While Maddow and the rest are over the moon with their assessments of what happened last week, reality has dished up evidence that Trump, at the behest of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 creators, might have let this happen, or at least didn’t really care that it did.
Now that the euphoria has subsided a bit, such an observation starts to feel more like an accurate read. Think about it—the administration knew people were suffering economically, they knew the Iran war was unpopular and that the Epstein files still loomed, yet there was no attempt at passing any legislation or addressing the concerns of the public.
Sure, Trump traipsed around the country supposedly stumping for candidates, most likely saying that everything is great. But those rallies always ended up being about Trump and the word “dumb” and laced with random streams of consciousness.
There are some who warn that we as a country have this simplistic causal understanding of voting and outcomes, as in we made a statement in the voting booth and now things are going to change for the better. What this misses is the deep-rooted nature of the opposition.
The November 3 results indeed say something about where the voting public currently stands, but even such weighted results don’t mean the nightmarish philosophy of governance behind MAGA magically disappears. We’ve already caught glimpses of what at least the next 8 weeks are going to be like, with Stephen Miller and Jim Jordan emerging to fill key positions. And Trump is offering up the familiar refrain about questionable election results.
The bottom line is that we hold on to the hope of a Blue Congress, but we remain vigilant and realistic about the forces on the other side of the aisle, because they are far from giving up.
