USA

The Democrats’ “Blue Tsunami” on Tuesday washed in a wave of promising firsts: the first Muslim senator, the first openly gay senator, the first Black female governor, the first Indigenous female governor and six transgender and non-binary people who will be the first in their state legislatures.

In addition, the improbable victories of progressive candidates like Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan) and Troy Jackson (Maine), who backed trans rights, abortion access and ending aid to Israel, offered a strong rebuke not only to Trumpism, but also to the conservatism that has leeched across the political spectrum to infect many Democrats.

Tuesday night saw a lot of upsets for Republicans. Usual Republican stalwarts like South Carolina and Texas went blue. Democrats strengthened their grip on North Carolina, and they dragged Iowa and Ohio back into purple state territory. But while those races garnered national attention before Election Day, the most surprising upset of the night flew completely under just about everyone’s radar.

Tuesday’s devastating midterm defeat has brought long-simmering Republican divisions into the open, with Vice President JD Vance distancing himself from Donald Trump’s Iran war after Democrats seized both chambers of Congress. The intervention has also intensified the emerging struggle over Trump’s political succession in 2028.

According to Fox News Digital, White House officials met on Wednesday, 4 November, to coordinate post-election messaging, one source said, while another described it as a routine meeting. Afterwards, Vance published a lengthy statement on X squarely blaming the war for the Republican wipeout.

Tuesday’s election wasn’t a blue wave or even a blue tsunami: It was a blue apocalypse.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), who leads the one notable bright spot on the map, referred to the wipeout as “close to an extinction-level event” for the GOP. It was the worst midterm defeat for one party in over a half-century.

Much of the postmortem conversation has focused on why this massacre happened. Was it the Iran war? Was it the tariffs? Was it corruption? Was it the “Epstein files” mess?

Vice President JD Vance has created distance between himself and President Donald Trump ahead of a likely 2028 presidential bid. Trump doesn’t seem to mind. At least not yet.

Through leaks and public comments, Vance has made it clear that he opposed the Iran war. Unlike Trump, Vance didn’t endorse Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his recent election.

JD Vance knew it was now or never.

The longer he stayed in Donald Trump’s camp, the more he would be associated with abandoning his America First values for another foreign war.

And so, as Republicans surveyed the damage of their humiliating midterm defeat, the vice-president took it upon himself to deliver a devastating rebuke of the president’s decision to go to war with Iran.

Republicans can always be counted on to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

As everyone knows by now, the Republican Party was handed a resounding defeat in the midterms Tuesday in a brutal repudiation of Donald Trump and MAGA. Predictably, there were numerous instances of suspicious voting “irregularities,” but the shellacking was so bad that Democrats didn’t even have to cheat.

It’s easy to get depressed about American politics. Some might see us shifting from the MAGA personality cult to the impending rule of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

That view is wrong and misreads the results of yesterday’s midterm elections. It may have been a disaster for the Republicans, and particularly Donald Trump, but not necessarily for the country. Despite the success of some awful lefties, notably Abdul El-Sayed (D-Muslim Brotherhood), the biggest – and most unheralded – victories were won by Democratic candidates professing a more moderate message.

Can the crazies be controlled? Or are they already in charge.

Monroe, Mich. — The bigliest loser in American history — at least until the returns from the Congressional election started rolling in Tuesday night — surveyed the battleground state of Michigan from his perch on a downcast horse.

This was the doomed Major General George Armstrong Custer, whose brigade was routed and ritually mutilated by Sitting Bull’s Lakota Sioux at the battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana in 1876. “Custer’s Last Stand” has been immortalized in American infamy ever since, except in his hometown of Monroe, Mich., which is about an hour south of Detroit and just across the river from the tranche of the “51st State” still known to some as “Ontario.” In Monroe, Custer remains a bronze-headed hero, “presented at a young age,” according to a sign beside the equestrian statue on the bank of the River Raisin.

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Losing Texas in Tuesday’s devastating midterm elections means much more for Republicans than losing a political stronghold. Democrat Gina Hinojosa’s victory over Governor Greg Abbott puts the future of one of America’s largest state-led border-security operations in question, potentially depriving President Donald Trump of his most powerful state partner in immigration enforcement.

Hinojosa defeated the three-term incumbent by roughly seven points, a considerable margin in a previously deep-red state, becoming Texas’s first Democratic governor since 1995. Democrats also captured the lieutenant governorship, attorney general’s office and state House, while James Talarico defeated Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton for the Senate seat. In a rare bright spot, Republicans managed to hold the state Senate, making it their only remaining legislative stronghold in Austin.

When it became clear to me that the Republicans were on the receiving end of an epic beating in the November 3 midterms, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief.

I felt relieved because politicos and pundits in Canada have used Trump and his MAGA administration as a political issue non-stop over the past two years.