Thank You, USian Voters

Canadians have been under a lot of stress these past few years from attacks, trade wars, accusations, lies, threats, and insults from the autocratic USian dictator Trump and his cabal of fascist cabinet sycophants. His billionaire-bought vice president, his bitter, ignorant ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra, and his enabler and money tree, the SpaceNazi Elon Musk, have been harridans in the anti-Canada chorus. They predicted polls were wrong. They predicted Repugnican candidates — some of the worst and most corrupt people anyone could find — would sweep the races to victory. They (and their puppet rightwing media) predicted MAGA would again dominate the USian Senate and House, and, as Trump famously said at one of his cult rallies, “shove it up [the Democrats’] ass.”

They were all wrong. Very, very wrong. They misread the USian people’s tolerance for Trump’s blatant corruption, blatant lies, blatant grifting, and his endless stream of broken promises. Their arrogance left them unprepared for the Blue Wave that exploded across the country in those midterm elections.

Now the Democrats rule both seats of government, and many Democrats were elected as state governors as well. As of this writing, Dems controlled 54 Senate seats to the Repugnicans’ 44; 245 House seats to 147; and won 28 gubernatorial races, flipping 17 from Repugnicans. (Fourteen states did not have gubernatorial elections at this time.) Races in Alaska and Mississippi are too close to call right now, but in both Dems have a small lead. See CNN’s map and data for more information.

Trump whined after the results were in that it would have been a Repugnican (aka MAGA) landslide if he had been on the ballot, but in fact he was on the ballot in proxy, if not in name. And he was soundly rejected by USians. Many of the candidates he endorsed lost their races, too, even in previously safe districts.*

Backstabber JD Vance threw Trump under the bus almost immediately, putting the blame on Trump’s economic policies and his war with Iran. He’s clearly trying to distance himself from his deranged boss, and hopes to be seen as independent rather than the lickspittle he has so far shown himself. Not likely to fool anyone. Well, okay: MAGA cultists have proven themselves very gullible and easily fooled over and over and over. So maybe his play will work on the remaining diehards in the cult. Both slimy Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis — like rats on a sinking ship — already started distancing themselves from the man they publicly praised in egregiously saccharine terms for the past several years.

Unlike Trump, Canada was not on the ballot, but the trade war, the threats to a once-favoured ally, Canadian travel boycotts, Canadian booze boycotts, the loss of revenue from reduced exports to Canada, the support for treasonous Canadian separatists, and the tariffs were likely on some voters’ minds when they cast their ballots.

Will Democrats try to restore the lost trust and end the trade war? It remains to be seen. I don’t hold out much hope for the latter, and the former will take many years, decades or even generations to heal. We have started down a long path of building better and sometimes new relationships with other nations, ones we feel we can trust more and who will respect us and our sovereignty. Canadians won’t be back vacationing in the USA for a long time.

But thank you to the majority of USian voters who rejected Trump and his corruption, his autocracy, his lies, his continual grifts and self-enrichment, his affection for Putin and Russia, his love of dictators and dislike of democratic leaders, his erratic and sometimes incoherent policies, his low IQ, his low literacy, his pseudo-Christianity, his anti-Ukraine policies, his trade wars, his tax breaks for his billionaire supporters, his insults to legacy media, his love of propaganda network Fox Newz, his attacks on your healthcare and your Social Security. Maybe the Dems can repair some of this in the next two years.

Notes:

* USA Today (emphasis added):

Trump endorsed 22 gubernatorial candidates, with 10 winning, 11 losing and Alaska undecided. The losses included five seats where Democrats won that had been held by Republicans in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas.
After Trump endorsed 24 Senate candidates, 13 won, nine lost and two results remain undecided in Alaska and Mississippi. The losses included six seats where Democrats won GOP seats in Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.
And in the House, Trump endorsed 234 candidates. The vast bulk were Republican incumbents or for seats the party already held. But 48 of the candidates he endorsed lost their races − some for seats held by Democrats − with 52 contests unresolved. Meanwhile, Democrats flipped at least 25 GOP seats where he endorsed their opponents.

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