Today, most of my Republican friends are as happy as a hog wallowing in a mud puddle. And some Democratic friends are drowning in their tears.
As I watched the gathering at the Harris/Walz Victory Party, about midnight I halfway expected to hear the ghost of Don Meridith start singing, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.” (Older fans of Monday Night Football will get that one.)
In some of our top universities, with our top students, the election results were so troubling that professors canceled classes Wednesday so they could get therapy, hold hands and play tiddlywinks. And that was just for the professors.
Another group dealing with grief are journalists. Many journalists have forgotten their job is to collect information and process it into a newsworthy form for the public. Instead, they became biased advocates and commentators in their “news” stories.
“All I know is what I read in the newspaper.” If the only newspapers you read recently were the New York Times and the Washington Post, three-fourths of the political news was slanted favorably toward Kamala Harris and negatively toward Donald Trump. Most network TV coverage was similar. In general, mass media failed to recognize the disappointment by the majority of Americans in the economy, inflation, illegal immigration, crime, religious division, and other issues they dealt with daily.
If our journalists, especially the White House Press Corps, had reported honestly on the mental decline of President Biden, the Democrats would have had an open Primary election season with several candidates, including Kamala Harris. The candidate who emerged would have been “toughened in battle” and well prepared to take on Donald Trump.
Unfortunately, Kamala Harris was plucked out of the air as an untested substitute. You are reading and hearing many reasons why she lost to Trump. I’m offering this one: she has no ability to respond to impromptu questions with answers that are precise, accurate and short. Naturally, almost every politician learns how to avoid direct answers. But at some point, a candidate for President has to clearly state their policies and plans to implement them.
Also, the Vice-President based her campaign mainly on abortion, January 6, and that Trump is a felon. Those were not the top issues for the voters.
Bill Clinton got elected in the 1990s with the theme, “It’s the economy, stupid.” I heard a pundit explain one reason Harris/Walz lost was their underlying theme, “The economy is great. You’re stupid.”
The Harris/Walz campaign raised and spent a BILLION dollars. As Will Rogers wrote in 1931, “Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with nowadays.”
Despite the Trump win, Democrats won more Senate and House seats than expected.
Tomorrow is Veterans Day. This date marks the official end of World War I, on 11/11 at 11:00 a.m., 1918. We salute all veterans. In 1927, Will Rogers wrote that we should honor our veterans and keep them in a good humor because if another war breaks out “we might want to use these boys again.”
With the election over, Congress will soon reconvene in what’s known as a lame-duck session. As Will Rogers defined it after the 1932 election, a Lame-Duck Congress is “like where some fellows worked for you and their work wasn’t satisfactory and you let ’em out, but after you fired ’em, you let ’em stay long enough so they could burn your house down.”
Historic quotes by Will Rogers
“FOR SALE—Would like to sell, trade, dispose of or give away to right parties the right of franchise of what is humorously known as Democratic Party. Said franchise calls for license to enter in national elections; said right of franchise is supposed to be used every four years, but if intelligent parties had it, they would let various elections go by default when understood they had no chance. If in right hands and only used in times when it had an ‘issue’ or when Republican Party had split, think it could be made to pay, but present owners have absolutely no business with it. Under present management they have killed off more good men than [railroad] crossings have.” DT #712, Nov. 7, 1928
“Let everybody, including the candidates, get into a good humor as quick as they got into a bad one. Both gangs have been bad sports, so see if at least one can’t redeem themselves by offering no alibis, but cooperate with the winner. So, cheer up. Let’s all be friends again. One of the evils of democracy is you have to put up with the [person] you elect whether you want him or not. That’s why we call it democracy.” DT 1953, Nov. 7, 1932