Don’t undersell the triumph of ousting Trump.
Before Democrats begin their reckoning over their apparent failure to take the Senate and their reduced numbers in the House, before the intraparty recriminations between centrists and progressives, let’s take a moment to appreciate what’s before us. After four grueling years, Donald Trump has been defeated. The fact that the election came down to the wire in the swing states, that around 70 million Americans looked at the last four years and opted for more, is an ominous sign for the future of the Republic. It is also a reminder of how much worse this could have been. Trump, it turned out, was far better at pumping up his side’s turnout than we might have assumed from polling data. The president lost Pennsylvania, but he received far more votes in the state — close to 3.3 million, when last I checked — than he did in 2016, when he won it. Joe Biden got more votes in Texas this year than Trump did in 2016 and it still wasn’t nearly enough for a flip. There was in fact a red wave; it just wasn’t big enough to carry Trump to victory. This increased red turnout was a boon to down-ballot Republicans in some states. They appear to have benefited both from people who love the president but haven’t been consistent Republican voters in the past, and from the smaller share of anti-Trump Republicans. Republican senators outperformed Trump in Maine, Texas and, in the case of David Perdue, very slightly in Georgia. A Republican Senate is not yet a lock — races in Alaska and North Carolina still haven’t been called, and there will be two runoffs in Georgia — but it’s a likelihood. The implications for Biden’s first term are dire, and the sort of pro-democracy reforms that would stave off a future of minority rule are, for the moment, off the table. It’s understandable that many on the left are dispirited. But that should not distract from the monumental accomplishment of ending Trump’s malignant presidency.
