Unidentified NOAA photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

As a girl needs her beauty sleep, I declined my father’s invitation to stay up through the wee hours to watch the midterm results. Given the five-hour time difference with New York, I figured it was better to wait until there was conclusive evidence of a trend.

The day before the election, Dad and I made two €10 bets: one on the House, the other on the Senate. Whoever came closer to the results would win the bets. I predicted that the Democrats would win the House with a 10-seat margin; Dad bet on 30 seats. As for the Senate, I was certain the Democrats would gain only two seats (North Carolina and Kansas) and fall short of wresting control from the GOP. Dad was equally certain the Dems would flip seven seats and maybe ten.

“Dad, there’s no way Americans are going to elect a Muslim senator, and it’s unlikely they would elect a gay senator. With all the money the Muskrat poured into the other red states, I don’t see how the Democrats can pull it off. Trump’s hand-picked toadies nearly always win!”

“Not this time, Sunshine—just wait and see. It’s going to be 1966 all over again, but this time it’ll be the GOP that takes a whacking.”

I woke up the next morning, skipped my usual coffee and cigarette, and headed straight for my computer. When I opened the New York Times homepage and saw that the Democrats were crushing it, I screamed at the top of my lungs, triggering Alicia to wake up and see if a banshee had decided it was time for me to croak off. “Look at all that blue!” I explained, and she let out a scream of her own. We spent the morning watching the returns roll in, and by early afternoon, it was obvious that for the first time in my life, I had lost a bet I made with my “born to lose” father—and I couldn’t have been happier.

Well, it turns out that I did get happier after realizing that the Muskrat had pissed away about half a billion bucks and that both of his companies were getting hammered in the stock market. LOSER!

Though capturing both houses of Congress is a big step in the right direction, voters should not expect immediate improvements. The Executive branch will be led for another two years by a demented, hateful, and thoroughly incompetent president who presides over an administration of demented, hateful, and thoroughly incompetent appointees. Voldemort has already doubled down on his belief in white supremacy by making Hitlerite Stephen Miller his Chief of Staff, an appointment that should scare the shit out of all non-whites, legal immigrants, gays, and disabled citizens. There aren’t enough Democrats in either chamber to override presidential vetoes or defund ICE, but the veto power should not deter the Democrats from passing bills designed to keep their promises to lower health care premiums, gas prices, and grocery bills while asserting the exclusive constitutional right of Congress to impose taxes and define tariffs to improve affordability. If the GOP fails to support those efforts or Voldemort vetoes those bills, voters will remember that in 2028, but it’s going to be a rough ride until then.

The Democrats have already made one mistake by warning members of the Executive branch to “lawyer up.” One of the lessons of the midterms is that the populace is sick and tired of divisiveness and yearns for bipartisan collaboration. They might be able to work with lame-duck Republican Senator Thomas Massie, who wants to bring impeachment charges against macho dickhead Pete Hegseth, but they should let the GOP take the lead in eating one of their own. Corruption investigations are indeed necessary, but Hakeem Jeffries will need to take the temperature of GOP reps before calling hearings. Any move that feels like the Dems are taking revenge will wreck their credibility.

The real danger is in the area of foreign relations. Voldemort has cast his lot with Putin, making a European war much more likely. He agreed with his dummy of a vice-president that the war with Iran cost them the midterms, but then said, “At the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.” I would argue that under Voldemort, it’s the United States that shouldn’t have nuclear weapons. Trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize by restarting a war with Iran is something that only a demented mind would see as logical. I’m also worried about the possibility that Voldemort and his right-wing pal in Argentina may be planning a coup to oust the duly-elected Lula in Brazil. Given that most Republicans blame the Iran war for their losses, they might work with the Democrats to rein in Voldemort’s ability to make war, but many of those who survived the midterms still worship the prick. We’ll see. 

Had the Democrats lost the midterms, I would have given up on the United States, completed my study of post-WWII music and reinstituted the American Boycott. At last, there is a ray of hope for the land of my birth—and thanks to a European country that is falling apart at the seams, I was inspired to make a major addition to my study of American music.

The news from France has been pretty fucking bad the last few months, so I’m happy to report that at least a sliver of the population experienced an evening of hope and togetherness on October 15, when Stevie Wonder played Songs in the Key of Life and a few other compositions to a packed house in Paris. Bruno Lesprit of Le Monde wrote a rave review of the concert and the album, describing the latter as “a masterpiece by a genius.” After reading that article, I decided that if the Yanks pulled off the miracle, I would review five albums from Stevie’s “classic period” and give him a spot on the menu bar. In preparation for that effort, I took my review of Innervisions offline because it was a piece of crap written in my early days and did not do Stevie or the album justice. The first Stevie review should appear in a few weeks.

In closing, I asked my father to select a song that fit this moment in American history. He thought about it for a minute, and remembered  Senator-elect James Talarico’s victory speech, where he spoke about the importance of love. “People might think this is hippie silliness, but it’s exactly what they need to hear right now if we’re going to save this country.”

I think Dad nailed it.