THE DAY AFTER

Poster for FDR’s third term, which he won 85 years ago yesterday

Today is the one year anniversary of the re-election of Trump to a second term as president. Thomas Zimmer has a pretty good description of what that means and where we are as a result: “An authoritarian, fascistic movement controls the government; they are trying – and to some extent succeeding – to build an authoritarian state; but they have not been able to extend authoritarian rule across society. A system that is democratic no more, but also not a consolidated autocratic regime yet.”

Democrats routed the Republican Party from high-profile governors’ races to obscure local contests Tuesday. Today is what victory looks like.

After the results of yesterday’s election, if we who believe in Democracy can maintain the momentum of defeating Trumpist fascism in all important races for the next 12 months, we may well smother the fascist scum and begin the difficult work of restoring the country to its constitutional democratic form following their attempt to destroy us.

In Virginia, Democrats swept every statewide race, winning the elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Democrats have also flipped 16 House of Delegates seats, and have seen no Democratic incumbent lose their seat, assuring their control of the House. Abigail Spanberger defeated Winsome Earle-Sears by more than 10 points, the biggest Democratic margin in 40 years. In the race for Attorney General, there was fear that Democrat Jay Jones would lose after the National Review published violent text messages he had sent. Instead, he won and Carrie Coyner - the Republican state delegate who shared the messages - lost her Richmond-area seat. The Democratic win in the House of Delegates makes it much easier to redistrict Virginia next year to deny Trump his hope of maintaining GOP control of the House of Representatives next year.

In New Jersey - despite Trump’s crude attempt to interfere in the election by releasing Mikie Sherrill’s military records - she defeated now three-time loser Jack Ciatarelli, and with her Lt. Governor, retained Democratic control of New Jersey state government for an unprecedented third consecutive cycle, something that has not happened there since 1961. Democrats kep their lopsided majorities in the state legislature, making it easy for Sherrill to redistrict for 2026. In Passaic County, where Latinos are a plurality and flipped to Trump last year, Sherrill won by double digits.

In New York City, Zohran Mamdani decisively won the contest for Mayor with more than 50% of the vote in a three-way race. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer never endorsed Zohran Mamdani; he wouldn’t even say whether he voted for him. Republicans think that they can prevent Mamdani from being sworn-in as mayor if they get Congress to ban him from taking office under the 14th Amendment, claiming his activism, including calls to resist ICE, might fit within its prohibitions on officeholders who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or who have “given aid or comfort to the enemies.” Democratic voters are screaming their disapproval with the party, but the establishment types stay on message, silencing or undermining any figure in the party who offers even a chance to whip up some enthusiasm. Mamdani is going to face this Republican war against him without support from the damn party he led to victory tonight. We desperately need leadership change in the party, and it’s not just the geriatrics that need ousting. Time for AOC to primary Chuckles. Why is it Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity? Mamdani won 70% of the youth vote in the city, and won by a similar margin in Staten Island, for chrissake! Mamdani won more than 1 million votes - the first candidate for mayor to do that since the 1960s - as turnout surged. And the party fails to see the writing on the wall.

(Photo KarenRN)

In California, with one issue on the ballot - Proposition 50 - a vote total close to Biden’s presidential victory margin in 2020 voted to support changing the redstricting process to oppose Trump’s attempt to monkey-wrench the coming 2026 election, with Prop 50 winning 65%-35%, a higher-than-forecast margin. Los Angeles also saw a new effort by Maladministration II to intimidate Californians when the Border Patrol was sent to harass and terrorize the crowd at Dodget Stadium gathered for a victory celebration. The thugs were unsuccessful. Six Republicans won’t be going to Congress after the 2026 elections. Trump posted: “The Unconstitutional Redistricting Vote in California is a GIANT SCAM in that the entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED. All ‘Mail-In’ Ballots, where the Republicans in that State are ‘Shut Out,’ is under very serious legal and criminal review. STAY TUNED.” (FACT CHECK: He has no power over the conduct of elections, which are run by states.) Karoline Leavitt told reporters: “It’s absolutely true that there’s fraud in California’s elections. It’s just a fact.” Go back to fucking Grampaw, you dumb bimbo, it’s what you’re good at.

Additionally, the three Pennsylvania State Supreme Court Judges who have successfully kept Trumpism at bay in the state since 2015 were each approved to retain their seats by 63% margins over the competition, which in Pennsylvania is a landslide. They will be in office in 2028 when Trump will next make his move to overthrow an election.

Little noted but Very Important: Mississippi Democrats broke the Republican supermajority in the state senate.

Colorado voters chose to raise taxes on households with incomes over $300,000 to pay for meals for public school students.

Denying Reality as usual, Trump posted on Lies Anti-Social that the reason Republicans lost was that he wasn’t on the ballot. The world’s most persistent ignoramus cannot bring himself to admit that both his terrible acts as president in harming even his own supporters, and popular rejection of all his policies are the reasons for the Republican defeat. Trump was “on the ballot,” and HE LOST.

In New Jersey, Trump claimed “demographics” were against the GOP. Ciattarelli lost an additional 8 points in 2025 compared to his losing campaign in 2021. Sherrill won by a bigger margin that Trump did in the state in 2024. He spent election day panic-tweeting lies that the elections are “rigged,” as he did in 2020. He posted that if Zohran Mamdani won the mayor’s race, “It is highly unlikely that I will be contributing Federal Funds, other than the very minimum as required, to my beloved first home.” (FACT CHECK: he has no power to do any of this.)

This is a Big Deal: Yesterday, Trump said he would defy the court orders that Maladministration II must distribute SNAP benefits from the emergency funds until Democrats vote to reopen the government - a “win” for Republicans in a political situation where they are seen by the public as the ones responsible for the shutdown and the cuts to healcare and SNAP funding. He posted on Lies Anti-Social: “SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly “handed” to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” (FACT CHECK: as usual, none of the lies oozing out of that asshole under his nose are true.) Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told reporters: “I think that will be short lived and if he continues to ignore the courts then we’re in a full blown five alarm constitutional crisis. The President doesn’t get to pick and choose which court orders he complies with. The court said he has to start paying SNAP benefits and he has to start paying SNAP benefits.” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) wrote on social media: “The President who threw a Gatsby-themed party the night before he cut off SNAP benefits is now vowing to break a court order so that he can force millions of children, seniors, and veterans to go hungry. It’s sickening. I won’t stand for it.” Karoline Leavitt quickly walked back the president’s words: “The administration is fully complying with the court order. I just spoke with the president about it,” Leavitt told reporters, claiming Trump was talking about future situations. We’ll see. Maladministration II is using the hunger of Americans to pressure Democrats to agree to send healthcare premiums skyrocketing. 78% of Americans want those tax credits extended. That includes 59% of Republicans. Only 22% don’t want them extended.

Alex Bruesewitz - the 2024 Trump campaign’s digital guy - thinks the problem was that the Republicans who are losing aren’t MAGA enough, posting: “Candidate quality matters. Tonight was a great lesson for the Republican Party: running squishy Rs who are lukewarm on Trump and MAGA, even in “purple” states, doesn’t work. Your candidate needs to be able to turn out ALL FACTIONS of our party, and they do that by being MAGA all the way. Republicans must get smart and run only MAGA candidates moving forward; otherwise, there will be massive turnout problems when realDonaldTrump is not on the ballot!” Ciattarelli had Trump’s public endorsement and publicly stated his support for Trump, and lost worse than he did in his first loser campaign, where he scored a higher vote than Trump did in 2020. You keep believing that, you dumbfucking moron.

In the midst of everything else, attention must be paid to the death of one of the most important - and most controversial - American politicians of the past 50-plus years. Dick Cheney was many things, and most of them I disliked, from his putdown of people like me who served in the War of Lies - “I had other plans” - to his establishment for the first time in American history of a government-sponsored political torture program as part of his official sponsorship of the Global War On Terra, and everything in between. But last year, in what would be the final year of his life, he did something no other Republican of his stature within the party has done. Toward the end of the presidential campaign, he went public and endorsed Kamala Harris, saying: “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He can never be trusted with power again. As citizens, we each have a duty to put country above partisanship to defend our Constitution.” And he followed that up by voting in line with his public statement. Amidst all the echoing silence in the rest of the GOP, those words and action will be remembered when the history of these times is written. Does it excuse everything else? Of course not. But it will stand as a marker.

In the field of how looney can the news get, there is this: Laura Loomer - who is as far from being a reporter as it is possible to get - is now a Pentagon reporter with an official press pass. She demonstrates what kind of person would involve themselves with what passes for the contemporary American defense establishment, officially agreeing to act as a Pentagon propagandist. She dubs herself an “investigative journalist, activist, and truth-teller” - which shows how how hollow and nearly useless language has become.

In a weird new filing, the Trump Justice Department responded to former FBI Director James Comey’s claim of vinndictive and selective prosecution by DOJ, by submitting in reponse to those motions a collection of tenuously-related private emails between Comey and Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman. The NYT put it deftly: “The evidence was included in a 48-page filing that appeared to be an effort to construct a narrative that Mr. Comey had leaked information to the news media without actually tying such assertions to the allegations made in the indictment brought against him.”

Furthermore, in a remarkable filing in both the Jim Comey and Letitia James cases, Attorney General Bondi submitted a document she signed on Halloween - over a month after Comey’s indictment - declaring she was retroactively ratifying everything interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan did to secure the two indictments. The filing came in Maladministration II’s response to motions from Comey and James to dismiss their indictments on the grounds Halligan was unlawfully appointed as U.S. attorney. Bondi claimed she validly appointed Halligan as interim U.S. attorney on Sept. 22 but also purported to give new and additional authority to Halligan: “For the avoidance of doubt as to the validity of that appointment … I hereby appoint Ms. Halligan to the additional position of Special Attorney” retroactive to the same date. There was no avoidance of doubt; it was amplified. The fact Bondi felt the need to do after-the-fact cleanup of Halligan’s appointment undermines the rest of the DOJ brief, which argues Halligan is a perfectly valid U.S. attorney. This appears to be a response to the federal judges in New Jersey, Nevada, and California who have already found fault with the appointments of Trump U.S. attorneys under less unusual circumstances than Halligan’s. They’re dancing as fast as they can on some obviously-thin ice.

We won’t have the full turnout picture for a few days, but it’s clear that the Trump-era Democratic coalition simply stays more engaged in electoral politics than the GOP. And that is the secret for success a year from now.

(Photo KarenRN)

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