If you don’t get into the mind of the person you are talking to, you can say whatever you want. It won’t be heard. Norbert Haug, former Vice President of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport

When Trump started running against “an invasion” of Latin American immigrants, I thought he was wrong, thinking he should be running on the economy (which is, after all, booming). It turns out that I was wrong and I should have realized it when The New York Times ran a major article on white women Trump supporters saying that Trump is protecting them. At some point during last Tuesday night, Mark Shields commented that the only times the party in power didn’t lose seats in the election after the presidential election was Kennedy in 1962 and Bush in 2002. In both cases, we were, seemingly, on the cusp of war, the Bay of Pigs with Kennedy and Iraq with Bush. Trump campaigned on immigration being an invasion that the Democrats would allow and only he could, or would, protect us from, he turned himself into a sort of war-president – on the backs of helpless and hapless immigrants, I want to add –  like Kennedy or Bush. Anybody who thinks Trump is stupid is fooling themselves. 

The Democrats won the House and that is a big deal. I think. A lot of progressives, running as progressives, won but a lot didn’t. I had a big emotional – and small financial – investment in Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Gillum, and Stacey Abrams, and all three lost. I hadn’t expected that – I guess because I was too emotionally attached to be realistic – thinking that the three could expand the electorate.

I hope the new house doesn’t get bogged down in the Russian collusion bullshit. Yeah, the Russians helped Trump – or tried to – but, so what. Don’t get me wrong, I do think that Trump is a crook and a con-man but I don’t think the help he received rises to the level of an indictable crime and spending a lot of time on that will end up being as self-destructive as Newt Gingrich trying to impeach Clinton.  Although it would be fun to see the new  House investigate the Georgia governor’s election.   

Where the Democrats made the biggest gains seem to be the suburbs and I think that is a reflection of suburbanites being increasingly more identified with their cities. it is where the action is and where people go there on big nights out.