The Great Rejection

Editor’s Note: I was originally planning to run this Friday, but I opted to ride the wave. I welcome your thoughts.

The last couple days before the election, my brother and I discussed the probabilities. We finally got to "who the [redacted] knows what's going to happen?," because all the polls painted a race that was too close to call. I concluded at the time that we are seeing polling and prediction methodologies hitting their limits, in no small part because of the major shifts in voter bases between the parties. The modelers simply didn't have enough to work with to accurately adjust their raw polling data to match the electorate.

So, last night, I eschewed the networks and news outlets, and instead just watched the gambling markets via ElectionBettingOdds.com. With a minute-by-minute update, the site, which aggregates the "probability to win" from five different betting platforms, provided real-time feedback on what people who were betting their own money on the outcome felt as information and returns trickled in. It has proven to be more accurate and more responsive to changing conditions than the pollsters.

During the day, Trump was pegged at 55% to win. In other words, a really close race. By 10PM, he was up to 80%, and over 90% before midnight. Anticipation "trumped" my desire to sleep through the night, and at 2AM I woke up to find that the gamblers had effectively called the race for Trump, with a 98% or so winning probability. Soon thereafter, Fox and the NYPost called the election for him.

CNN and other legacy media couldn't bring themselves to do so until after daylight had arrived, of course.

Trump's decisive victory was paralleled by the GOP taking a majority in the Senate and almost certainly, as of this writing, retaining control of the House. The night was a resounding success for a party headed up by someone intensely disliked by not only a large swathe of the electorate, but by many GOP loyalists as well. I and many others believe that many who voted for him were primarily voting against four more years of the Democrats. My recent blog posts illustrate that as my own desire as well. I felt that the Dems really needed to lose after all they've done to us, no matter that the alternative was Trump.

Once it sank in that Trump would win, I found myself eager to read the post-mortems from the left-leaning pundits... and, indeed, to relish their tears of sorrow. More on that in a moment.

The Wednesday morning apologetics informed us "it's the economy," implying that Harris was saddled with the result of four years of Bidenism, and that she failed to sufficiently separate her plans from her boss's history. Yes, that's the rapidly coalesced party line, as reported here, here, here, and here. She "failed to make a clean break," to "separate herself from an unpopular president," or to "name her differences with President Joe Biden." She "inherited a tough situation from Joe Biden — and ultimately could not overcome it."

Barf.

That many of the same insisted on scolding those who felt the economy was in poor shape and tried to gaslight us, Comical Ali-style, as to its excellence is of no consequence.

Yes, for many voters, it was the economy. However, as anyone who has done or watched improv comedy knows, the follow up is always, "Yes, and..."

• It was the economy.

• And the migrant mess.

• And inflation spurred by rampant spending.

• And green energy idiocy.

• And electric-everything mandates.

• And the Left's anti-Americanism.

• And men in women's sports.

• And transitioning children.

• And threats to the Supreme Court and the filibuster.

• And lawfare.

• And government greed.

• And the lasting damage done to a generation of children from repressive lockdowns.

• And the abandonment of merit in favor of identity politics.

• And foreign policy idiocy, such as the Afghanistan debacle and sending billions to Iran.

• And promised spending binges.

• And unjustified or excessive TDS.

• And rampant antisemitism.

• And a disastrous public education system that has more fealty to unions and woke-loons than to children.

• And a highly suspect - and telling - selection of Tim Walz rather than Josh Shapiro as Harris’s running mate.

• And the Deep State.

• And blatant lying.

• And open contempt for average Americans.

• And naked bigotry toward anyone who doesn’t conform and obey.

• And media bias.

• And media collusion.

• And Big Tech collusion.

• And censorship, speech suppression, and ministries of truth.

• And the "coup" that installed Harris as the candidate without a single voter having any say.

• And the utter awfulness of Harris - candidate and person. Unqualified, unable to answer an unscripted question, lacking any track record that would suggest she’s ready for the Presidency, dithering, deceitful, disrespectful, dodging, and apparently capable only of generating word salad, she gave people no reason to vote for her other than DEI tokenism and “I’m not Trump.”

I've written time and again that I am no fan of the Untethered Orange Id, and think he's wrong in several policy areas. But, his clear victory fills me with a deep feeling of schadenfreude. The excesses of the Left needed rejection, repudiation, and refutation. And, frankly, he is unlike the Left in that he actually believes in America, and despite our differences and his faults, I do not dread his tenure the way I dreaded a Harris victory.

So, I relish the Icarian arc of the Best-and-Brightest. The "too close to the sun" melt-down, and subsequent sobbing meltdowns. The comeuppance for the hubris and contempt for the ‘deplorables,’ the ‘bitter clingers,’ and the ‘garbage’ that, by and large, are the ones who love the nation the most and represent its heart and soul.

I'll save my concerns about overcorrection for future blogs and for if and when such actually happens. I do expect that I'll have a lot to write about over the next four years, but I do also expect that the nation will take a better path now that the Left has been soundly rejected.

Some closing thoughts.

• A huge swath of America breathed a giant sigh of relief at the Dems’ losses.

• Many of the National Popular Vote (NPV) advocates will fall silent, as their desire to end-run the Electoral College system to get their preferred candidates into the WH got smacked in the face by Trump's 5 million vote NPV margin.

• As a friend suggested, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will suddenly embrace the filibuster as a fundamental and vital American institution.

• Some of your Never-Trump friends, who spent all their energy bashing him and virtually none on Harris, will retcon their feelings with "I was going to be disappointed either way." Let them be.

• None of the pundits and celebrities who promised to leave the country will do so.

• Executives at NYTMSNBCCBSNBCCNNABCdefgetc are secretly happy that their talking heads will have Trump to whinge about for four years.

• The new mantra on the Left will be a revisiting of "Resistance."

• The emergence of support centers and lifelines for people who are despondent at Trump’s victory tells us a lot about the cultural harm inflicted by the Left. Christina Applegate claims her 13 year old daughter is “sobbing” because Trump won. She, not Trump, deserves the blame.

• Harris’s political career is done. Passed on. No more. Expired and gone to meet its maker. Bereft of life. Rests in peace. Pushing up the daisies. Off the twig. Kicked the bucket. Shuffled off this mortal coil. Run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible. It is an ex-career. She may find some people willing to pay her for her rolodex, as so often happens with ex-pols, but perhaps not even that. And she knows it. Her graceless departure and delayed concession speech tell us that she is fully aware of this new reality.

• Finally, the Left will learn nothing from this Great Rejection.

It is up to the Democratic majority - remember, the Left is a pretty small subset - to decide if they will continue to let themselves be led around on the Left's leash, or if they will reject those excesses in favor of a return to more moderate policies. As has been said many times, all they had to do was be normal.

Meanwhile, I freely admit I’m going to enjoy video clips of the left-wing talking heads weeping and flabbergasted over their loss.