Sunday, November 8, 2026

Doom Report (Week 94: Everyone Is Better Than This and It Is So Incredible)


Obviously the only story this week is the historic triumph of the Democratic Party in Tuesday’s midterm elections.  Celebratory coverage is everywhere: from The Daily Show, where Michael Kosta proclaimed:

Look, Democrats didn’t just win the midterms yesterday.  They made the midterms their bitch.  They won the Senate.  They won the House.  They won governor’s races.  They won Best Animated Picture.  They won the rigged claw machine at the arcade.

to “A Closer Look”, where Seth Meyers said:

Guys, I’ll be honest, I was all prepared to come out here and say something like, “Look, there was a lot of hype and Democrats didn’t live up to expectations.  But narrowly retaking the House is still a good thing.”  Because, you know, waiting for the Democrats to have success can make you feel like you’re Matt Damon trying to grow a fucking potato on Mars.

But last night it was potatoes for everybody.

to the “Kinzinger Report”, where Adam Kinzinger points out that

Trump doesn’t exactly deserve any praise for accepting the result of a fair election, but, for the sake of the country, I’ll take it.

(and then goes on to give a very efficient breakdown of how the MAGA coalition disintegrated).  From the eloquent, from Abdul El-Sayed’s acceptance speech, where he says:

And we prove once again just how big America really is.  Because where else but in America can a doctor named Abdulrahman Mohamed, (say it) a child of immigrants, raised by his father and his Daughter of the American Revolution stepmother, get elected Senator from America’s greatest state?  They tried to confuse you.  So, let me just set the record straight:  I love America.  I know exactly what America gave to me.  I saw it up close on trips to my family’s native Egypt.  In a 15- hour journey, I’d cross 10 years difference in life expectancy.  I didn’t have to go 15 hours.  I could go 15 minutes to Detroit or Pontiac and cross that same difference.  It’s why I became a doctor.  America vaccinated me against diseases that killed an aunt and uncle I never got to meet.  It gave me incredible public schools.  It gave me a public university education.  It paid my medical education through the NIH.  I love America.  But I love America enough to ask her to be America for all her kids.

to the viscerally satisfying, such as when Brian Tyler Cohen says simply

... yesterday is a testament to what happens when you not only fight back, but fight back when everything is stacked against you.  Fight when the entire federal government and right-wing media machine and trillionaire funding are aimed at you.  And we fucking won.

And I encourage everyone to revel in those sentiments.  But I’ll also note that there were plenty of more cautious assessments of the situation.  Such as over on LegalEagle, where Devin says, somewhat soberly:

So, take a breath, enjoy it.  You have earned it.  But if you’re an incoming Democratic member of Congress, please enjoy it slightly faster, because you have work to do.  Because winning this election was necessary, but it’s not sufficient.  Voters have given Congress the power to start holding this administration accountable.  Whether they use it, though, is an entirely different question.

And even Abdul’s victory speech, ebullient though it was, ends like this:

Abdul: Winning a single US Senate seat was never the goal.  The goal is to use that seat to transform our politics.  Because it’s high past time that we get money out of?
Crowd: Politics!
Abdul: Put money in your?
Crowd: Pocket!
Abdul: Pass Medicare for?
Crowd: All!
Abdul: The beauty and soul of America is that we the people are what America is all about.  We deserve an America for all her kids.  So Michigan, let’s go build it.

See, here’s the thing.  In 2016, the voters gave the Democrats a message: business as usual is not okay.  You keep talking about making our lives better, but you end up taking the corporate money and doing nothing.  So we’re going to elect the crazy racist: crazy he may be—and certainly racist—but at least he’s not business as usual.

And then in 2020, the voters said, “okay, the crazy racist isn’t working out so hot: hey, Dems, try again.”  But here’s the thing: the Dems never got the message.  They decided that what they needed was a moderate, a centrist, a very much business-as-usual sort of guy.  Biden was a good person, a person with a strong moral core, but, in the end, I’m pretty sure that history will lump him in with Jimmy Carter: nice guy, well-intentioned, certainly not as bad as his critics claimed ... and ultimately ineffectual.

So, in 2024, the voters sent the Dems another message—well, not so much a second message as a repeat of the first one, only louder this time.  More insistent.  And, this past Tuesday, at least some Democrats proved that they were (finally!) getting the memo.  Now the question is, can these few elected officials who reject the corporate bullshit, who reject the idea that change must be slow and incremental, who reject the idea that nibbling at the margins of problems is sufficient ... will those few be sufficient to make a difference?

Because, less than 24 hours after the most stunning electoral victory since the Watergate years, the Democrats have already started the very difficult work of figuring out how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  For instance, Joy Reid’s interview of Wajahat Ali opens with this quote from Hakeem Jeffries, who will likely be the new Speaker of the House:

The American people don’t want us to get even.  They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive.

The fuck we don’t!  What we want is for you to learn to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, dipshit.

Meanwhile, on What A Day, Jane Coaston talks to Jamie Raskin, and they had this exchange:

Jane: So, first question: you will likely be running the House Judiciary Committee.  Who’s getting investigated first?
Raskin: Don’t know.

Motherfucker!!! you goddamn well should know.  These rightwing nutjobs started on Project 2025 three years before they needed it.  And you idiots don’t know what you’re going to do in six months?!?

And here’s Robert Garcia, who will be the head of the House Oversight Committee, and who somewhat infamously, on election night once the extent of the slaughter was known, delivered the ominous two-word tweet “LAWYER UP”, being interviewed by Brian Tyler Cohen:

As far as what what our first bill will be, you know, obviously that hasn’t been decided yet.  I think obviously the leadership is going to get together and kind of iron that out, ...

MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!  Love the agressive talk in the tweet, but that can’t make up for this ridiculous (and potentially fatal) lack of foresight.

Because as Jon Stewart pointed out to Sarah Longwell on this week’s Weekly Show,

... I think MAGA was also a repudiation of a feckless Democratic leadership, and a government that wasn’t responding, you know, to the needs of the populace in a way that was agile enough.  And we can’t go back to that.  The repudiation of MAGA last night cannot be seen outside the context of the repudiation of whatever that—and I’ll frame it as the neoliberal status quo Democratic governance of the past.

And you should watch the whole interview—Sarah’s origin story, of realzing she was gay while working for the execreable anti-gay-marriage crusader Rick Santorum, and not knowing how to explain it to her family or friend and even herself, and then watching Santorum’s arguments being completely dismantled by Jon on an old Daily Show episode, and how that helped her come out, is really amazing and touching—but at least listen to the part of the interview I quote above.  Sarah’s answer was that she thinks this centrist / progressive split is overblown: the campaigns of people like Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas were neither.  They were, instead (according to Sarah, at least), humanist.  Talarico, a seminarian, and Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, ran faith-based campaigns that foregrounded “love thy neighbor” principles.  For someone like Longwell, who likely still considers herself a Republican despite the fact that she left the actual party long ago (and cofounded The Bulwark, a haven for never-Trumper conservatives), this is likely a pretty appealing approach.  And, in fairly conservatives states such as Texas and Kansas, that’s the type of Democrat that’s needed to win.  In more liberal places, the religious allusions may not be necessary—may even be unwelcome, in places that have learned to be suspicious of organized religion, often for good reasons—but the message still needs to be one of change.  The message needs to be: we know your life sucks, and we want to fix it.  And we have ideas on how to do that.  And those ideas can work.  That has to be the message, regardless of location, electorate, or historical voting preference.

And then somebody better damned well deliver on that message.

Other things you need to know this week:

  • If you missed the whole Haley Stevens drama, The Daily Show has you covered.
  • In yet another “Closer Look”, Seth Meyers covers the Republican doomerism and recriminations.  I was going to say “gleefully covers,” but ... no, yeah, actually “gleefully covers” is probably pretty accurate.

Well, I got all my negative feelings out up at the top so that we could end, as I like to do, on a note of hope.  And, honestly, there is no greater note of hope than the elections themselves.  Here’s a list that Katie Phang gave us on Wednesday:

Let’s run through this unprecedented morning we find ourselves in.  And the firsts, as I call them.  The first Native American woman senator is my dear friend, Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota right now, Peggy Flanagan.  The first openly gay male United States senator we have in Chris Pappas.  Our first Muslim senator is Dr. Abdul El-Sayed from Michigan.  And Dr. Annie Andrews, South Carolina Democrat: our first elected female US senator from that state.  One of them that really got me in the feels: Keisha Lance Bottoms will be Georgia’s first black governor, the first female governor of Georgia, and the first female black governor in United States history.  Deb Haaland will lead New Mexico as the first Native American woman governor.  Gina Hinojosa will be the first Hispanic governor of Texas.  Xavier Becerra, the first Latino governor of California.  Amy Acton, the first female elected governor of Ohio.  Amy Klobuchar as well, Minnesota’s first female governor.  I mean, we keep adding to that roster of firsts.  And as I said last night during the live stream, what a what a time to be alive.  And what a time to be the mother of a 12-year-old Korean-American child who gets to look at the composition of Congress and say, “She looks like me.  She is me.”  I mean, you know, it is a gift that we get to give each other, is it not?

And Alex Wagner added to that list on Runaway Country:

The state of Kansas, which has been sending Republicans to Washington since the year 1932 AD, now has a Democrat and pastor named Adam Hamilton going to the Senate.  ... James Talarico is the state’s [Texas] first Democratic senator in 38 years.  ...  Flanagan is now the nation’s first indigenous woman to be elected to the US Senate, and she may soon be joined there by another indigenous politician, Democrat Mary Peltola of Alaska (that race still has not been called as of this recording time).  ...  Iowa turned bright blue in the course of just one evening as voters there chose Democrat Rob Sand for governor and Democrat and Paralympian Josh Turek for the US Senate.  ...  Then there was Maine, where five-term moderate/Trump appeaser, Republican Susan Collins, could not make a miracle happen this time. In January, Democratic challenger Troy Jackson will be taking over Susan Collins’ Senate seat ...  Democrats flipped more than two dozen districts. Bobby Pulido, a Democrat and popular Tejano singer, won a district on the US Mexico border that went to Donald Trump by 18 points two years ago, making Pulido part of the stunning rejection of Donald Trump at the hands of Latino voters.  In Florida, three of the dummy-manders, courtesy of outgoing Republican governor and high-heel enthusiast Ron DeSantis, went in the opposite of their intended direction: Democrats picked up all three seats.

That episode of Runaway Country, by the way, is a longer video than I normally point you to; it’s well worth watching all the way through (Alex interviews BTC, and that’s a fun time), but at least watch the 8-minute intro.  It’s cut with many snippets of acceptance speeches, including this beautiful moment from James Talarico:

Hate can’t lower our energy bills.  Hate can’t teach a child to read.  Hate can’t build a future.  But what hate can’t do, love can.  Love can heal what’s broken in America.

But, lest you be worried that messages of love might indicate we’re in for more milquetoast Democrats, check out Pod Save America’s live show on Friday (again, a longer video, but at least watch the first minue-and-a-half: it’s triumphal), where Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett interview Abdul El-Sayed, who has this to say:

... it’s so uncommon in our politics that you’re like “you’re being crass and obnoxious, so I’m just going to be crass and obnoxious back because you’re an asshole.”  But it’s not to be crass and obnoxious because that’s how you want to do politics.  It’s that you have to be crass and obnoxious back because otherwise what happens is that that system of politics will persist.  And when you stand up to a bully, what tends to happen is they will back down.  And when they back down, we all get to decide where we want to go.  I would rather—I mean, you all know me well—I’d rather have an extensive policy conversation about the monopsony power of Medicare for all, but, if they want to do schoolyard politics, all right: let’s throw down.

And, if that doesn’t sound hopeful to you, you’re probably reading the wrong blog.

Personally, I watched the livestream from the Some More News crew.  It was six hours long, so I won’t throw you a link to all that, but it was a pretty uplifting watch: Katy, Cody, and Jonathan were joined by Francesca Fiorentini (who did a really funny Haley Stevens impression), and, toward the end, by Nick, their tech guy who now lives in Texas.  Nick never shows up on camera, but he was a bit overwhelmed and inspired by how well things went in his home state.  And these guys had all (well, maybe not Nick, but mostly all) agreed to take a shot every time the Dems flipped a seat, so by the end of the stream they were all very much lit.  My partner wasn’t really watching with me, but she was in the room and occasionally paying attention, and, at one point, she looked up at the screen and said “is Cody crying?”  Because, yes: yes, he was.  And, because he was very emotional, and very drunk, he couldn’t be articulate (although, ironically, still articulate enough to say “I’m not going to be articulate tonight”), and all he could say was “we are better than this, we’ve been better than this” over and over.  But, I know what he meant.

And so, apparently, did Robert Reich, who, on this week’s this week’s celebratory Coffee Klatch, expressed it thusly:

I’ve been worried—a piece of me has been worried—that maybe the country had changed.  Maybe this was not the America that I grew up in, and was hopeful for, and an America that clung to the basic ideals that I held—hold—dear: social justice, rule of law, democracy, equality.  But maybe I was (temporarily!) wrong.

‘Cause I’ve been feeling that way too.  I felt it most keenly after election night in 2024.  My assumptions that, yes: there were racists, and yes: there were Christian nationalists, and yes: there were douchebags who only cared about making money and holding power, but most people were decent, and good, and not hateful ... those assumptions were sorely challenged in 2024.  It’s why I had that conversation with my friend; it’s why I wrote that first blog post; it’s how I ended up starting this whole Doom Report series.  Because I started to question myself: maybe it’s not the case that most of us are decent and it’s just a few complete assholes that try to run everything.

But now, like Cody, like Robert, I am refreshed, and more than a little relieved, to find that maybe—just maybe—I was right in the first place.  As Heather Lofthouse says in the Klatch: “More than 100 women are now going to be in the House of Representatives for the first time ever.”  When discussing the fact that Scott Colom will almost certainly be the new Democratic Senator from friggin’ Mississippi, Michael Lahanas-Calderó points out that “the last time Mississippi elected a black person to any statewide office was in Reconstruction, and they left office in 1881.”

So maybe that Talarico guy is onto something.  The politics of hate has failed.  Let’s try love for a while.









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