By now you’ve heard. The Democrats took back control of Congress. The House looked like a sure thing. The Senate was more of a long-shot. But then? Oh, MAN did the blue votes just keep coming. The House flipped. The Senate flipped. Lovely. Then we started hearing about down ballot races. Texas flipped! The Governor. The newest Senator. The state house. The only Republican national politician left in Texas is Ted Cruz. Red candidates in deep red states were defeated by blue candidates across the land.

James Talarico won. Abdul El-Sayed won. Amy Acton won. Those three were particularly satisfying, after all the garbage the GOP spewed at them. I was equally pleased that some of the worst cons lost. Susan Collins lost. She’s been a soft-spoken nightmare for humanity. I enjoyed all of those developments and from my interactions with people yesterday, I wasn’t alone. My favorite bit? Donald Trump lost. Remember? He told us to pretend he was on the ballot. Oh, we did, Donny. (You didn’t even really have to tell us.) We looked at the ballot, saw Trump, looked at the wreckage he caused (and is), and said, “No more!”

It was part of his stump speech. “Pretend I’m on the ballot because, in a way, I am!” He knew, and in an exceedingly rare moment, I agree with him. He WAS on the ballot even if his name didn’t appear. Then, after the loss, suddenly he was sure he wasn’t the cause because his name wasn’t on the ballot. The drubbing was so complete the GOP has little left but blame and finger-pointing. Hey, GOP, I can make this simple for you: you’ve behaved as terrible human beings and you finally pissed off enough decent Americans that even your gerrymandering games couldn’t stop Team Blue.

Congress can reassert itself. Much of what Trump has gotten away with has happened because Congress simply refused to stand up for itself. The GOP just let 47 steal their powers and MAGA Mike, the Johnson didn’t care. He never lifted a finger to stop Trump. When people asked him about some of the more egregious outrages, Johnson’s position was always “Oh, I haven’t heard about that.” Third in line for the White House and Johnson knew nothing. Ever. Except, we all know he did. He just was not inclined to do anything about it. But this Congress? I expect them to take their power back.

Votes are still being counted, as of this writing. It doesn’t look like the Dems will have enough power in Congress to impeach Trump unless some of the remaining cons cross the aisle. In fact, I doubt they’ll impeach anybody. Trump still gets to name people to those posts and he’s an incompetent who surrounds himself with incompetents. Getting rid of, say, Pete Hegseth or JFK, Jr won’t fix anything. Trump will just find another brain-dead moron to do his bidding. The Senate won’t confirm anymore rubber-stamp fools, but that means the job is left vacant or with an “acting” director, which could be worse.

Congress controls the purse strings. Maybe the Dems can force an end to Trump’s illegal war in Iran. Maybe they can stop him from diverting money authorized for various things into his pockets instead. Trump diverted $6 billion dollars from the Pentagon to his stupid wall. Congress can claw that back. Not for the Pentagon. They clearly don’t need it. Maybe we can put it toward helping people rather than killing them, instead.

There’s another fight that’s been raging that can be settled now that Congress isn’t made up of spineless cowards toadying up to The Pedo President. Congress can complete the release of the Trump/Epstein files. You know the ones. Those are the files that were improperly redacted to protect Trump. Let’s see those. Let’s show the world exactly who Donald J. Trump really is.

Trump said on Fox Not-News that he would accept the results of the election. We’ll see. But that’s what he said. Then, naturally, he started blaming everyone but himself. It’s fair to say this was a referendum on the GOP in general, but it was much more focused on Trump. It’s not honest to say he’s the only reason for the blue wave, but he’s certainly the primary reason for it – and he simply can NOT accept that. The day after the election, all he was willing to talk about was his stupid ballroom. He looks shell-shocked. He reminded me of a person who has lost a loved one, as that person realizes, in stages, what’s going to change in their lives.

We do need to temper our expectations about what the Dems can do and exactly how much. For one thing, 47 has already indicated he plans to veto any legislation the Congress passes and the Dems don’t have a veto-proof majority. Not quite. It will only take a handful of Republicans to flip, though, so some things might get done. The strength right now, though? Stopping him. Investigate all of that corruption, especially from his family. Publicize it. Shine a light on it.

There’s going to be a lot of talk about Musk spending half a billion dollars in an effort to buy the election and losing anyway. “See? Money doesn’t influence politics,” we’ll be told. But it does. It absolutely does and it needs to be eliminated from American elections. It didn’t THIS time, but look how close we had to come to the brink, how furious the electorate had to get, and honestly, how despicable the GOP candidates themselves had become, to beat the money.

Speaking of money, did you notice? Gas prices have already started dropping a bit. I accept that the vast majority of the costs have been the result of Trump’s monstrous, disastrous choices in Iran. But if you think the corporations didn’t avail themselves of an opportunity – just because – you don’t know the free market. Gouging is the name of the game. Trump just agreed not to do anything about it. So the war caused some increase in the price, but corporate greed caused the rest. Blue hasn’t even been seated yet and already, improvement shown, however minimally.

I’ve heard some pundits suggesting this is the end of MAGA. It isn’t. Don’t fool yourself. Consider this: To this day, there are STILL Nazis running around and the racist Ku Klux Klan still has regular meetings. These dark-hearted, evil movements rarely go away once started. There’s always some dark-hearted son-of-a-bitch out there ready to embrace the worst impulses of humanity. MAGA may have been slapped down. It may be pushed to the fringes of political discourse. But it ain’t goin’ anywhere.

Still, I honestly don’t think it’s hyperbole to say this election was existential. If we hadn’t stopped the GOP, we most likely would not have survived as a nation to get another chance. The entire planet would have suffered that fate. Also, I’ve long understood that national Democrats are beholden to the same paymasters as the GOP. That, too, will limit the impact the Democrats can have. But for now, the Republic has done what it needed to do to give itself a chance.

Our choice was not between guaranteed nightmares or guaranteed success. It was between guaranteed nightmares and the hope of success. We still have a chance. I’m VERY happy to report, it shall be hope…