They’re still counting ballots in Alaska, where Balto is delivering the remaining vote, and in Maine, where vote counters stop every ten fucking seconds to comment on the beautiful foliage, but even so, it’s clear: Democrats romped last night. And that, of course, is because Trump is extremely unpopular. Some may attribute Democrats’ success to Abdul El-Sayed’s masterful coalition building, or James Talarico’s alpha magnetism — he’s like a bengal tiger riding a Harley! — but I interpret this vote as a loud and simple “fuck Trump”.
Who could have foreseen that voters would become disenchanted with Trump? Well: Anyone who knows how the world works, honestly. Trump promised solutions to problems voters care about, but those promises were based on lies. The central claim of populism is that solutions are obvious, but malevolent forces keep them from happening. Trump portrayed himself as the man who could deliver “for you”, standing in opposition to the nefarious “they/them”. But the truth is that solutions aren’t simple, and they can’t be achieved by simply sticking it to evil-doers. A politician like Trump who promises quick fixes will eventually have to contend with the fact that the narrative they spun to voters was utter bullshit.
The most flamboyant collision between Trump’s vision and reality was DOGE. Here, decades of right-wing propaganda that a huge portion of government spending is “waste, fraud, and abuse” came home to roost. Elon Musk and his team of elite math twinks stormed the capitol ready to slay wasteful spending in a righteous, Red-Bull-and-ketamine-fueled crusade. But their theory of how government works was wrong — 90 percent of your tax dollar does not go to gender-affirming surgery for gold fish. And the fraudulence of Elon and Trump’s narrative is evident in how comprehensively they failed:
