I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

Unless you managed to spend all of the last 36 hours curled up in the fetal position, you know that it's official, and Donald Trump is the 47th President of the United States. Here's how various outlets had it:

It's interesting that Fox was the most reserved. It's not too much a secret that the Murdoch-Trump relationship is a shotgun marriage.

Here's a brief rundown of the big stories of the day:

• Harris Concedes: Not only has the Electoral College been called for Trump, but Kamala Harris has conceded. She called Trump to offer congratulations, and gave a speech in which she encouraged her supporters to accept the results, but to "never give up."
  
  
• House Is Up in the Air: Because there are many, many close races, control of the House of Representatives is still to be determined. As of this writing, the Republicans have won 209 seats, the Democrats 187. That includes 6 GOP flips and 2 Democratic flips, for a current net gain of four seats for the red team.
  
  
• So Are Three Senate Seats: In Pennsylvania, David McCormick (R) is up on Sen. Bob Casey (D), 48.9% to 48.5%, with 97% reporting. In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) is up on Sam Brown (R), 47.6% to 46.7%, with 93% reporting. In Arizona, Ruben Gallego (D) is up on Kari Lake (R), 50% to 47.9%, with 70% reporting.
  
  
• And Two States: As you can see from our up-to-date map above, Nevada and Arizona are still too close to call. In the former, with 94% reporting, Donald Trump is up 51% to 47.2%. In the latter, with 70% reporting, Trump is up 52.3% to 46.8%. Some outlets have not called Alaska, but that's only because of the instant-runoff voting. We all know where those EVs are going.
  
  
• It's the Turnout, Stupid, Part I: The dominant story of the election thus far is the turnout. Donald Trump collected 62 million votes in 2016, grew that to 74 million in 2020, and will check in at a bit less than 74 million this year. In other words, to the extent that he won new voters over this year, they were offset by voters who jumped ship. He really does have a pretty hard ceiling. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton collected 66 million votes in 2016, Joe Biden got 81 million in 2020, and this year, Kamala Harris is going to end up with about 68 million. "Where did all those Biden voters go?" is a question that will haunt Democratic operatives, not to mention political commentators, for months or years.
  
  
• It's the Turnout, Stupid, Part II: Consistent with trailing Biden by 13 million votes, Harris did not outperform Biden in any state.
  
  
• Bernie Kvetches: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who won reelection on Tuesday, thinks he knows what went wrong for the Democrats:

  It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.

  This is typical Bernie: Big words, but little connection to the real world. What, exactly, does he propose Democrats should do? Should they, for example, talk about raising the minimum wage? Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did that. Should they actually INCREASE the minimum wage? Biden tried, and was stymied by the filibuster and by pro-corporate types in his very narrow Senate majority (ahem, Kyrsten Sinema). As a sitting U.S. Senator, you would think Sanders would know this. Meanwhile, the Biden administration supported strikes by walking union picket lines, created blue-collar jobs with the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act, helped secure union pensions that were underfunded, and tried to help low-income folks who have student loans, among other initiatives. This does not sound like Biden and Harris "abandoned working class people" to us.
  
  It would be nice if, for once, Sanders would include something actionable in his complaining and finger-pointing. Maybe he did not notice, but on Tuesday the U.S. revealed itself to be a firmly center-right country. That is the context in which Democrats must operate. Well, the obvious thing they could do is have a presidential candidate who actually is a white working class man. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) comes to mind, although his stroke would become the only issue in 2028. Surely there is a white male Democratic governor or senator who genuinely has a working-class background. Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) is also a real possibility.
  
  
• Stein, Too: Jill Stein echoed Sanders, claiming the Democrats "betrayed their base" by pursuing policies other than the ones they were elected on. This is interesting analysis coming from an environmentalist party candidate who ran entirely on Gaza. One can only hope this is the last we hear of Stein.
  
  
• Low-Information Voters: In a story that does not reflect well on the voting public, one of the most popular searches on Google on Tuesday was "Did Joe Biden drop out"?
  
  
• Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied, Part I: Special Counsel Jack Smith is working to wind down the federal criminal cases against Trump. Obviously, he knows that he'll never finish any of them before Trump returns to power and has the cases killed. There is also some suggestion that Smith wants to leave the cases intact, and unresolved, so that they might be picked up in the future.
  
  Other than the overtly corrupt ones (ahem, Bill Barr), has any AG ever been a greater failure than Merrick Garland? Had he moved more quickly, the cases might well have been adjudicated, and the American people would have known if they were being asked to consider a candidate who had committed crimes against the federal government. Maybe that wouldn't have changed the outcome—we don't know—but it's information the voters should have had.
  
  
• Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied, Part II: Meanwhile, Judge Juan Merchan is considering a dismissal of Trump's felony convictions in New York. The obvious issue is that it's not especially plausible to sentence a sitting president to prison time, nor to delay sentencing for 4 years. Could Merchan impose a sentence, then suspend it until January 2029? We may soon find out. He could impose a serious fine however.
  
  
• Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied, Part III: Fulton County DA Fani Willis was reelected Tuesday. Will she continue to pursue HER case against Trump? She's not saying, especially since she's awaiting a hearing about whether or not she's even allowed to remain on the case. There are no existing rules about a state-level official pursuing legal action against a sitting president, but again, there are rather significant logistical problems there.
  
  
• Congratulations: Jeff Bezos continued his program of a**-kissing, congratulating Trump on an "extraordinary political comeback." We have bad news for you, Jeff: All those government contracts are going to go to Elon Musk's SpaceX, no matter how much you kowtow to Trump.
  
  
• Trump-Proofed: The Biden administration is scurrying around, trying to figure out how it can Trump-Proof various foreign policy issues. The basic divide is between folks who say "there's nothing we can do" and those who say "can't hurt to try."

That's the big news from Wednesday. Thursday will bring more, undoubtedly. (Z)

The Rest of the Week

We have both been stretched thin by personal and professional commitments, in addition to responsibilities related to this site.

Over the upcoming weeks, there are many, many subjects we'll dig into. For example:

• How much of his agenda will Donald Trump actually be able to implement?
• Who are the candidates for Trump's cabinet?
• Who are the leading candidates to run for the Democrats in 2028?
• Who SHOULD BE the leading candidates to run for the Democrats in 2028?
• Where did all the Joe Biden voters go?
• Are there any silver linings here for Democrats?
• What will happen with Israel?
• What will happen with Ukraine?
• Will Trump survive 4 years in office?
• If Trump does survive, will he leave office at the end of his term?
• Has there been a realignment?

However, those questions can wait a few days, or weeks, or more.

Instead, tomorrow, we're going to break format a bit. We'll do another rundown, in capsule form, of whatever news there is. Then, we're going to run some comments, organized by general subject. Each group will be followed by a comment from us. Not too dissimilar from the Sunday mailbag, except that our comments will be a bit more substantive. We think it is a time for readers to see what we are thinking, and what other readers are thinking. And we think this approach is the best way to accomplish that. We will also answer some questions tomorrow.

And then... we are taking the weekend off. We need a breather, and if we don't get one, the quality of the site will suffer more than it already has. We'll be back to normal next week. (Z)

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---The Votemaster and Zenger