{"id":67134,"date":"2018-11-07T15:32:26","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T22:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=67134"},"modified":"2018-11-07T16:39:55","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T23:39:55","slug":"responding-to-popular-demand-peterson-reacts-to-the-midterm-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/11\/responding-to-popular-demand-peterson-reacts-to-the-midterm-elections.html","title":{"rendered":"Responding to popular demand, Peterson reacts to the midterm elections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Wood's<\/a>
Grant Wood, \u201cYoung Corn\u201d (1931)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

That the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives is unfortunate, from my point of view, but scarcely unexpected. \u00a0In fact, of course, it surprised very few. \u00a0The party out of power typically does well in off-year elections.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Was it a referendum on Mr. Donald J. Trump? \u00a0My sense is that, by and large, it was not. \u00a0(And I say that as someone who is scarcely a fan of Mr. Trump.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will we see Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House again? \u00a0Possibly, but it\u2019s far from certain. \u00a0She isn\u2019t especially effective, she\u2019s getting fairly long in the tooth, many of her fellow Democratic representatives are tired of her, and her party is lurching further leftward.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was deeply gratifying, however, to see the Republicans solidify their control of the Senate. \u00a0That will be very useful in future judicial confirmations, and particularly if there is another vacancy on the Supreme Court during the next two years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m disappointed to see that Jon Tester held on to his Senate seat by a squeaker of a victory. \u00a0He really doesn\u2019t fit Montana, but they\u2019re stuck with him for another six years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martha McSally may possibly, at this writing, have barely defeated the noxious Kyrsten Sinema to replace the Honorable Jeff Flake as the senator from Arizona. \u00a0We shall see. \u00a0Ms. Sinema \u2014 an ex-Latter-day Saint, by the way \u2014 seems to hold the Arizona electorate in contempt. \u00a0Why she didn\u2019t lose in a landslide is beyond me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mitt Romney will be the junior senator from Utah now. \u00a0He ought to be president, of course, but we should be grateful for small favors. \u00a0I suspect that he\u2019ll find the Senate incredibly frustrating, but he\u2019s a man of decency and character and the Senate desperately needs more of those.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very pleased that, in the end, Ted Cruz defeated the overhyped faux<\/em> Latino working class hero Beto O\u2019Rourke \u2014 aka the multimillionaire phony Robert Francis O\u2019Rourke (Columbia University class of \u201995).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida offered some good news: \u00a0Rick Scott took Bill Nelson\u2019s Senate seat, and Ron DeSantis defeated Andrew Gillum for the governorship.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to bid fond farewell to Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Tennessee, Republican Marsha Blackburn handily defeated Phil Bredesen for the Senate. \u00a0That\u2019s encouraging.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In New Jersey, the cynical and corrupt Bob Menendez, a Democrat, has been returned to the Senate yet again. \u00a0That\u2019s discouraging.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In one of the saddest stories of the election, for me, Representative Mia Love appears to have lost her race in Utah\u2019s 4th congressional district. \u00a0That shouldn\u2019t have happened. \u00a0But, as usual, the Narcissist-in-Chief has made it all about him:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Love gave me no love\u2019: President Trump slams Utah Rep. Mia Love in post-election news conference, says she lost\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reasonably confident that Rep. Love\u2019s apparent defeat has just about nothing to do with her failure to genuflect to Mr. Donald J. Trump with sufficient servility. \u00a0But the effect of her departure, coupled with the departure from the Senate of such folks as Jeff Flake and Bob Corker, is to remold the Republican Party a bit more still into the Party of Donald Trump \u2014 something that I very much regret.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And I regret that Mr. Trump chose to focus his last days of campaigning not on the booming economy (which would have been a powerful message) but, rather, on appeals to a sometimes quite ugly xenophobia. \u00a0The Republican Party has come a long way from Ronald Reagan\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s morning in America again\u201d<\/a> to Mr. Trump\u2019s dark warnings about criminals, serial rapists, drug dealers, mass murderers, and terrorists bearing down on our borders in grim and hostile invading caravans.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 That the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives is unfortunate, from my point of view, but scarcely unexpected. \u00a0In fact, of course, it surprised very few. \u00a0The party out of power typically does well in off-year elections. \u00a0 Was it a referendum on Mr. Donald J. Trump? \u00a0My sense is that, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nResponding to popular demand, Peterson reacts to the midterm elections<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    That the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives is unfortunate, from my point of view, but scarcely unexpected. \u00a0In\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/11\/responding-to-popular-demand-peterson-reacts-to-the-midterm-elections.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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