The Wannabe Emperor Still Has No Clothes, and He Knows It

 

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter.” – Donald J. Trump, after losing the midterms in record fashion

Of course, this election was all about Trump. In the lead-up to the election, Trump begged his MAGAts 47 times to make this election all about him. Vote as if he were on the ballot, he told them repeatedly. Fortunately, most Americans did just that. And don’t be fooled by Trump’s lie. He knows full well that the American people just tossed him and his authoritarian dream in the dumpster of history. He knows that a growing mass of Americans detest him and what he has done to the country they love. This wasn’t just about the economic hardship that he has caused with his unconstitutional tariffs and his illegal, unnecessary war in Iran. This was also about the bottomless corruption that defines Trump and the massive self-dealing he has perpetrated as he robbed ordinary Americans to enrich himself. This was about the cruelty that he seems to delight in, cruelty in plain view as ICE detains and deports law-abiding immigrants who want nothing more than a chance at a better life, cruelty in less plain view as millions die in poor countries because Trump and Musk killed USAID, and cruelty in the way Trump kowtows to brutal dictators and cuts funding to Ukraine while alienating our democratic friends abroad.

Yes, Trump knows all this. But he can’t bring himself to admit it. His massive and fragile ego won’t permit it. I know he’s largely delusional, but I have to wonder what he sees when he looks at his grotesque orange caricature in the mirror. Does he really believe all the nonsense he spews? Does he really think we’re in a “golden age”? Does he really believe all the flattering news clips that his Natalie feeds him? Maybe he did before Tuesday’s election. But now? No. He knows. He knows that most Americans detest him and his “policies.”

I’ll give him this much credit, though. He was right about the polls. They were indeed wrong. But not as he imagined. They were far too cautious and adjusted downward, anticipating a red shift that never materialized. No, the polls were way off. The blue wave some predicted was not even a blue tsunami. It was far larger than that. Texas went almost totally blue. And Georgia. Then there are Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina, Ohio. And there’s a good chance that Mississippi will elect a Black Democrat to the Senate. Yes, Mississippi. This was a total repudiation of everything Trump is and has done to our country.

How did this happen? There are many reasons, but one is what Trump has done to the Republican Party. During his first term, he had a cabinet, advisors, and a vice president who were more or less regular Republicans and served to check his worst impulses. He learned from that experience and this time filled his cabinet, his staff, and the vice presidency with a bunch of unqualified bootlickers. And then he set about purging the GOP of any political candidates who would not bow down to him. The result is that the Republican Party is filled with a whole host of weak candidates. The worst of the bunch was Paxton in Texas. His only qualification for the GOP Senate nomination was that he is almost as corrupt Trump. But even Texas Republicans couldn’t stomach him. Talarico won in a landslide, despite Elon Musk dumping tens of millions of dollars into that race. And just the thought that Texas is sending a man as good and decent as James Talarico to the Senate brings tears to my eyes. What an inspiring story.

And then I think about my home state of Utah. I am still represented by the morally bankrupt Mike Lee, a total embarrassment to the state and to the Church. But it was largely the Mormon vote that elected Lee. That is hard to swallow. Maybe in 2028, when he is up for reelection, even the Mormons will get a clue and join the blue tsunami. They did, after all, still send three Trump enablers back to Washington in the House. But there is a glimmer of hope. Perhaps in this election, gerrymandering may have finally died in Utah. The power-hungry legislature’s final stab at reviving partisan redistricting died a quick and definitive death in Tuesday’s election. Proposition B went down in flames. And there’s a good possibility that the GOP supermajority in the state’s lower chamber is also gone. So maybe there’s hope. But Utah is always about ten years behind the curve. We’ll see.

Of course, Trump is still president, and his administration is filled with deplorable (yes, that word) toadies and sycophants and downright evil men like Stephen Miller and Russell Vought. But with the wild swing in Congress, there will be investigations into the rampant corruption and much-needed legislation passed to correct many of the devastating moves Trump and his lackeys have made. He may veto a lot of good legislation, but if he does, Congress will surely try to override his veto. If they do, some principled Republicans may join them in fixing what they have broken. If not, their votes against the legislation will stand as black marks against them in the 2028 election.

Trump is now officially a lame duck, and I won’t be surprised if his hold over the Republican Party slowly vanishes as the party looks to its post-Trump future with an eye on the shellacking they just experienced, but Trump can and will still cause a whole truckload of trouble. He is the sort to break things on his way out. Don’t expect his exit to be either quiet or harmless.

For now, though, I’m still on a well-deserved high from Tuesday’s election results. I have hope for America again. It took far too long, but the people finally said, “Enough!!!”