So Trump won. In state after state, Harris got fewer votes than Biden in 2020.
Once Trump won Pennsylvania, the race was over.
She brought joy and the promise of bipartisanship to the race. Voters rejected her optimism and chose the glowering, angry man.
I am frankly frightened for the future.
Trump’s victory may be the death knell for NATO. It certainly is the end of US support for Ukraine in its fight for freedom. It’s great news for Putin. It may mean high tariffs and more inflation. It may mean the repeal of Obamacare, leaving millions of people without health insurance. It may mean the roundup of 10-15 million immigrants–men, women, and children; the erection of thousands of detention camps to hold them; and mass deportations. It may mean the prosecution of Trump’s “enemies”: Joe Biden; Kamala Harris; Nancy Pelosi; Liz Cheney; and anyone else he chooses. It surely means a pardon for the J6 insurrectionists.
I didn’t expect that voters would choose a 78-year-old man who built his campaign around fear and hatred: racism, misogyny, homophobia, and xenophobia; a man who tried to overturn the 2020 election by inciting an insurrection; a man who lies incessantly.
One piece of great news in an otherwise nerve wracking evening: Voters in Kentucky voted 65% to 35% against vouchers. This victory for public schools follows a long line of similar successes in every other voucher referendum.
A possible bit of good news is that Mo Green was beating Michelle Morrow in the race for North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction. Of 5.5 million votes counted, Green was ahead by about 130,000 votes. Green is an experienced educator. Morrow is a home schooling mother and a rightwing extremist. She is noted for saying she wanted to see Barack Obama executed on pay-per-view TV. Frankly, given how little she knows about the schools and how far-out her views are, it’s shocking that she won almost half the votes.
In Massachusetts, voters overwhelmingly banned future use of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement. The last number I saw was 87%.
If there is any good news in your neck of the woods, please let me know.
Catherine Martinez reports about Florida:
Voters in Florida rejected a constitutional amendment put on the ballot by the state legislature to change school board election from non-partisan to partisan.
Janice Strauss wrote:
Good news coming from NY’s 19th Congressional District (mostly the Southern Tier area of NYS): local hometown graduate, Josh Riley, beat MAGA Marc Molinaro for Congress. Josh accepted no PAC money, he is very pro-public schools, and included many of his former teachers in numerous campaign activities.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good morning, Diane: It’s a beautiful morning here in California, where at least we stayed blue (the bad news is that we will probably pay for it). And my imagination won’t turn off. I keep seeing Stephen Miller’s smug face.
The below is from a friend of mine: CBK
“He will pardon all of the 6 Jan convicts. He will escape legal jeopardy for his crimes and those he may yet commit. He will further radicalise the Supreme Court with new hard right very young people to replace Thomas and Alito. He may make Judge Aileen Cannon a Supreme Court justice or Attorney General. He will put whacko anti-vaxer RFK Jr in charge of the nation’s health. He will let Musk pull the strings of the regulators of his various enterprises. Flynn will probably be brought back into Defense or one of the other national security agencies.
“Guiliani will be pardoned and rewarded. Same with Eastman, Sidney Powell, Navarro, Bannon, et al. The mainstream broadcasters’ licenses will be reviewed. The IRS will decide that the taxes of Pelosi, Cheney, Harris, Walz, Smith, Obama, Biden, the state judges/ prosecutors with cases against him, and a host of others who opposed him require deep-dive audits. Hunter Biden will get a new special prosecutor. What happens to “his” generals (Milley, Mattis, Kelley, et al) and ex-CIA Directors who said he was too dangerous to ever again hold the reins of power is anyone’s guess. Make them report to Flynn, maybe.”
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I heard Fanny won. CBK
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The utterly unqualified Republican congressional candidate Lily Tang Williams lost. One tiny light in a sea of incomprehensible darkness.
I’m thinking of having a t-shirt printed: Proud Member of the Enemy from Within.
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A proposed amendment from Florida’s lapdog legislature would have changed school board elections into partisan campaigns. At present, the non-partisan elections are held during the August primary with any needed runoffs in the November general election.
That amendment failed soundly.
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In the Maryland race for US Senator, Democrat Angela Alsobrooks defeated Republican Larry Hogan. Hurray!
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Shomari Figures won for Congress in Mobile, Alabama He was running against a right wing extremist.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shomari_Figures
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I worked with Mo Green. He is a good man. I don’t understand how the voters in NC rejected Robinson and Morrow but could vote for Trump. This is all disturbing because Republicans now control all three branches of government. I don’t think Trump will last four years due to his health and Vance scares me even more given his direct ties to project 2025. I’m numb and in shock. We just put a felon back in the White House.
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precisely.
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According to a BBC analysis of exit poles, taken at 20.30 EST
Amongst the various groups of votes Trump had majorities in but the following:
Males
White
Age 45-64
That says a lot.
To paraphrase :
These will be times which will greatly test people’s souls
And to plagiarise.
‘There is a time to lament
A time to regroup
And a time to take up the challenge again’
Best wishes to you and yours Diane, and take care
Roger
UK
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Not to be too crude here but may I provide a moment of sincerity: keep your heads up, shoulders back and hang tough. Go forward with your best foot forward and soldier on. Don’t give the pricks the satisfaction.
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The parallels with Hungary are too much to absorb. The adulation Orban received from Conservatives recently should make anyone with a brain recoil in horror. I do not expect to have access to a balanced news outlet going forward.
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Can you say Hungary?
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Let the finger pointing begin!
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Voters in Florida rejected a constitutional amendment put on the ballot by the state legislature to change school board election from non-partisan to partisan.
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Catherine, that is a good action by voters.
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i am sorry, I am in a blue state, and I don’t see a bit of good anywhere. Montana voted to enshrine abortion rights, but voted for the man who took them away. Go figure. tRump will probably put two more SCOTUS on the bench and that will impact our country for the foreseeable future. I am scared for our future. I can’t believe more than half our country voted for a fascist dictator and a despicable human being. I am so ashamed.
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I do not understand Florida. They voted for women’s bodily autonomy by 57%, but also voted for Trump.
The cognitive dissonance is disturbing.
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No good news from Ohio. Voters surprisingly accepted our Republican Masters’ restrictions on our personal freedoms and our power to makes laws by popular votes. (Our Issue 1 failed). I was surprised by Harris’ loss and also our loss of our great Senator Brown–a man I know and who has served extremely well in several elected offices.
Hopefully, there will be other elections in the future, and we will do better. But Democrats, to win, must find ways of communicating with rural voters. We live on the edge of the city. No door-to-door Dems ever come here (except when we did it). No billboards are used. Little radio advertising. We don’t have local TV. Not everyone has internet service. Fox is the favorite TV channel. Local radio is all noise, religion, and commercial advertising. Maybe this is what Reagan intended when he and his Republicans ended the Fairness Doctrine. Later we elected Clinton, and he let the doctrine lie in the coffin.
What goes on in our local social studies classes? Preparation for the standardized tests that Bush I and Clinton gave us? Not much room in that program for a democratized classroom, like I had at the local high school.
Life goes on, as this old guy wonders what his next column will be about. How to survive in a Trumpian world?
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The way that ballot issue #1 was worded was so close to misleading it reads like a lie. I wonder how many anti-gerrymandering voters were fooled into voting for it
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Unlike the Russia RepubliQan party, Democrats accept legal election results without seditious coup attempts. We accept that Americans chose a convicted felon, rapist, psychopath, traitor, serial cheater, liar and extortionist to lead America over a qualified educated Black female. The core of America was and is racism, misogyny and religious bigotry. The experiment thus ends. Democracy-hating mammonite Repubs just handed America to poisoning dwarf Putin. Bye bye Ukraine, NATO, science and the Constitution – hello idiocracy and dripping whale heads.
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Jitu Brown was elected yo the Chicago Board of Education last night.
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I was going to send in this piece of great news. A well-deserved win for someone who will undoubtedly, historically be the best CPS school board member ever.
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I’m shocked, disgusted and appalled. I really thought that Harris was going to win. Wrongo, we are stuck with 4 more years of Trump to stack the SCOTUS and federal courts with Trumpists galore. What the hell is the matter with the American people?! Will the GOP have a trifecta?
Don’t blame NJ which went for Harris and which will send Andy Kim (D) to the Senate, the first Korean American elected to the Senate.
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From Day #1, Donald J Trump is a lame duck president.
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Good news? Who are you kidding? Trump and his allies will stack the courts so that any reasonable action by the states will be overturned by a legion of Trump sycophants.
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Good news coming from NY’s 19th Congressional District (mostly the Southern Tier area of NYS): local hometown graduate, Josh Riley, beat MAGA Marc Molinaro for Congress. Josh accepted no PAC money, he is very pro-public schools, and included many of his former teachers in numerous campaign activities.
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“…..it’s shocking…” No it’s not. Ask an Indian or a Black or ________ (Enter non-white male group of choice).
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It’s not “shocking.” Ask an Indian, a Black or _________ . (Enter other non-white male group.)
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Maryland voters voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights, and we elected our first Black female Senator.
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New York passed proposition 1
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Please explain Andrea, why is this a good thing? So trans kids can play girls sports and have own bathrooms? Abortion goes to the states so dso not start that BS.
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It’s hilarious that the referendum didn’t even mention sports, either in the text on the ballot or the full amendment, but that’s all conservatives can think about. All the places discrimination shows up daily: education, housing, health care, employment: Republicans want us to ignore all of that. All they can think about is kindergartners playing with a ball.
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A great many people who voted for Trump don’t like him. Their vote was not so much a vote for him as a vote against the cultural changes that the so-called “Progressives” have forced upon them. And this is the case in all the democratic nations that have politically swung to the Right in recent years: France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Greece, Australia, and others. Culture is even more important than the economy when it comes to voting.
The Democratic Party needs to purge itself of Progressives, who should organize their own political party. U.S. politics would be better off with more than just two parties because coalition governments are more responsive to the people instead of special interests. America’s narrow two-party system has devolved into a special interest system: After researching more than 1,800 laws passed by Congress over the past 20 years, Princeton University researcher Martin Gilens and Northwestern University researcher Benjamin Page documented that the U.S. is no longer a representative republic because Congress — regardless of which political party is in power — does not represent the interests of the majority of the country’s citizens, but is instead controlled by the rich and powerful.
That’s how democracies die.
As Harvard Historian Jill LePore points out, the Democratic Party is reaping the bitter crop of its abandonment of the working class, of unions, and the adoption of “identity politics” which led the Party to trying to be “all things to all people”, resulting in the Party being an amorphous nothing to most people. Will Rogers said when he was asked which political party he belongs to: “I don’t belong to any organized political party — I’m a Democrat.” The Democratic Party isn’t really a political party: It’s a loose confederacy of various progressive and identity groups, each with its own pet “cause”, most of which are out of step with the cultural standards of the majority of Americans for whom culture is of basic importance.
The Democratic Party needs to return to The Middle and to adopt a guiding policy of incremental change instead of rapid change, as espoused by Progressives. The Democratic Party needs to return to its working class/middle class roots, beginning with unwavering support for unions, which Obama betrayed, and it needs to forsake fractious identity politics.
I don’t think that the Democratic Party can do all that by the 2026 midterm elections and win back control of at least one house of Congress to rein in Trump. Only if Trump’s policies prove to be as ruinous as indications are they could be, would the Democratic Party be able to win control of the House of Representatives in 2026.
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quikwrit: ”The Democratic Party needs to return to The Middle and to adopt a guiding policy of incremental change instead of rapid change, as espoused by Progressives.”
As a Democrat who identifies as a Progressive, I wholeheartedly agree that the Progressive faction of the Democratic Party does not tolerate incremental change, but instead pushes for complete turnarounds of policy. It is their folly to not understand politics to the degree that any small change is a positive step toward a larger one. As well, Progressives tend to hold their candidates to impossible standards. They expect no flaws nor zero past decisions that might conflict with the current agenda, exhibiting a lack of understanding in how people learn, grow and do better. Sadly, the Republicans—since Gingrich and now the MAGAs—capitalize on the past positions that their political enemies have stood upon and changed over time, characterizing these changes-of-heart as a sign of political “weakness.”
An exception to this: The war in the Middle East is an example of how waiting for incremental change is damaging to a whole people. However, Progressives abhor slow progress, in general. They want what they want now and to the furthest degree from the status quo. Always looking for a revolution. Dare I say the Progressive left is in danger of entering the realm of extremism as a complete mirror to the alt right? I always thought Progressives were different from the alt left because they want what’s good for all people, not just for their own agenda.
So who, among registered Democrats, stayed home on Tuesday? My money is on many of my fellow Progressives who find fault with everything in politics.
The presidential election was certainly about grievance on many sides—but sadly, people have been trained to devalue compromise and to ignore history. When you live your life expecting everything to be your way without understanding the mechanisms by which we politic, you will be sadly disappointed. Not everyone agrees with you.
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I’m also a Progressive, and I completely agree with you about the need to recognize that incremental progress is the only path to progress in a republic…can’t count the number of disagreement I’ve had about this with fellow Progressives. By the way, following are comments from David Axelrod that I hope the Democratic Party heeds:
DEMOCRATIC PARTY ELITISM
CAUSED THE ELECTION LOSSES
David Axelrod, senior adviser to Barack Obama during his presidency, says that the Democratic Party lost the election because the Democratic Party has “become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party.”
This analysis from Axelrod, the political strategist who successfully helped engineer both of Obama’s national campaign wins, merits sharp attention by Democratic Party leaders and members.
“I have concerns about the way the Democratic Party relates to working-class voters in this country,” Axelrod told broadcaster Anderson Cooper on CNN. “The only group that Democrats gained with in this election on Tuesday was white college graduates. But, among working-class voters, there was a significant decline.”
“The only group Democrats won among were people who make more than $100,000 a year,” Axelrod said. “You can’t win national elections that way, and it certainly shouldn’t be that way for a party that fashions itself as the party of working people.”
Axelrod noted that Democratic Party elitist snobbery played a large part in the Party’s failed messaging which claimed that President Joe Biden had helped working people, like a good master helps his minions.
“You can’t approach working people like missionaries and say, ‘We’re here to help you become more like us.’ There’s a kind of unspoken disdain, unintended disdain in that,” Axelrod pointed out.
“I think Biden has done programmatically some good things for working people. But the Party itself has increasingly become a smarty-pants, suburban, college-educated party — and that lends itself to the kind of backlash that we’ve seen.”
It’s doubtful that the Democratic Party can change because that would require a fundamental cultural change in the Party and its leaders.
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The disconnect is real. Thom Hartman points out that the neoliberal politics of presidents from Reagan to Obama have led to a lack of trust in politicians from both sides of the aisle. This made the advent of a Trump-like character inevitable. The American people were ready for something other than the status quo.
Unfortunately, they heard what they wanted to hear from Trump this time around and decided he would be the one to save them over the Washington elites.
Democrats used to be supported by the blue collar factions—now Democrats are abhorred. Obama bailed out Wall St. while countless people lost money in their own real estate investments including losing their own homes. If that isn’t proof Americans have been victims of elitism, I don’t know what is. I have no issue with bringing our economy back from a recession, but there was no restoration of the regulations that built the middle class after Obama—not until Biden. But the American people didn’t want that message from Biden because he is not as strong an orator as Clinton, Obama, and yes, even Trump. Nor did Biden toot the horn for his policies in a way that connected with the average, low-information voter.
We have a lot of problems with the view of the populace in this country—and with this election, these problems just got worse.
Thank you for your thoughtful commentary.
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On the whole, a devastating evening in most respects, but voters rejected three voucher proposals according to Peter Greene – not just KY but also Nebraska and a voucher-like proposal in Colorado. https://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2024/11/even-in-red-wave-voters-reject-school.html?spref=tw
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Some good news from North Carolina: Josh Stein is our Governor-elect. We have broken the supermajority in the NC House. Rachel Hunt,is our Lt. Governor-Elect. My good friends have won re-election to the Wake County (Raleigh area) School Board. So, along with Superintendent-Elect Mo Green, we have strong support for public education.
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We defeated the voucher proposal in Colorado.
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Wonderful news! I’m adding that to the original post.
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Where did almost 20 million voters go — did they stay home?
I read Monday that almost 75 million people had voted early.
I read about long lines and waits yesterday.
Still, the total vote count I saw this morning was almost 20 million less than the total for 2020. And the convicted rapist, fraud and felon won with several million fewer votes than he lost with in 2020.
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Lloyd,
That is where Democrats fell short. Turnout. That’s hard to reconcile with the fervor and enthusiasm we saw at Kamala’s rallies.
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Total count isn’t in yet, but so far 2million fewer votes cast for Reps than in 2020, 14million fewer votes cast for Dems (!).
Totally anecdotal, just per listening to the random JQPublics who call into CSPAN’s 3hr daily Wash Jnl show… There seemed to be a lot more “undecideds” than I remember from 2020. A lot of them self-identified as independents during their call. But many others were people who [without identifying their registered affiliation] voted for Trump in 2020, then switched to Biden in 2024.
CSPAN was still carrying the tel no for “undecided” on election day– still a goodly number, and many admitted they wouldn’t be voting at all…
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Elissa Slotkin was elected to the U.S. Senate by Michigan voters!
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Great news!!
Great that Elissa Slotkin won.
Great that Amy Klobuchar won!
Great that Tammie Baldwin won.
Now let’s hope that Jackie Rosen of Nevada wins.
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My brother sent me this link.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-wins-president-kamala-harris_n_672b8fa8e4b01cfbdad3835a/amp
I keep coming back to an interview with one of Trump’s top strategists, a few days after he won in 2016.
“What is your basic plan now that you have full Republican control?
“We’re going to undo 60 plus years of bad policy legislation”.
No specifics. But no ifs, ands, or buts about it, either. “Bad policy” is a subjective term. Looks like I’m in the minority, once again, if this election is a true representation of where our country really wants to go.
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Gitapik,
I have a deep down suspicion that something’s not right. Did voter suppression work? Did the Russians pull dirty tricks? Seems like we will never know
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Yes. I’ve been thinking the same thing, Diane. The electoral college is one thing. But the popular vote? Low Democratic voter turnout in such an important election…!?
It would be so like Trump to actually DO the very thing that he falsely accused the “deep state” of doing in 2020: rig the election.
But unlike Trump, we’re not going to file 60+ lawsuits and more to try to overthrow the results. A whistleblower would be nice, right about now. But the article my brother sent rings true for me.
I studied violin with an incredible teacher in my early twenties. Besides being a virtuoso and extremely effective communicator, he was also a very wise man. A mentor. He introduced me to the concepts and teachings of the Bhagavad Gita.
When I expressed frustration during a lesson, he paralleled my progress with that of backpacking up a mountain. It’s never a straight “up” journey. There are always going to be dips and valleys in the ascent. We just need to have faith that the ascent is continuing , even though it seems otherwise at some points during the journey.
Then he paralleled my progress on the violin with that of human evolution, in general. We have periods of enlightenment that are then stifled by greed and corruption. Then enlightenment, again. That cycle has continued throughout history.
I think it’s important to keep the faith in our general evolution. We’re descending into a valley at this time. My biggest (of many) concern is in the area of climate change. Evolution is dependent on survival. Trump is a denier. My hope is that enough people in other positions of power (public and private) will oppose his positions.
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The 2024 election results have been shocking news for many people with highly different expectations. In the wake of all this unexpected news, there are tons of speculations flying around the world, which is fairly normal. It has certainly been a huge surprise for the Democratic Party and our supporters who thought that VP Harris was going to be the President of the United States. It is very possible that many folks are going to need time to digest the unforeseen results. How and why did the Democrats lose this election? It is almost inexplicable, it’s like “déjà vu” (2016 election). However, Time will tell, and the Light (under the Sun) will expose the Truth. As the old saying goes “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” That is, it.
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