division had become a primary weapon for MAGA ideology and saw the exodus of hundreds of career prosecutors as their mission was perverted to satisfy Trump grievances. According to Dhillon, she's proud of her work "protecting women and girls' sports"—not from discrimination or unequal pay, but from trans women who are clearly trying to take trophies from non-trans women. It was also Dhillon's office that tried, and failed, to indict Cassidy Hutchinson for the crime of pissing off Donald Trump.

So, the ink is barely dry on the Democrats' historic blowout and Dhillon has already dusted off her résumé. She knows she'll be a target of House Committees wanting an explanation for how she's been spending public funds on Trump's and MAGA's pet projects and not on, you know, enforcing civil rights. By quitting, she presumably hopes she will be moved down the list of Democratic targets. Whether she is right about that, we do not know.

Inasmuch as we already know the identity of the first domino to fall, the question now is who the second domino will be. One leading contender is Secretary of State Marco Rubio. At least by title, he is responsible for the Iran War, and for the failure to bring it to a quick and easy conclusion. Even a real diplomat could not have pulled that off, so there's no way that Lil' Marco could have done it. Still, Trump doesn't understand that, and since Iran has already become his explanation for what went wrong this week, he'll be looking for one or more scapegoats. Rubio would be a very possible target.

On top of that, Rubio fancies himself a potential 2028 presidential candidate. He knows that he's currently joined at the hip with an unpopular administration that just took it in the teeth at the polls, and that Trump's popularity is not likely to improve much in the next 2 years. In fact, the President's numbers are more likely to get worse than they are to get better. So, the Secretary would be wise to put some distance between himself and his current boss. For these reasons, we were not at all surprised to see a report that Rubio is planning to resign and to devote his time to his presidential ambitions. There is also a report that Trump lackey Sergio Gor, who is currently the U.S. Ambassador to India, is angling to replace Rubio. The White House denies everything; we'll soon see if they're being truthful.

Another possibility to be the next to go is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. For reasons we will discuss next week, he is near-certain to be impeached, and it's not impossible he'll be removed. He might prefer to step down, which might forestall an impeachment (but might not, since it is possible to impeach someone even after they have left office). Like Rubio, Hegseth also has the problem that he's likely to be scapegoated for the failures in Iran. Further, Trump is clearly planning to re-escalate the war. He might prefer to have someone new in the job for when that happens.

The buzz surrounding Hegseth is loud enough that Trump gave him a vote of confidence yesterday. In sports, that is usually the kiss of death for a coach or a manager. In politics, it is not much better. And at the same time that Trump said he wants to keep Hegseth on, he also made a point of noting that the Secretary would do a great job if he happened to be appointed as U.S. Senator from Tennessee. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Trump has been asking people about possible replacements for Hegseth. It does not look good for the Secretary, from where we sit. The one thing that is certain is that he will not be the next U.S. Senator from Tennessee. People familiar with the thinking of Gov.-elect Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) say she is not the slightest bit interested in picking him as her replacement.

A dark horse, when it comes to the exit-stage-left sweepstakes, is HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. Politically, he's gotten pretty radioactive because the policies he's pursued are killing people. Personally, he's not well liked by other members of the administration. And, perhaps most importantly for Trump, the MAHA vote did not come through for the Republicans on Tuesday. Some MAHA people did vote GOP, but others voted Democratic, or third party, or just sat this one out. We wrote this several times when Trump made the deal with Robert Jr.: Building your base out of flaky people is a risky move.

There is one other issue. Kennedy is very friendly with MAHA actor/musician Russell Brand, and they've been palling around a fair bit recently, including at Trump administration-sponsored events. As of yesterday, Brand is a convicted rapist, one who is likely to be in prison until he's an old and wrinkly rapist. Trump obviously does not have a problem with sexual assault, per se, but he does have a problem with anyone who serves to remind Americans of Trump's own history of sexual assault. So, the Brand association could be the tipping point for Kennedy Jr.

There are other folks (Susie Wiles? Scott Bessent? Stephen Miller?) who could be the next to exit, but we would say these three are the gold, silver, and bronze in this particular footrace. (Z & L)

Election Results: Tuesday Was a Good Night to Be a Challenger

There are a lot of notably election-related developments that we did not get to on Tuesday. In some cases, that is because there was so much key national news, we weren't able to track more localized developments. In more cases, it was because the notable information wasn't known until yesterday. In any case, here's a rundown of a bunch of stuff we think is worth noting:

Throw the Bums Out, Part I: We'll start with the most important storyline, which is that voters are pissed. That means that it was not a good night to be an incumbent. Readers already know about the various senators and governors who were tossed out on the rears. When it comes to the House, numerous races are still being resolved, but 30 incumbents have already lost their seats. Of those, 29 were Republicans, while the one Democrat to be fired—Jimmy Gomez in California—lost to another Democrat. Among the Republicans who will soon be unemployed are Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Victoria Spartz, Thomas Kean Jr., Max Miller and Derrick Van Orden. At the moment, most outlets have called 253 seats for the Democrats and 157 for the Republicans, which leaves 25 still to be called. Those numbers are the result of a staggering 43 flips for the Democrats, as compared to just 3 for the Republicans.

Throw the Bums Out, Part II: Although the anti-incumbent sentiment mostly victimized Republicans, there were some Democrats caught up in its wake. For example, in the district that will soon be vacated by Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), voters preferred state Sen. Scott Wiener (D) over the Pelosi-backed City Supervisor Connie Chan

Throw the Bums Out, Part III: Nancy Pelosi is out of a job willingly, having decided to retire after a couple of terms as a backbencher. Her longtime colleague, Mayor Karen Bass (D) is about to retire non-voluntarily, as she has been defeated by Democratic Socialist Nithya Raman (D). It was neck-and-neck for a long time, but Raman eventually pulled away to win, 53% to 47%. Like many mayoral races, this one is officially nonpartisan, but everyone in town knows what the candidates are.

Throw the Bums Out, Part IV: As long as we're in the Los Angeles area, and as long as we're talking Democratic Socialists, the city of Burbank is north of downtown, and is pretty wealthy and pretty Armenian. It is not particularly lefty by L.A. standards (as compared to, say, Santa Monica or Brentwood). Still, the people of that community decided to toss their Democratic mayor out, and to elect Democratic Socialists to two of the three open seats on the five-person city council. Since the Council already had one Democratic Socialist, this means Burbank will be the first city in America to have a city council with a Democratic Socialist majority. Take that, New York City.

It Was Over Before It Began: As it turns out, there were several high-profile races that were already decided when the polls opened on Election Day. Most notably, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) got 1,772,000 early votes. His opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), got 1,712,000 total votes. So, while nobody knew this at the time, obviously, Ossoff's Election Day votes were just running up the score. The same is true in Texas and North Carolina, and may possibly prove to be true in the Arizona's governor's race. It is proof of concept that: (1) Democrats are more likely to use early voting than Republicans, and (2) the impact of last-week (or so) developments can be very muted, since a big chunk of votes are locked in. There was no late surprise in these three Senate races that might have derailed the victorious Democrat, but even if there had been, it probably wouldn't have mattered.

The Redistricting Wars: As we note above, there are still 25 seats to be called. That includes two (FL-09, LA-06) that were redrawn to favor Republicans. All the other districts that were redrawn since the last election have been called, however, and the results are: 11 Democratic holds and 2 Republicans flips in districts redrawn to favor Republicans, and 6 Democratic flips in districts redrawn to favor Democrats. Put another way, thanks to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and the five seats he effectively stole by redrawing California's maps, the blue team has won this round of the redistricting wars. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the impetus for federal anti-gerrymandering legislation, so we can put an end to this nonsense once and for all.

In The Navy: If you are a female, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, and a candidate for the House of Representatives, then Tuesday was your day. There were two such candidates, and one of them, Rep.-Elect Nancy Lacore (D), flipped SC-1, the seat currently held by the obnoxious Rep. Nancy Mace (R). Lacore was fired by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, so her victory is a poke in the eye for him. Meanwhile, Eileen Laubacher (D) is on the cusp of knocking off Rep. Lauren Boebert (R). The race has been called by some outlets, though not the AP or the big three networks. Most of the outstanding votes are from a blue county (Arapahoe) where Laubacher, who leads by about 3,000 votes, has taken 65% of the vote so far.

I Am Woman: The two admirals aren't the only Democratic women headed to Washington, of course. In fact, the new Democratic caucus will include more than 100 women as members. That is a record, by a large margin.

Election Deniers Denied: Donald Trump's people have been warning him for years that talk of stolen elections is a turn-off to voters. He may never learn the lesson, nor pay a price for his rhetoric, but other election deniers are not so lucky. For example, there was only one California county that did not have any vote totals ready when polls closed, and it's the one county where the person responsible for administering the election is an election denier. That would be Shasta County—which, like most non-coastal California counties, is pretty red—and Shasta County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis. Eventually, Curtis and his staff did get the ballots processed, at which point he learned that the voters had tossed him out in favor of the not-election-denying Joanna Francescut, who ran the County's elections before Curtis got the job.

To take another example, elections in Reno, NV, are overseen by the Washoe County Commission. On Tuesday, voters tossed out most of the election-denier Republicans on the Commission, with the result that the Commission will either have a 4-1 or 3-2 Democratic majority. This is the first time in 80+ years that Democrats have controlled that body. (Reno, incidentally, is located in the R+7 NV-02, which went Democratic for the first time ever on Tuesday.)

You Have to Show Up to Win...: As we have pointed out many times, you can't beat someone with no one. And that means that a party should put up a candidate in every race, no matter how slim their chances might seem. Victoria Broderick (D) decided to run in the R+11 TN-04, against Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R) because nobody else had bothered to file. She raised very little money, got very little support from the Party, and she... won anyhow, by a margin of 280 votes.

...Except When You Don't: Eric Armstrong (D) was running for the Iowa state House, but dropped out of the race on September 7 due to ill health (too late to remove his name from the ballot, obviously). It didn't matter; he still won the race, and by nearly 10 points.

Every Vote Matters: There are usually one or two stories like this every year. There were roughly 44,000 offices on the ballot on Tuesday, and it stands to reason that some of them are going to be very close contests. Victoria Broderick's margin of victory, in TN-04, may have been small, but it was positively luxurious compared to what happened in the race for Constable of the Small Claims Court in Perry Township, IN. There, Democrat Jerry Melvin defeated Republican David Taylor, 12,274 votes to 12,272 votes.

Generational Change: There were a number of elections won by Gen-Z candidates on Tuesday. Sebastian Matta (D), who is 19, will almost certainly be the new Superior Court clerk of Maricopa County, AZ. He ran because... he noticed no other Democrat had filed (see above, about showing up). Benjamin Culberson (D), who is 22, was elected to the Gwinnett County (GA) Commission in a walk. Daniel Darris-O'Connor (D), who is also 19, has just been elected to the Massachusetts state House. He'll be the youngest member of that body in 200 years.

Good Night for LGBTQ Politicians...: At least 19 openly LGBTQ candidates were elected on Tuesday. We have mentioned Sen.-elect Chris Pappas (D-NH), who will become the first openly gay man to serve in the U.S. Senate. Flying under the radar, but arguably just as notable, is Allison Montgomery (D), a trans woman who was just elected to the state House in... Alabama. And this is not one of those Utah-type situations, where there is a deep-blue district or two in the middle of a sea of red. In each of the last three presidential elections, in what will soon be Montgomery's district, Donald Trump took the majority of the vote.

...Less So for T Americans: While LGBTQ politicians were winning on Tuesday, so were a bunch of anti-trans ballot measures. A half-dozen states imposed restrictions, mostly on trans girls playing girls sports and/or gender reassignment surgery for minors. Since these are exceedingly rare phenomena, the bans are basically just performative scapegoating. That said, they mostly won by narrow margins, and they may not survive legal challenges. It is also worth pointing out that nearly every politician who went all-in on transphobia (e.g., Ken Paxton) ended up losing, and usually bigly. So, it is at least possible this bugaboo is reaching the end of its useful life, the way that gay marriage did about 15 years ago.

The Party of Lincoln?: We should have noticed this, but didn't. With the defeat of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), New England will not have a single Republican senator. That is the first time that has been true since the Republicans first began running Senate candidates in 1856.

Data Bites: The only thing that had a worse Election Day that incumbents, perhaps, was data centers. There were 41 data-center initiatives on ballots across the U.S. on Tuesday, and Big Data lost 40 of them. That's a batting average of just .024.

We have far more content than we can possibly write or publish in a day or two. So, we'll have a lot more post-election stuff next week. (Z & A)

National Bytes: Has the Trump Presidency Entered a New Phase?

There's also a lot of news that isn't election results, but is worth a bit of attention from us. So:

A Monumental Failure, Part I: Donald Trump held his first press availability since the midterm shellacking, and the thing he spent nearly all of his time talking about was... his balls. He's heard the voters, and he's felt their pain, and he's decided that he has to really focus on what is important, namely the White House ballroom. In this way, his first post-election press conference parallels his last pre-election press conference, since he spent that one mostly talking about the Lincoln Reflecting Pool.

Our Take: There is no question that Trump is badly hurt, on an emotional level, by what happened on Tuesday. And there can be no doubt that he will search for some way to cope with that. Truth be told, his current coping strategy might be the very best option for the country. If he retreats to his happy place, and consoles himself with dreams of all the monuments to himself he is going to build, that is many orders of magnitude better than, say, attacking Iran or telling ICE to arrest the entire population of Texas.

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A Monumental Failure, Part II: That said, Trump may have trouble indulging his monument-building fantasies. Yesterday, he got the good news that his handpicked board had approved the Arc de Trump. Hours later, however, a judge placed an injunction on the ruling, to give time to decide whether the approval was legal. Meanwhile, the administration also revealed that the structure will take 39 months to complete.

Our Take: There are about 25 months left in Trump's term. So, even if the injunction is lifted, and construction begins early next year, the Arc won't be close to completed by the time he leaves office. And what do you think the odds are that even one day of work is done on it after January 20, 2029? Trump's only hope, and it's slim, is that the Democrats somehow trade the Arc for Trump's signature on some key piece of legislation. Like, maybe the Arc de Trump can be built to celebrate his decision to sign off on two more senators for the Democrats statehood for Washington, D.C.

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A Monumental Failure, Part III: In what would seem to be a tacit acknowledgment that the ballroom and the arc are iffy, Trump used his first post-election XO yesterday to create a different monument to himself. He has proclaimed that the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room of the White House are now "national monuments" and cannot be changed. Consequently, all his fake gold leafing must be retained forever.

Our Take: The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away, according to the book of Job. The same basic principle applies to XOs. If Trump really thinks that his XO cannot be overruled by an XO from a future president, he really is losing his marbles.

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A Monumental Failure, Part IV: This isn't directly Trump's doing, but the timing is poetic nonetheless. LIV golf, the rival to the PGA tour that was created for... reasons, and that held numerous events at Trump-branded courses, is no more. They announced yesterday that they would be ceasing options.

Our Take: Everything Trump touches turns to lead. This also does nothing to dissuade us from our theory that LIV was created as a way to funnel money to Trump, and that once doing that was no longer useful, the tour would disappear. Unfortunately, they forgot to give him the first ever LIV Peace Prize before shutting down.

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Market Corrections: The market has been on quite a roller coaster ride. It was down in the hours after the polls closed. Then, on Wednesday, it had its best post-election day in 44 years, with stocks gaining an average of 1.5% in value over the course of the day. Then, on Thursday, investors realized that their current obsession, namely AI, is not popular with the American people, and the road ahead could be rocky. So, there was a huge sell-off, and the market lost $2.5 trillion in value.

Our Take: We don't have any idea what the market will do in the future, and we're not even going to try to guess.

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Newsom Sort of Abolishes the Death Penalty in California: With his time in office winding down, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced yesterday that he was commuting the sentences of all 548 people on death row in California to life in prison. He can actually only do that unilaterally for the 200 or so inmates who are convicted of just one offense. All the other commutations have to be approved by the state Supreme Court.

Our Take: We have heard a rumor that Newsom is thinking about a presidential run in 2028, so this might be related to that. But, truth be told, we don't think so. California hasn't actually executed someone in 20 years, it's hard to get the needed drugs for lethal injections, and nobody wants a fiasco like what happened with Christa Pike in Tennessee. Our sense is that Newsom did it because he felt it was the right thing to do.

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Murphy Sidelined: Over the weekend, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) had a stroke and was hospitalized. The stroke appears to have been fairly minor, and he is reportedly making a rapid recovery and will soon be back to 100%.

Our Take: Murphy has a reputation as a good guy, and he's certainly someone willing to roll up his sleeves and get to work doing his job (as opposed to, say, doing his sixth interview of the week for some cable news station). We send our best wishes on a speedy and full recovery, and imagine that the readers feel the same.

It's almost inconceivable we won't have another of these next week. Maybe two, since there is just so much out there right now. Today's blog posting began with a collection of something like 500 links. (Z & A)

The Memes: Was It 9/11 or 11/9?

Yesterday, we had some of the cartoonists' responses to Tuesday's tsunami. Today, how about some of the memes that are in heavy circulation?

No Extra Vodka Ration for You, Comrade: The Russian troll farms are working overtime this week. Unfortunately for them, they tend to forget that Americans render dates in a different order than do Europeans:

For the record, March 11 was the day that Donald Trump ordered that Iran be attacked.

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Pretty Savage, Part I: Here's what Matt Drudge had up on his page the night of the election:

Drudge is a conservative, but he hates Trump.

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Pretty Savage, Part II: Similarly, The New York Post is right-leaning, but is not very Trumpy:

We never believed J.D. Vance was a viable presidential candidate. But if he was, the Post is right that his hopes died on Tuesday.

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Pretty Savage, Part III: Time magazine also knows how to throw a punch.

You see a lot of fake Time covers, but according to Getty Images and the AP, this one is real, and will hit newsstands in short order.

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I Voted: The meme part isn't Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN). We just chose these photos because they show things clearly.

The meme part is that people are going to the memorials for Renee Good and Alex Pretti and decorating them with their "I Voted' stickers.

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People Really Hate Elon Musk, Part I: It works if you don't think too hard about which side in that movie was the fascists:

For those who don't recognize the reference, it's from Starship Troopers.

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People Really Hate Elon Musk, Part II: This was circulating widely on Wednesday:

Obviously, given yesterday's downturn/correction (see above), this probably is a wee bit out of date.

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The Liberal Agenda: This is what America just voted for.

There are absolutely people out there who don't realize this is satire.

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That Was Fast: They may be liberals, but they're still capitalists.

They're for sale here.

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We're Off to See the Wizard: Remember this movie was made just 7 years after Kansas elected its second-most-recent Democratic senator.

Kansas Democrats must feel like they're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

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You Can't Fight City Hall: There are many pictures floating around showing various international landmarks (Niagara Falls, the Eiffel Tower, etc.) bathed in blue light. They are real pictures, but the implication that it's a celebration of the Democrats' victories on Tuesday is wrong (they are old photos). On the other hand, L.A. City Hall was indeed made blue on Tuesday:

Given that L.A. City Hall is quite obviously phallic, this makes quite the statement, indeed.

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Downfall: It was only a matter of time until Adolf Hitler/Donald Trump weighed in:

For those who are unfamiliar, this clip from the movie Downfall has been turned into thousands of memes by changing the subtitles from what Bruno Ganz/Hitler is really saying into a rant about the iPad, or USC football, or the prices of eggs, or whatever.

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Closing Words: We'll finish with some pithy tweets that are getting attention. Note that they get a bit ribald toward the end, so be forewarned if you keep reading:

• They would have seen this blue tsunami coming if they hadn't defunded NOAA.
• When they arrest Stephen Miller, they should bring a net so he can't escape by transforming into a cloud of bats.
• It's clear inflation is out of control. Can't even buy a senator for $475 million anymore.
• I take some small solace in the knowledge that this is what Charlie Kirk would've wanted (to be dead before Texas went blue).
• Plot Twist: The Iran War really did bring about regime change. Next time, learn from Croesus: make sure the oracle tells you which empire will fall before you attack Persia.
• A Black woman, an Indigenous woman, and a Latina walk into a bar. The bartender says, "What can I get you, Governors?"
• Oh, fu**. A Mexican DID take Greg Abbott's job.
• (From former Rep. Adam Kinzinger): The MAGAs like to call people like me a cuck. And last night I must admit I was, because I watched them get absolutely f'ed on national television
• A spanking so thorough and humiliating it triggered an alert on Mike Johnson's phone.
• Touching: Darline Graham honors her brother, the late Lindsey Graham, by finishing on bottom.

Pretty good, Pretty, pretty, pretty good. (Z & A)

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: The French General Napoleon Tried to Flee Europe after Waterloo

Many readers will know that the sleazy Brazilian politician Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the sleazy Brazilian politician Jair Bolsonaro, fled to the U.S. after his electoral defeat last month, and has been spotted hanging out at Mar-a-Lago. That is not a new bit, though—politicians who are in deep doo-doo with their own people have been fleeing to the U.S. for literally centuries. Or at least trying to flee, in some cases. So it is with Napoleon Bonaparte, who knew the end was near after he was defeated at Waterloo, and who made plans to take up refuge in the United States. He didn't make it, of course.

We only gave one clue for last week's headline theme, and it was this: "we'll say we don't like to repeat the same 'bit' in close proximity, but sometimes events are beyond our control."

And here is the solution, courtesy of reader C.A.B. in Tokyo, Japan:

The bit did bring a warm and fuzzy feeling given the impact he had on many people from those who, just like the original, were inspired onto great things.

This of course being the theme of the week: Sir Patrick Stewart, or Captain Jean Luc-Picard of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, and his passing a couple of days ago:

• DesperationWatch 2026, Part IV: Never Forget, Both Parties Engage in Ratfu**ing—Picard catchphrase to go somewhere
• Legal News: For Trump's DoJ, Weaponization Is Job Number One—How he addressed Will Riker
• Local Bytes: Early Voting Is Their Cup of Tea—Favorite beverage
• I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: M*A*S*H Was Robert Altman's Attempt to Make a Jean-Luc Godard Film—The Captain himself
• This Week in Schadenfreude: Claiming There Is Voter Fraud Does Not Make It So—Catchphrase to do something
• This Week in Freudenfreude: Talk about a Worthy Enterprise—Picard's ship

Correct. He's also French, from this headline.

Here are the first 60 readers to get it right:

R.S. in Milan, OH D.M. in Austin, TX N.S. in Fayetteville, NY K.G.W. in Lafayette, IN F.W. in Nijmegen, The Netherlands B.H. in Southborough, MA S.G. in Durham, NC W.V. in Hemet, CA N.H. in London, England, UK C.A. in Richmond, VA M.W. in Altea, Spain J.S. in Chevy Chase, MD J.P. in Fredericksburg, VA D.V. in Plymouth, MA L.W. in Los Angeles, CA D.K. in Bethesda, MD P.Q. in Metuchen, NJ E.V. in Manchester, MO A.T. in Quincy, IL R.W.G. in Bexley, OH T.V. in Dinwiddie, VA G.M.K. in Mishawaka, IN R.S. in Landing, NJ J.T. in San Diego, CA H.B. in Toronto, ON, Canada D.H. in Portland, OR R.N. in Cleveland, OH D.B. in Pottstown, PA C.C. in Stratham, NH P.R. in Kirksville, MO

L.B. in Bozeman, MT M.D. in North Canton, OH M.M. in Dunellen, NJ S.K. in Ardmore, PA T.K. in Manchester, MO A.J. in Moorhead, MN M.W. in Charlotte, NC M.V. in Oak Park, IL D.M. in Grand Rapids, MI M.K. in Long Branch, NJ J.T. in Somerville, MA R.B. in Richmond, VA R.J.L. in Columbus, IN B.R. in Arlington, MA M.E. in Stanwood, WA C.D.K. in Yorkshire, England, UK C.J. in Chicago, IL S.S. in Lauderhill, FL M.K. in Bothell, WA R.F.W. in Atlanta, GA J.M. in St. Lawrence County, NY C.O. in Marion, IA J.G. in Berkeley, CA E.A. in Okemos, MI R.E.M. in Brooklyn, NY J.M.R. in Muncie, IN D.M. in Crystal Lake, IL P.W. in Tulalip, WA M.T. in Wheat Ridge, CO J.W. in Hillsboro, OR

The 60th correct response was received at 10:05 a.m. PT on Friday.

For this week's theme, it relies on one word in some headlines, multiple words in others, and it's in the category History. For a hint, we'll say that it's the third timely headline theme in a row, though not because someone died this time.

If you have a guess, send it to comments@electoral-vote.com with subject line November 6 Headlines. (Z)

This Week in Schadenfreude: Laura Loomer Does Her Best Chernobyl Impression

Donald Trump has some really awful people in his orbit, but there aren't too many of them who are as reprehensible as Laura Loomer. She's a conspiracy theorist, a bigot, a homophobe, a moron and a Russian useful idiot. She's also been banned and unbanned by pretty much every social media platform in existence.

Needless to say, for someone who is MAGA, and who really hates Muslims and LGBTQ people and people of color, Tuesday was torture for Loomer. And she responded in the same way that her idol, Donald Trump, does: by rage-posting to social media. But unlike Trump, she's a good typist. She's also clearly got some sort of dysfunction. He does too, but hers is of a different sort—possibly OCD, or something like that. And someone decided to put together a screen shot of as many of her Tuesday tweets as could be fit into one image:

It's really quite a bizarre mélange of stuff. A lot of it is warning about the Muslims, of course, and how America is going to have to learn how to live under sharia law. There's also a lot of xenophobic stuff, about how "the illegals" are going to decide all elections from here on out. She also expresses hope that Donald Trump will "veto everything," apparently not realizing that the Democrats are going to focus mostly on things that are not veto-able. At times, she gets truly morose, and wonders if God exists. And in the most-quoted tweet of all, she wrote: "I hate to say it, but America is over."

The image doesn't capture all of the tweets. In total, there were close to 150 of them, adding up to an unbelievable 70,000 words. We thought we'd done pretty well to produce 14,000 words in 12 hours, but clearly we are just pikers (although not Hasan Pikers). Anyhow, we can't think of a better person than Laura Loomer to receive a nice, 12-hour jolt of reality. (Z)

This Week in Freudenfreude: Maybe the Apocalypse Is Not Nigh, After All

The Christianity that has predominated in the American South for the last 75 years or so has tended to come in two flavors. The first of those is the apocalyptic stuff, where there is an emphasis on sin and damnation and how we're living in a new Sodom and Gomorrah. And somehow, it is necessary to both fight back against the forces of sin and evil (e.g., trans girls trying to play high school soccer), and yet to also accept that the end of times is probably upon us.

We can understand the scriptural basis for this view. Take a bunch of Old Testament, wrathful God stuff, and then add a dollop of Revelation, and we can see how you get there (even if you kinda have to ignore the middle parts of the book). The other flavor of Christianity is prosperity gospel; basically, the notion that you do what it takes to achieve material wealth, and if you are successful, that is proof of God's approval, and proof that you are a good person. This one, we cannot grasp the scriptural basis. That's not within a country mile of the message of Jesus' ministry, or of Paul's theology.

(Z) worked for several years for a specialist in the history of religions. And he always said that if you want to boil Jesus' message down to the basics, it's this: radical inclusivity. Yeshua ben Yosef found room for everyone in his movement, and emphasized that "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; that defiles a person." In other words, it's not enough to just follow the "rules" or perform the rituals. You have to speak and you have to act in a moral and compassionate manner. If you read the Gospels without preconceived notions, you cannot doubt that Jesus would deem a Hindu or Buddhist who spends their lives helping the poor to be more worthy of entry into the Kingdom of Heaven than, say, Joel Osteen.

We write this because one cannot help but notice that in the past few years, and in particular on Tuesday, the more positive (and, in our view, accurate) version of Jesus' message is reasserting itself in Southern culture and politics. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) has long embraced radical inclusivity. Sen.-elect James Talarico does, as well, and so too does Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton. Before them, we can't think of a Christian Southerner who embraced this more tolerant version of the religion, and who achieved real power, since Jimmy Carter.

If that is where things are headed, if the so-called Christian Left is ascendant, that would be a game-changer in American politics. If the Democrats actually make serious inroads with white, Christian voters, then the Republican Party is in big trouble, and would have to reconfigure dramatically.

It would also be a game-changer in terms of American culture. The fusing of an angry, feel-free-to-judge-others version of Christianity with right-wing politics is what gives us Christian nationalism. And actual Christian nationalists basically cannot compromise because their way is ostensibly "God's way." Meanwhile, phony Christian nationalists know they can get the real ones on board by leveraging things like gay marriage or gender-affirming care as wedge issues, supposed "proof" of the other side's wickedness.

It is true that the United States has always had a vocal population of finger-wagging Christians. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way. And with young people drifting away from religion in large numbers, a more inclusive approach could be the way to get some of them back. There's gotta be a reason why the last two popes, when they speak/spoke, tended to sound an awful lot like... well, Jimmy Carter.

Have a good weekend, all! (Z)

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