by Benn Ray
This time last week was election night. I was nervous hosting another election night results watching party since the one in 2016 was the worst party ever thrown. I mean people were weeping. Shaking. Pacing. Losing their shit.
But as it turned out, this night went comparatively better. Eightbar was packed with people, all nervously drinking. So packed, in fact, that I was so busy serving I really didn't have a chance to keep up with any of the election results as they were posted. It didn't help that people would cheer or boo when partial results from small voting precincts were posted. As in, "Beto 59% - Cruz 31%" based on 12% of bumfuck Texas reporting.
At one point, when Hogan was announced the winner in Maryland, the entire bar booed except for one voice who cheered. I was like, "Okay, who brought the Republican?"
10 minutes later, a guy approaches the bar and tries to order a Coors Light. Mystery solved. But he didn't cause any problems and seemed nice enough. Still, I told everyone - tell the Republicans to go to the R House election results viewing party.
By the end of the night, it seemed many people left mildly disappointed but not defeated. After all, it was clear Democrats would take the House - so there would finally be at least some kind of check on the Trump Administration.
Maybe it was because I wasn't following the results as closely as I wanted, or maybe it was because I had very low expectations going in, but I didn't feel remotely bummed. I mean, I wasn't even sure the Democrats could take the House.
But then, the next day, as the left continued to kvetch, I continued to feel even better about the results.
Sure, Beto lost Texas. Sure elections in Florida and Georgia also didn't go the way I had hoped (but this is Texas, Florida, and Georgia we're talking about here - expecting them to do the right thing is expecting too much). But there were other things that went even better than I thought possible.
Baltimore City became the first city in the country to make it illegal to privatize our water and sewer systems. (Given my gripes above about BGE, you can guess I'm pretty stoked on that). We also fixed that gambling revenue/school budget bullshit.
But while my fellow Dems were bemoaning seeming losses from Democratic gubernatorial candidates in other states, I was stunned to discover that AACo., Baltimore County and Howard County all went with Democratic County Executives - and so many county council seats went blue as well.
In the House Dems have taken 30+ seats - maybe up to 39. In the Senate, Dems lost 1, maybe 2 seats. Given where these Senate seats were, it's amazing to me that Dems were able to flip a couple. So Republicans lose the House, don't pick up much in the Senate, drop some Governors - and there are still results outstanding (in some cases where Republicans are trying to stop votes from being counted, because, as I said last issue, Republicans don't believe in democracy).
But what convinced me my chipper response to the midterms was right was Trump's amazing freakout of a press conference the next day where he publicly shamed Republicans who lost who didn't embrace him, where he screamed at reports to sit down, where he accused a black reporter of asking him a racist question, where he claimed he won the midterm where... well - it was so unhinged, so desperate, so panicked.
And then, THEN Trump fires Keebler Sessions and illegally replaces him with Stupid Kingpin Whittaker who is already under criminal investigation.
I've gone from hiding from the news to feeling excited for the next 2 years. Let's kickoff the 2020 season, already!
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