First, a few good comments about the US Mid-Terms results - we spent the last two years appalled and terrified, and today we saw the sun came out.
For one thing, the two largest cities in North America now have Democratic Socialist mayors - Zoltan in New York and Nithya in Los Angeles. And they're both great.
I don't think it succeeds anymore to use pejorative labels to undermine charismatic candidates, particularly with younger voters now. Socialist? What's that and who cares anyway?I can’t believe Los Angeles will finally have a mayor that knows what the inside of a bus/train looks like that’s not for a photo op 😭😭😭
— bottomfishers for Nithya Raman (@cahsrslut.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:07 PM
Negative labels don't land with investors either🚨🚨 leftists born in the 1980s are now running Los Angeles and New York City 😭😭😭😭😭😭
— Molly Knight (@mollyknight.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:05 PM
[image or embed]
Breaking News: Wall Street had its best day in months as investors welcomed the midterm results, putting political uncertainty behind them.
— The New York Times (@nytimes.com) November 4, 2026 at 3:27 PM
[image or embed]
— KittyKatGirl😻🙏💞🐞 (@mary1kathy.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 12:20 PM
you know who else is from GODDAMN KANSAS AND HATES FASCISTS???!
— Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 1:26 PM
[image or embed]
honestly have never felt a full 24 hours of just nonstop good news
— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:27 PM
[image or embed]
Hand to God: hearing that the mood in the pentagon today is ecstatic!
— Adam Kinzinger (@adamkinzinger.substack.com) November 4, 2026 at 10:30 AM
Thinking tonight about all the Cabinet secretaries and White House officials who spent the last two years being absolute pricks to the congressional Democrats who now have total oversight power over them.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 6:50 PM
This is not about party politics. This is about a trillionaire who made it his life's mission to kill poor and brown people by taking away lifesaving aid, to make the world unsafe for trans folks, and to install fascist governments. Olive branch my ass. Fuck him and his enablers. Now and forever.
— Orcish Librarian (@bibliovoreorc.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 12:58 PM
[image or embed]
Next, some of the posts and articles I saw today, talking about what comes next for America and for Canada.
— conifergirl.bsky.social (@conifergirl.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 4:53 PM
Hard to watch Americans elect authentic, uncompromised, charismatic younger Dems all over the country… and then have @schumer.senate.gov & @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social immediately step out as the front men — who are really none of those things.
— The Tennessee Holler (@thetnholler.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 10:53 AM
Hakeem Jeffries: "The American people aren't interested in us getting even." Yes we are.
— Allison Gill (@muellershewrote.com) November 4, 2026 at 1:52 PM
All this talk of "getting even" or payback or whatever. It's not "getting even". It's enforcing the law. Say that. Correct that. Don't fall into that trap. There's absolutely no reason to.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 2:57 PM
They can’t steal ’28 now.
— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 11:17 AM
[image or embed]
Garrett Graff on the demand for justice after two years of corruptionIncluding conceivable swing state (except, arguably, Florida). They can’t rig 2028 now.
— George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 (@gtconway.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 10:08 AM
[image or embed]
...Authoritarianism lost, bigly. ...Donald Trump, with the complete assent of the GOP-led Congress, tried to speedrun an unwinding and descent into authoritarianism last year — and failed. They failed not because of the strength of institutions — many of which actually capitulated, twisted themselves, and kowtowed to accommodate Donald Trump — but because of the strength of individuals, many of whom stood up to the terroristic attacks of Border Patrol on ICE on America’s streets at great personal risk.Ryan Broderick on how Republicans lost the terminally on-line
“I Voted” stickers were left in Minneapolis on the memorials to Alex Pretti and Renee Good, and in Texas more than 1,000 “I Voted” stickers blanketed a memorial to Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
Jon Ossoff won handily in Georgia on a platform that boiled down to basically: “I don’t like Nazis.”
The “No Kings” protests mattered — and were real.
So much for the Thousand-Year Trump Reich.
While the top line is a clear rejection of authoritarianism, to me there’s a clear and relatively simple recipe for Trump’s collapse: Corruption mattered. Up, down, and across the country, the nation rejected kleptocracy, oligarchy, and Silicon Valley’s new era of techno-fascism. Data centers lost coast to coast.
History will record that Trump’s speedrun to authoritarianism failed in specific places at specific times. ABC’s forced retreat from taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air last September after Kimmel criticized Charlie Kirk broke the fever of institutional collapse and “chilled speech” that had settled over the country in the first half of 2025; ICE’s failed invasion of Minneapolis, and to a lesser degree Chicago, ended what was supposed to be the Trump administration’s signature domestic agenda item and its ticket to steal future elections; the Iran war ended its vision of remaking the world order in Trump’s image. At home, the controversy and cover-up of the Epstein Files collapsed the support of Trump’s base, and the combination of the Iran War and Trump’s capricious and illegal tariffs allowed inflation and the cost of living to spiral out of control.
In the end, one of the most shocking aspects of yesterday’s election was how normal it was. There were no ICE checkpoints on the way to polling places. No attempts by FBI agents to seize ballot boxes. The Justice Department sent a 1000 polling monitors out across the country, to all 50 states for the first time, targeting minority districts, and … nothing happened. Lawyers were ready — and never got called.
Also, in the breadth of victories yesterday, the 2028 election got a lot harder to steal.
Ohio and Georgia both flipped their secretaries of state to Democrat.
Other states, potentially like North Carolina and Texas, might be able to undo their GOP gerrymandering. It’s possible — possible — that Democrats now control enough state houses that they could secure the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and do away legislatively with the electoral college. (Huzzah!)
It is an incredible statement of where we are that we need to think like this — and it should be a warning about the next stage of where we go as a country. Barack Obama called overnight for “a politics that brings people together rather than divides them.” Hakeem Jeffries demonstrated how out of touch he is with the country’s mood this morning by saying, “The American people don't want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf.” I disagree. America needs to ensure that MAGA never rises from the electoral grave it was buried in last night. Impeachment, prosecutions, investigations, subpoenas — Democrats need to spend these years ahead focused on ensuring justice.
That doesn’t mean NOT focusing on making Americans’ lives better, but a key part of making Americans’ lives better is ensuring that our country can be more just, more equal, and more free. And that involves burying MAGA for good.
This wasn’t about a few bad candidates — a la Ken Paxton or Vivek Ramaswamy. This wasn’t “just” about the cost of eggs or diesel. As Brian Buetler wrote this morning, “No one wins a historic realignment election because inflation is slightly above trend. The public wants an end to the scourges of tyranny. Deliver it.”
There is a better path ahead. And Democrats should embrace this as a broad mandate to deliver a better future, more just, more equal, and more free. Already today the DC media and punditocracy will try to pretend that this is not as huge a mandate as it is.
These election results are a chance to rewrite the future of America.
The sheer terror of ICE and Stephen Miller has opened a window and pathway for a pro-immigration politics. Greg Sargent saw this coming last month, in the strength of James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed. America — contrary to the rhetoric of Fox News and worse — likes immigrants. In Sargent’s interview with El-Sayed, the Michigan candidate said, “People like [JD] Vance think America is too small for some of us. I think America is big enough. America has been big enough include people whose families came, were here before anybody else showed up, or who were brought here despite themselves. His view of America is small -- small like him.”
That to me is the hope in this moment we should embrace....
... You will no doubt see all kinds of explanations this week about what exactly caused yesterday’s blue tsunami....Evan Scrimshaw on the long-term impact
...I’ve actually got one more explanation for you. One that might not be more or less important than gas prices or AI, but will, I suspect, come to define the vibe shift that follows yesterday’s vote and absolutely inform how Republicans respond to it over the next two years. According to exit polls, Republicans basically lost their entire post-Gamergate base of young men. ABC News is reporting a jaw-dropping nearly 40% swing to the left among men 18-29....
...And this seems to have caught the Republicans completely unaware.
The Trump administration spent the weeks leading up to the midterms posting incomprehensible quirk chungus Reddit slop about Malfoid, the genderbent AI Draco Malfoy, Nazi Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels, racist vibe coded browser games, lame lo-fi hip hop radio stations, and stupid One Piece memes. I can’t say it was embarrassing — or even impactful — enough to change Republicans to Democrats, but it certainly isn’t a good look as of this morning. “Shocking everyone, Anakin Skywalker memes seem to have failed to deliver a win for the Republican Party,” podcaster Robert Evans wrote on Bluesky.
This was both the result of, and exacerbated by, right-wingers being swallowed by their own filter bubble over the last few years. Which leads me to my unified theory of what went wrong for Republicans this summer (beyond all the other stuff that went wrong for Republicans this summer).
Back in May, I wrote that right-wing influencer Ben Shapiro’s traffic was in a death spiral. It proved to be the canary in the coal mine for Republicans going into the midterms. I suspect that Shapiro’s Facebook traffic was cratering the way all website traffic is cratering right now, which meant they couldn’t spend as much on buying inorganic YouTube traffic, which meant their public view counts were lagging, which meant they couldn’t raise as much Republican dark money, which broke their whole flywheel, and crushed their algorithmic reach. And based on what I’ve seen, this was happening across the right-wing digital media landscape this year. Established digital media players like Tim Pool and Steven Crowder have all been caught grumbling about traffic (and funding) recently. But no one who could do anything noticed any of this, ironically enough, because of Musk.
All of the major factions of the American right — Silicon Valley oligarchs, AI sex cult dweebs, Substack race scientists, Trumpist DC staffer goblins, psychotic Nazi wizards, and pickup truck selfie divorcés — are all on one app now. It’s the perfect honey pot. They spend their days on X getting their brains absolutely melted by the site’s infinite scroll 4chan feed and because they’re conservatives they obviously assume their sad, lonely worldview and experience online is universal. ...But it wasn’t! It turns out The Cruel Kid’s Table was shadowboxing with algorithmic ghosts all summer while a big chunk of their core demographic realized owning the libs doesn’t feel so good when gas is $6 a gallon....
...Last night was great as an exercise in destroying Trump and the GOP, and that is a great part of it. But this is also the kind of night that puts Democrats in great shape for the next few cycles. It is the kind of night that the reverberations of will last decades, as both the choices made by Democrats stop Trump from stacking the courts and enable the next Democratic President a much easier Congress to navigate, but also in the candidates elected this week who will go on to bigger things. Across all these states, Democrats now have a bench of quality candidates ready to step up. The question isn’t “who runs to try and beat Ted Budd in 2028?”, it’s “which of the 12 high quality options should North Carolina Democrats go with?” It’s not “can we find a serious person to try and seriously contest Iowa’s open seat?”, but “how do we stop a 5 person primary where everyone is credible?” Those are great problems to have.Wesley Wark on intelligence and security
It’s fun to think about how bad things are for Republicans. It’s so fun watching bad things happen to bad people. It’s true the easy narrative will be that the GOP lost the election. They did. But it’s worth pointing out that the Democratic Party was being left for dead not 2 years ago, and now they’ve just managed the biggest landslide for either party in my life.
And fuck it feels good.
...Congress has significant oversight powers when it comes to US intelligence. How it will exercise them remains to be seen, of course, but here are some predictions:Paul Wells on whether other countries should comment on Trump's loss
· Expect significant pressure on the FBI director, Kash Patel, over allegations of incompetence and corruption. Democrats will look to force his resignation.
· Expect significant scrutiny of the work of the new Director of National Intelligence, Trump loyalist and former legal counsel, Jay Clayton. Clayton’s appointment to the post was only confirmed in late July 2026, principally to ensure that his temporary predecessor, Bill Pulte, was given the bum’s rush. A democratic Congress will press him to stop the Trump war on the alleged ‘deep-state;’ end the politicisation of intelligence; and make clear his plans for the DNI role.
· Expect CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, to come under pressure about the Agency’s assessment of the threat from Iran and its nuclear program and about the state of the Ukraine war.
· Expect significant push-back on any Trump administration policies downgrading U.S. support, including intelligence support, for Ukraine.
· Expect serious scrutiny of the annual US intelligence community annual (global) threat assessment, presented to Congress in classified and unclassified forms, and subject to televised hearings, typically in March each year. By this time a Democratic Congress will have really settled in, eager to take on Trump and eager to take on the Director of National Intelligence, Clayton, who must present its findings to Congress. The hearings could become a battle royal over a Trumpian vision of the world....
...I’m not at all immune to the gigantic catharsis that comes from watching an idiot and his lackeys take an almighty shitknocking, but as a rule governing shouldn’t be a venue for catharsis, so I don’t mind the lack of gloating from other world leaders.While heads of governments didn't comment on the Mid-Terms, Poilievre and several provincial premiers did
I like what Dominic LeBlanc said when he came out to comment: the midterm returns “are interesting, but they will not have any significant impact in terms of our government’s focus and work.” We’ll see. The pressure on the Carney government to change something in response to an event as big as the midterm rout will be intense. There’s a robust constituency in Canada for the notion that Canada is flouting laws of nature when it does anything except lob raw materials over the Canada-US border so the Americans can turn them into something useful. This is the “get a deal” crowd, and they’ll be emboldened not only by the midterms but by the fact that Carney is actually trying quite hard to get a deal. The prime minister demonstrated in August that he has a bottom line, but that doesn’t mean he’s immune to pressure.
There’s also the question of whether a weakened Trump robs Carney of his power. The PM is a crisis capitalist, in this reading, who’s been pushing an illiberal agenda under the guise of saving liberalism. Liberals are really good at responding to critics by saying “Not now — the stakes are too high.” Now that the stakes are measurably lower, does Carney become more vulnerable?
I have more questions for you today than answers. I’m reluctant to short the Carney lucky streak, which, for instance, has lasted at least long enough to send him a separatist Quebec premier who seems not to have the faintest idea what Quebecers want their governments to work on. Try as I might, I can’t really make a Democratic wave in US politics into a short-term problem for Carney.
So maybe it’s best to resist the Ottawa temptation to game everything out. What governing choices would you and I make, if we were trying to govern well?
I can only speak for myself. First, I’d be reluctant to count on the Democrats to make Canada’s economy function well. I’m old enough to remember Joe Biden. A swing vote can swing back, indeed seems lately in the American case to be riding loose hinges, and the Biden-era global subsidy race wasn’t a lot more pleasant than the Trump tariffs while it lasted. I think the neighbours have made themselves hard to rely on, so Canada should rely on them less. That means making Canada into a place that can build things again — the subject of my latest podcast episode, and of several to come — and being less of a stranger to the rest of the world. So Tuesday changed everything, and also not much.
Views from Canada on the implications of midterm elections results for the U.S./Canada relationship - per CTV News.
— Anna Clark (@annaleighclark.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 12:32 PM
[image or embed]
Doug Ford on the U.S. midterms: "I was doing cartwheels down the street, and you ever seen a big guy like me doing cartwheels. I was jumping up and down when the results were coming in."
— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 10:31 AM
[image or embed]
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew calls for end of U.S. tariffs after Trump rebuked in midterms
— Medias 🇨🇦 (@mediasca.skyfleet.blue) November 4, 2026 at 2:03 PM
[image or embed]
Meanwhile in the real world Alberta is in real trouble… as separatist nonsense is driving investment away from Calgary and oil futures are plummeting ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/alberta...
— Orlagh O’Kelly (@orlaghokelly.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 7:56 PM
[image or embed]
B.C. premier-designate Doerkson doesn’t see quick end to trade war post U.S. midterms #2026Provincial
— Energeticcity.ca (@energeticcity.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 4:04 PM
[image or embed]
Canadian business leaders are already suggesting that the midterm results signal a return to normalcy -- and the need for an immediate trade deal with Trump. Ignore them, Prime Minister. #cdnpoli www.nationalobserver.com/2026/11/04/o...
— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 12:05 PM
[image or embed]
And I wonder if Trump will still dare to invite Putin to the G20?Dear Canada and Ukraine, It took us some time, but we did it and now it’s time for the MAGA fascists to pay the price for their destruction and crime spree. Sincerely, Americans 💙🌊🇺🇸
— Ricky Davila (@therickydavila.bsky.social) November 4, 2026 at 10:31 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment