The day after America rejected almost everything he touched, U.S. President Donald Trump held an event about the ballroom he’s building on the ruins of the East Wing of the White House.
asserted
he → reject → House
He was vaguely subdued, saying things almost by rote in his rasp, as if he was speaking to himself.
asserted
he → say → himself
Given the context, Trump almost seemed to be wandering around in his own afterlife.
asserted
Trump → give → afterlife
Trump was destroyed on Tuesday night.
asserted
Trump → destroy → night
Not as a person, or as a malignant force in American life, of course; he could still order a nuke, invade Canada, steal state secrets and sell them off the back of a truck.
uncertain
he → order → truck
He will get more desperate, as the walls close in.
asserted
walls → get → ?
The nightmare isn’t done.
asserted
nightmare → do → ?
But on Tuesday night the American electorate rebelled.
asserted
electorate → rebel → night
Midterms often punish the ruling party, but this was a meteor.
asserted
this → punish → party
Democrats won the House and the Senate by commanding margins; they now control a majority of the governors’ chairs, which encompass three quarters of the population; they won Senate seats in Kansas and South Carolina and maybe Alaska and Mississippi.
asserted
they → win → Kansas
Elon Musk spent nearly a quarter of a billion in Texas and Texas elected Democrats to statewide offices — to almost every available statewide office — after not doing so in any race since 1994.
asserted
Texas → spend → 1994
As Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “This is as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country probably as we have seen in the last 100 years.”
asserted
we → say → years
It was, speaking personally, my favourite night of television of the year.
asserted
It → speak → year
And picking one issue as The Reason only really works if The Reason is Trump, his decisions, and the people who have been drawn into his abhorrent orbit.
asserted
who → pick → orbit
In a slightly different world, you could argue Trump wanted to lose, because every single piece of his administration and comportment was toxic, corrupt, stupid or evil.
uncertain
piece → argue → administration
The list is encyclopedic: rapprochement with Russia or economic war with Canada and Europe; war with Iran or blood and soil nationalism run by goons and thugs on the streets of America and defined by cruelty, and even an evil sort of delight.
asserted
list → run → delight
Trump’s tariffs further drove up inflation and prices, and he did not live up to promises to release the Epstein files.
asserted
he → drive → files
He embodied corruption, and embraced the zombie plague of AI and data centres.
asserted
He → embody → AI
(There were 44 proposed moratoriums on data centre construction on the ballot Tuesday: 43 of them won, and the other was a 430-person vote in Harwood, N.D.)
asserted
other → be → Harwood
The pool of Trump-approved Republican candidates was a sewer, and official government Twitter accounts spat out white nationalist memes involving a gender-bending Harry Potter character and lauding Anakin Skywalker, or Darth Vader, as a heroic figure, and Trump’s closing argument involved describing the asses of certain men.
asserted
argument → approve → men
It could take a decade to sort through the wreckage, much less attempt a reconstruction.
uncertain
It → take → reconstruction
The fever won’t break completely, of course.
asserted
fever → break → course
Republicans had already rotted for years, and a more competent authoritarian could easily appeal to the same base instincts and turn the GOP back into a global menace.
uncertain
authoritarian → rot → menace
But what happened Tuesday was a blow to Trump and, as important, against his malign influence throughout politics.
asserted
happened → happen → politics
America called itself the shining city on a hill, and a lot of it was myth, but the United States really did send a signal to the world about democracy and possibility in a nation that welcomed Albert Einstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and produced Dolly Parton and “Sesame Street.”
asserted
that → call → Parton
Under Trump, America became a vector of corrosion: an anti-science, anti-expertise, anti-media bouillabaisse of gutter racism, brutish misogyny, funhouse mirror conspiracies, Potemkin influencers, isolationism, election denial, corruption, and a sea of lies so vast that it was as if Trump and MAGA were trying to reorder reality itself into a mirror of their own distorted, unhappy, hateful selves.
asserted
Trump → become → selves
You can see various echoes in conservative parties around the world.
asserted
You → see → world
And Tuesday America chose something more .... human.
asserted
America → choose → something
Republicans lost every income level in this election.
asserted
Republicans → lose → election
They lost men in this election.
asserted
They → lose → election
It’s enough to restore your faith, at least a little: the far right is a cancer of the human soul and a magnet for incompetence, and it has been rejected in Hungary, in Serbia, and in Brazil.
asserted
it → ’ → Brazil
And now in America, where the future is not a white nationalist dystopia because Trump has been turned into an 80-year-old has-been who might one day go to prison, if everything breaks right.
uncertain
everything → turn → prison
He isn’t dead but he’s dying as a politician, and the real hope is some of his ideas die with him.
asserted
some → die → him
It doesn’t repair the wreckage, of course; there’s too much of that.
asserted
It → repair → that
But it’s a start.
asserted
it → ’ → ?
The Aporia
