And so, one era passes and another begins.
asserted
another → pass → ?
Yesterday, voters flipped control of both chambers of Congress from the Republicans to the Democrats.
asserted
voters → flip → Democrats
Votes in some races are still being counted, but NBC News projects that the Democrats will win at least 259 seats in the House of Representatives, far more than the 218 they needed to win a majority.
asserted
they → count → majority
A Democratic victory in the House had been widely expected, but what would happen in the Senate, which had a bad map for Democrats this cycle, was unclear.
uncertain
which → expect → Democrats
Democrats flipped seven seats in the Senate: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.
asserted
Democrats → flip → Senate
The Senate race in Alaska hasn’t yet been called, but Democratic challenger Mary Peltola is currently slightly ahead of Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan there.
asserted
Peltola → call → Sullivan
Even more eye-popping, as of this writing, Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom is ahead of the Republican incumbent in Mississippi.
asserted
Colom → pop → Mississippi
If he wins, he will be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction.
asserted
he → win → Reconstruction
In governors’ races, Democrats flipped Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada, and Texas.
asserted
Democrats → flip → Iowa
None of the new Democratic governors will be hamstrung by a Republican supermajority in the state legislature.
asserted
None → hamstring → legislature
Republicans in Kansas, Iowa, North Carolina, and Ohio either lost or failed to regain supermajorities that could override a governor’s veto.
uncertain
that → lose → veto
The topline races don’t tell the whole story.
asserted
races → tell → story
Voters elected Democrats up and down the ballot.
asserted
Voters → elect → ballot
In Texas, the most prominent example of this phenomenon, Democratic senatorial candidate James Talarico won by about 12 points.
asserted
Talarico → win → points
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa won by 7 points.
asserted
Hinojosa → win → points
Voters flipped two congressional seats in districts Trump won by at least 14 points in 2024.
asserted
Trump → flip → 2024
Voters elected a Democratic attorney general and four Democratic supreme court justices, and they flipped control of the lower chamber of the legislature.
asserted
they → elect → legislature
Some races flipped by double digits from the margins of 2024.
asserted
races → flip → 2024
Observers called the results “seismic” and “jaw-dropping,” not just a blue wave but a “tsunami.”
asserted
Observers → call → results
The 2026 midterm elections marked a revolution in American politics.
asserted
elections → mark → politics
Election scholar Michael McDonald estimates that about 124.3 million people, or just under 50% of those eligible, turned out to vote.
asserted
people → estimate → those
The election came off without anything more than the usual hitches, a tribute to the quiet work of dedicated lawyers and voting rights groups who have been fiercely contesting the administration’s efforts to rig the vote or to stir up opposition to accept the outcome.
asserted
who → come → outcome
It was, as organizers had hoped, “too big to rig.”
asserted
organizers → hop → ?
After months of suggesting he would contest the outcome of the election if Democrats won, Trump told New York Times reporters Erica L. Green and Tyler Pager that he would accept the results.
asserted
he → suggest → results
The historic nature of this election cannot be overstated.
asserted
nature → overstate → election
It is a rejection of Trump, who insisted voters should imagine he was on the ballot.
asserted
he → insist → ballot
But more than that, it is a rejection of the Republican ideology that has driven American politics since the 1980s: the idea that some people are better than others and have the right to rule.
asserted
people → drive → right
That ideology took root in American politics in the late 1970s, in response to the nation’s push toward equality for racial minorities and women.
asserted
ideology → take → minorities
1965 Voting Rights Act protected the right of Black and Brown Americans to vote, while the introduction of reliable birth control that same year began to permit women to enter the workforce on terms equal to men.
asserted
introduction → protect → men
It seemed that the equality promised in American democracy was within reach.
asserted
equality → seem → reach
But to win election, Richard M. Nixon brought into the Republican Party voters who opposed the expansion of American democracy while Democrats looked to expand their tent.
asserted
Democrats → win → tent
In 1972, even as Nixon won in a landslide, Democrats sent to Congress giants like Barbara Jordan of Texas, the first Black woman elected to Congress from the South and the first woman to deliver a keynote address at a Democratic National Convention.
asserted
Democrats → win → Convention
In 1974, voters infuriated by Watergate flipped 49 House seats and 5 Senate seats from Republican to Democratic and elected 93 new members of Congress, 76 of whom were Democrats.
asserted
76 → infuriate → whom
In 1976 they sent Democrat Jimmy Carter to the White House, where he signed legislation that made it illegal to fire women or cut their pay because they were pregnant, expanded contracting rules to boost Black-owned businesses, worked to end racial discrimination in hiring, and created the Department of Education.
asserted
they → send → Education
Carter’s Republican successor, Ronald Reagan, won election by attacking the modern American state and warning that people like the “Welfare Queen,” a Black woman who abused the welfare system to live large, were taking money from hardworking white people.
asserted
who → win → people
The government should get out of people’s lives, he said, and he promised to slash taxes and regulations to permit people to accumulate wealth.
asserted
he → get → wealth
In turn, he claimed, they would invest in the economy, creating jobs for everyone.
asserted
they → claim → everyone
Reagan and his allies tied racial and gender inequality to economic prosperity.
asserted
Reagan → tie → prosperity
That combination worked—more or less—to attract voters until Trump’s second term tore it apart.
asserted
term → work → it
Trump and appointees like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have purged the government of minorities and women and undermined the health and well-being of nonwhite Americans, immigrants, and women.
asserted
Trump → purge → Americans
…and 40 more, not listed.
The Aporia
