We Were Saved By Incompetence

 This is perhaps the finest lede in the history of journalism:

What began five years ago with the made-for-TV announcement of Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions from the escalator of his ritzy Manhattan high-rise ended Saturday with his aging lawyer shouting conspiracy theories and vowing lawsuits in a Northeast Philadelphia parking lot, near a sex shop and a crematorium.

When the history of this period is written, the sheer stupidity of Trump and many of his surrogates will take center stage.

The question going forward will be whether a "smart" Trump like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley will mesh as well with the Trumpenproletariat. Trump's Queens/Fox News bullshit fit like a glove with the Comfortably Aggrieved that make up his base. 

This is an interesting thread about how the Senate got away from Democrats. Susan Collins vote against Amy Coney Barrett likely lifted her over Sara Gideon. Leftists that suggest Democrats didn't do a good enough job running on economic populist issues were mostly not in states that Democrats blanketed with ads about health insurance. They tried.

This is a key point:

Voters in these states reverted to form. GOP internal polling showed that as voters across the board became more aware Biden was likely to win the presidency in the final weeks, it became harder for Democratic candidates to win over the Republicans and conservative-leaning independents they needed to win. The chance to compete slipped away from Democrats in Kansas and Montana. Greenfield’s advantage over Ernst in Iowa ― one poll showed the Democrat winning 10% of Trump voters ― evaporated. 

When we talk about post-Trump politics, we need to account for the fact that much of the country remains steadfastly "conservative." The Blue Wave of 2018 was largely fueled by anti-Trumpism, with independents and moderate Republicans breaking with the GOP and wanting a check on his more damaging behavior. However, the record-breaking turnout was also caused by Trump activating non-voters, too.

Right now, the Democrats' flipping of the suburb and college-educated whites is critical, because they are a fairly reliable voting demographic. If you can solidify the suburbs of Atlanta and Philly, and eventually flip Charlotte and the Research Triangle, then you have a path to Senate control. 

While people are fretting over Trump trying to hold on to power and threatening all sorts of shenanigans, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock should probably hope that Trump threatens to stay in the White House at least through the special election. That could motivate those who are sick of Trump to join with young voters and African Americans to flip those two seats and create a 50-50 Senate. 

When Trump and his cruel but inept cronies exit the scene, there will be an attempt to replicate it among Republicans in 2024. I just don't know if any of them have the juice to do it. 

But those on the Left who think Democrats lost ground in the House and failed to flip the Senate because they didn't run on free college or Medicare For All are deluding themselves. 

Still, I leave you with this from the Fours Seasons Landscaping story, to hopefully make you smile:

But not all in the neighborhood were so amused. The 78-year-old employee manning the counter at the Fantasy Island sex shop, who declined to give his name, said the phone had been ringing off the hook since Saturday with callers asking: “Is Rudy Giuliani there?”