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Pundit Bill Kristol, writing for The Bulwark this morning, argued that the tired and overused metaphor of a ‘wave’ is misleading as it conjures an image of a natural force beyond the control or even influence of mere men and that the election result last night and continuing as the count does today and beyond is the work of people, of humanity. He is right on target with that observation, but it is still good to have an image that captures not only the scope and scale of last night’s results but the feeling of it as well, and I think the most on target metaphor is a rout. What happened last night was more akin to Agincourt or the First Battle of Bull Run than an ocean wave washing away a beach.
As I write this the morning of November 4th, 2026, the Democratic Party has been projected to have won control of 54 seats in the Senate with two elections too close for a victor to be decided, Alaska and Mississippi, so it is possible that the final number may be as high as 56. In the House of Representatives, the Democratic Party is currently holding a majority of 228 with a number of contests yet to be called. The midterm elections of 2026 have been a devastating defeat for the Republican Party, losing some contests that it have not lost since the election of FDR. There are a lot of lessons to be learned by both parties, and I pray that they do learn them.
For the GOP, they must come to terms with the consequences of handing power to a vainglorious buffoon for whom lying comes as often as a breath and for whom theft and betrayal are not character flaws but the defining attributes of his character. They should, if there is any justice in this universe, spend a decade or more in the wilderness. Individuals who have benefited from the corruption and the theft and the betrayal of the public trust need to be held accountable, and the politicians who chose the easy path, the one that kept their heads down and let the monsters do what they did to save their own political lives need to leave public life.
In addition to individual cases of corruption and malfeasance, the Republican Party itself needs to reorient to the future and build something new and earn the trust of the people and the world that it so recklessly squandered. There has been talk of returning to the sane GOP that existed before Trump seized control of the party. Such talk is the wishes of children who are in denial about the nature of reality. Nothing ever goes back to a previous state; time and entropy flow in only one direction. The party of Reagan’s conservatism is as much a matter of history as the Rockefeller Republicans before it or the interwar Isolationists before them. It is time to define what ‘conservative’ means for the 21st century and not try a doomed retreat to what it meant in the previous one.
The Democratic Party needs to recognize that this election is a repudiation of the Republicans and not an embrace of the Democrats. A two-party system can lead one to interpret victories as love for one’s own when that can just as easily be hatred of the opposing party. The victories in Texas and Kansas can be as easily squandered as the Republicans squandered their national victories. The Democratic Party needs to learn how to appeal to voters who are not onboard with the entire national platform and to find a way to do so with without betraying their base or their principles. There is a tremendous opportunity here for the Democratic Party, but only an opportunity, not anything assured.
I am thrilled and overjoyed by the results of this election season. A parade of cabinet-level impeachments would make my 2027 and 2028, but only time will tell what the true outcome of last night will hold. Last night was not a force of nature, a storm front that moved across the nation, or a miracle delivered by some supernatural entity, it was the result of tireless work and literally millions of people making clear their choices. This victory is thiers.
