• Cheer up Democrats: You won’t ever have to face Trump in an election ever again. (Democrats: THAT’S BECAUSE HE’S HITLER AND WILL CANCEL ALL FUTURE ELECTIONS AND RULE FOREVER AS A DICTATOR!)
• More seriously, folks, it is astounding that the constitutional restraints of our system that will prevent Trump (or any other president) from becoming a dictator are among the very things Democrats want to get rid of, like ending the Senate filibuster and court-packing. Trump should immediately take Democrats up on the suggestion of expanding the Supreme Court—call it a bipartisan act!
Of course, there is that whole problem of the Administrative State, which is the partisan instrument of the Democratic Party to impose its policies on us even when Democrats lose elections. That represents the single-most dictatorial element of government today, and they invented it. Maybe Democrats will finally start to have some second thoughts about concentrating so much undemocratic power in the executive branch? Nah—what am I thinking.
But perhaps Democrats can be forced into reconsidering by using it against them for a change. Here’s my single favorite action item for Day One of the next Trump Administration, as presented a couple weeks ago over at The American Mind:
Following the Alinsky advice to make your opponents live by their own rules, install an acting deputy secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education on January 20 (I nominate Edward Blum), and have that person send a “Dear Colleague” letter, similar to the mode the Obama and Biden Administration used to impose their Title IX rules, to the president and trustees of every college and university it the country declaring that it is the legal opinion of the Trump Administration that every DEI program is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and that all federal funds to that university, including student loans, will be suspended until all DEI offices are closed and their personnel dismissed, not merely transferred to some renamed job. Within weeks, even Democrats will want to abolish the Department of Education.
• I think The View on ABC might be fun to watch today.
• If 2008 was the first social media election, and 2012 the first “big data” election, will 2024 be the first podcast election? Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan received close to 100 million views. Those are Walter Cronkite-like numbers adjusted for population growth. Rogan is arguably the new Cronkite—the most watched and trusted media figure in the country today. But just a microcosm—okay, maybe a macrocosm—of the eclipse of the legacy media. It may arguably be the case that Trump’s interview with Rogan sealed the election.
I see The Telegraph thinks the same thing:
This is Joe Rogan’s America now
The Joe Rogan listener isn’t too dissimilar from the Donald Trump voter: both are sceptical of establishment authority, hate foreign interventions, are virulently anti-woke and – as this morning has proven – represent a diverse snapshot of modern American identity. He can’t be dismissed as a “bro” influencer in the same way as the pro-Trump YouTube pranksters the Nelk Boys. As the world wakes up to the election results, it’s clear that America is now Rogan country.
• There’s a deafening silence about “too much money in politics” or “too much money from billionaires,” because Harris and Democrats outraised and outspent Trump and Republicans by a huge margin. Maybe, as the old advertising story about dogs rejecting a highly advertised new dog food, voters just don’t like what Democrats are selling.
• There’s now going to be—or ought to be—a full blown crisis inside the Democratic Party about their theory of the electorate. And some of it will be ugly, like this:
And the reliable Joy Reid on MSNBC “blamed white women in North Carolina for the Democrat’s loss in the swing state. ‘In the end, they didn’t make their numbers. We have to be blunt about why, black voters came through for Harris, white women voters did not.'”
A good reminder of where the real racism in America is today: on the left.
• Meanwhile, I suspect at least the following four Democrats are privately very happy today: Gavin Newsom, Wretched Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, and Wes Moore. They are now the putative front-runners for 2028, but if Kamala had won, their presidential prospects would be much diminished, because by the time 2032 rolls around, they’ll be yesterday’s news.
• Special day-after TWiP coming soon!
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