But the Reflecting Pool!

Donald Trump spent the last weeks traveling around the country, characteristically talking about himself and encouraging people to vote as if he were on the ballot.

On Tuesday, that’s exactly how the country voted.

Of course that’s not how he’ll see it. It is not in him to recognize any part of reality, and especially not the extent to which he is hated.

Yet that is the unmistakable conclusion to be drawn from the election. The Democrats didn’t win. Can you tell me what they were elected to be or do? No, you can’t, beyond that they’re not Donald Trump and to some extent might act as a brake on his malignant monkeyshines. They didn’t win. Trump and his malevolent, spineless sycophants lost.

The Trumpian ship gurgled its way into the vasty deep taking with it other victims. A lot of people found themselves lashed to the rail of the S.S. What’s In It For Me. They are now paying the price of their cowardice.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. We’ve possibly heard the last of J.D. Vance (or whatever he calls himself next). He might get himself elected grand dragon of some Klan offshoot or something, but the sale of his soul, over and over — its price was never very high — cost him everything. Good.

Trumpian pipsqueak Vivek Ramaswamy is likely, too, never to be heard from again.

When I was young I knocked down a big wasps’ nest. I got stung, but so did everyone else, none of whom had knocked down the nest. Ramaswamy riled up a lot of people when he released the contemptible commercial featuring his opponent’s troubled mother, and when voters came buzzing out to the polls they stung not only the deserving Vivek but some who didn’t earn it, such as Senator John Husted (who nevertheless was scarcely a profile in courage during Trump’s ongoing rampage). Career dirtbag Ken Paxton got whacked in Texas, and he dragged the excellent Governor, Greg Abbott, down with him.

I think that, partly through its timing, Ramaswamy’s jerkitude had effects that extended beyond Ohio. It was a shining example of the indecency of Trump and those who think and behave like him. It took many straws to break the camel’s back, but Vivek’s is in the running for the one that finally did it, and unlike Vivek himself it might win. Vance tied himself to Ramaswamy, further injuring his hope of becoming more than a history book footnote, like so many vice presidents in failed administrations. (Or even successful ones: If you ask people who Hannibal Hamlin was, at least half will say he was a character on the “A-Team” television show, not Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president.)

It was pitiful Wednesday morning to watch Fox Trump Channel try to pretend that it wasn’t Trump’s fault, wasn’t Trump’s loss. Corruption was mentioned, and poor Martha McCallum, personable but none too bright, brought up Minnesota, which the channel has been condemning as the main locus of corruption. Guess what, Martha: the Democrats swept Minnesota. The corruption that featured in Tuesday’s election was that of the Trump-Witkoff Syndicate, which has obviously been feathering its own nest during the current Trumpian term.

McCallum perhaps can be forgiven for her hesitancy. It is likely that the suits in the offices on Sixth Avenue had not yet issued instructions as to the channel’s current version of the truth. The channel has not come through the election unbruised: In October alone it lost more than a quarter of its daytime audience. While smaller, CNN and the former MSNBC both grew. Will Fox remain tethered to the Trump-trash audience? Like the unfortunate Martha, we don’t yet know. The fate of the peroxide industry is riding on the decision made by the Fox execs.

Though industry in general needn’t worry. The evil orange clown has gone on and on about bringing manufacturing to America, which the rules of comparative advantage decided wasn’t appropriate about 60 years ago. He has pointed to the stock market as proof that he was right. The market Wednesday morning demonstrated that its recent successes have been in spite, not because, of him. Trump got hammered at the polls, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1500 points the next day.

Also Wednesday morning, Erick Erickson, in my view the most competent commentator on the current political scene, wrote and posted a comprehensive and accurate autopsy of the election. You should read it. Here’s part:

It was gas prices.

And it was the war.

But it was also calling affordability a “hoax.”

And it was also the corruption.

The incompetence.

The tariffs.

The playing nice with Russia while treating our allies worse than our enemies.

The impression of cruelty.

The overly aggressive deportations.

The accidental arrests of American citizens who were Hispanic.

The arrogance.

The ballroom.

The reflecting pool.

The golf courses.

The arch.

The Qatari 747.

The aggressive redistricting push.

The threats against enemies.

It turns out a weekend Fox and Friends host might not be a reassuring beacon of competence to Americans.

The piece begins, “The president is to Republicans what Lindsey Clancy is to kids.” Indeed.

Many years ago, when I was at the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale News, I wrote what turned into the banner-headline front-page story in the afternoon edition. The headline was “Thief Robs Store, Serves Customers.”

There was a chain of small stores in the area, the Farm Stores. Each had one person inside, handling two drive-up windows, one on each side. The stores sold milk and eggs, cigarettes, and, as random items were called, sundries. On this day an armed robber showed up at the Farm Store a few blocks from my house. In the course of robbing the place he tied up the store clerk. Then, unexpectedly, customers pulled in. What to do? He sold them stuff. Collected (and kept) their money. Gave them change. In between the customers he continued robbing the place.

That’s exactly what Donald Trump did to the Republican Party. He is not, nor has he ever been, a Republican. He’s merely been posing as one while he rifles the place and pockets the loot. No one dislikes Trump more than actual Republicans do. I know this because I am one.

There is much truth floating around today, and none of it is coming from politicians (with the possible exception of Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who ought to be president) or from their “news” channel publicists. And while TwitteX and other online cesspools do not enjoy a high signal-to-noise ratio today any more than they do any other day, careful searching can reveal some wisdom there.

I’m thinking now of Illia Ponomarenko, a writer in Bucha, Ukraine, who thinks before he types and who Wednesday morning posted an astute observation: “Well, I don’t know, man, but looking back at that February 2025 Oval Office sh**show, some 20 months later, one guy from that meeting is bombing Moscow and St. Petersburg on a daily basis, another has suffered a spectacular failure in Iran and a crushing electoral defeat, and the third, the one with the big mouth, may well have kissed his presidential ambitions goodbye.

“So, who had the cards?”

To which I’ll add: If someone tells you that tariffs are a good idea, don’t trust him on that subject or any other. And sure as hell don’t make him president.