DeSantis' "Asylum" Offer to Jewish College Students

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has issued an emergency order waiving various requirements for prospective transfer students into Florida public universities "who are seeking to transfer to a Florida university because of a well-founded fear of antisemitic or other religious discrimination, harassment, intimidation, or violence" at their current colleges.*

The "well-founded fear" language is borrowed from asylum law, so if I were a Jewish student considering this offer I'd have to be concerned that DeSantis' next step would be to traffic me right back out of the state via a one-way to a New England island.

In all seriousness, I have to give DeSantis a very faint tip of the cap here, if only because a few months ago I had a similar thought about whether colleges in blue states should offer a form of "asylum" running in the opposite direction -- assisting admissions or transfers of students leaving Florida public universities in the wake of DeSantis' assault on academic freedom and the rights of sexual minorities. I've certainly noticed an at least anecdotal uptick in "red state refugees" on the faculty side of academia, and it wouldn't surprise me to learn there's similar pressure on the student side. And on the other side of things, I actually wondered back in 2022 if DeSantis might seek to expressly differentiate himself from Trump on the subject of antisemitism. He hasn't really done so -- the seemingly obvious need of a GOP challenger to challenge Trump continuing to founder on the absolute inability of any Republican of substance to say a bad word about the Supreme Leader -- but he has tried to make "antisemitism" a relatively large part of his presidential narrative.

And so as DeSantis' presidential campaign continues to flounder in the most pathetic fashion, this reads like a theatrical attempt to capture some of the Stefanik-magic from last month. Of course, DeSantis isn't alone here. For whatever reason, Republicans have learned that fake performative concern about antisemitism is the easiest route for craven gutless mediocrities to become media starlets, at least for a few days. That it keeps on filling this role is maybe something that the Jewish community needs to ponder -- while on the one hand I'm not convinced it's actually Jews who are most impressed by these stunts, there does seem to be a repeated gullibility on this front that deserves closer interrogation. How has the GOP become so convinced that this play, in particular, is a winning strategy for them? 

* Nominally, "other religious discrimination" encompasses Muslim students as well -- an interesting prospect as various Muslim and pro-Palestinian groups have begun adopting the broad understandings of "antisemitism" vis-a-vis discourse about Israel and Zionism promoted by some Jewish groups and trying to cross-apply them to similar broad understandings of Islamophobia vis-a-vis how university actors talk about Palestine and anti-Zionism. In practice, it's hard to imagine that will amount to much -- in part because of the vagueness surrounding "well-founded fear" of persecution, and in part because the sort of person who is concerned about that sort of Islamophobia is perhaps unlikely to find Florida an attractive destination to flee to.

.... And Getting Worse Roundup

This will not be my cheeriest roundup. But there are a bunch of links burning a hole in my pocket, so here you go.

* * * *

Apropos yesterday's post on Fugitive Uterus Laws, a Washington Post article on similar efforts underway to set up checkpoint towns in Texas designed to capture any pregnant women who has designs on leaving the state for freedom.

North Carolina Republicans considering impeaching a state supreme court justice because she talked about racism. While I can't fault Slate for juxtaposing this against the undisclosed largesse heaped upon Justice Thomas, my mind more rapidly went to efforts in Wisconsin to impeach a state supreme court justice because she might vote for democracy.

A politically engaged fifteen year old kid asked a (not even that tough!) question that made Ron DeSantis uncomfortable on the campaign trail. So he sent his goons to rough him up.

You see, the real problem with the "War on Drugs" is that it's too metaphorical.

The latest Fifth Circuit crack-pottery: it's probably illegal for the FDA to tell humans they're not horses (yes, this is the latest conservative institution to burn its remaining dignity in defense of ivermectin conspiracies).

Georgia school district: saying the word "gay" around fifth graders is like graphically describing the horrors of the Holocaust to kindergarteners. 

White Republicans To Black Republicans: Stop Whining About Slavery

The fallout from Ron DeSantis' new "slavery: it wasn't all bad" educational standards continues, as most elected Black Republicans have now spoken out to condemn the framework and urge it be revised. Faced with this criticism from Black members of his own parties -- people who time and again have shown their commitment to conservative causes but nonetheless believe that here the state of Florida made a grave historical error -- DeSantis has responded exactly how you'd expect a White Republican to respond to challenges from Black people (whether in his party or not):

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed the board members responsible for the standards, did not take the measured disapproval well. On the contrary, the governor and his political operation seemed to go after [Florida GOP Rep. Byron] Donalds with a vengeance, accusing the GOP lawmaker of aligning himself with Vice President Kamala Harris and referring to Donalds — a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus — as “a supposedly conservative congressman.”

[....]

Speaking with reporters in Albia, Iowa, on Friday, DeSantis responded to [South Carolina GOP Sen. Tim] Scott’s comments by criticizing “D.C. Republicans” for promoting a similar argument as Harris. “I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left and accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating, even when that has been debunked,” he said. 

DeSantis was joined by, among others, Ben Shapiro ("Tim Scott ... promptly sided with Kamala Harris and he sided with the Congressional Black Caucus.... that's Scott being disingenuous") and Matt Walsh ("You are dead to us.... [B]ecome a Democrat. That's what you are."). The general response to Black Republicans expressing offense over a GOP politician soft-pedaling the wrong of slavery was not to think "huh, maybe there is something here," but to fulminate about how they're traitors to the cause.

I talked about these dynamics in "The Distinctive Political Status of Dissident Minorities". Dissident minorities such as Black Republicans are often "tokenized" -- held out as a means of discharging an obligation to consider the views of diverse communities but not valued beyond that transactional function. Hence, where Black Republicans cease, even temporarily, to offer this "value" to the broader GOP community (because in a specific case they do not agree with the particular goals or interests of the conservative movement), it won't be taken as a valid critique from insiders but rather proof that the Black Republicans are actually a fifth column reverting to their leftist roots.

Indeed, in that paper I actually specifically referenced a different instance where Senator Scott tried to diverge from his GOP colleagues on the matter of racism as a core illustration of the phenomenon. It is striking how everything I wrote there applies here as well with barely any need for revision:

[E]ven though tokenization might in some circumstances result in dissident minorities attaining political successes, the relationship forged through tokenization likely is not sufficiently robust so as to persevere in cases where the dissident minority does publicly diverge from the opinions of their majority allies. To the contrary, when they are tokenized, dissident minorities may find that their opinions are only valued transactionally—useful to the extent that they advance the goals of their non-group-member patrons and no further. Where the perspective isn’t what’s valued, dissident minorities will typically find that their “enhanced standing” falls apart the moment they express a view that diverges from their nominal allies.

Dissident minorities might contest this point. Specifically, they might suggest that their enhanced standing is not purely instrumental but rather reflects genuine respect by majority-group members regarding their substantive contributions—respect that will carry over to cases where they do find themselves forced to challenge the dominant group. By showing themselves to be “independent” or “exceptional,” the argument goes, dissident minorities earn credit with the majority that they then can redeem in cases where they do find it necessary to contest majority viewpoints....

Unfortunately, in a great many cases the cynical prediction wins out, and the dissident minority finds that the chips they thought they had amassed are unable to be cashed.... 

[....] 

The “enhanced standing” Scott normally enjoyed by aligning with the Republican Party was a product of him being (per Arendt) an “exceptional” member of his minority group. But once he adopted (even temporarily) a critical posture towards his conservative allies, he ceased to be exceptional, and reverted to being just a regular member of the Black community. If the “earned credit” hypothesis held true, that shouldn’t have mattered—he should have been able to draw upon the well of credibility to attain a favorable reception upon raising a challenge. Yet this is not what happened: once Scott stopped being exceptional, he was treated the same as any other minority group member, and the way the GOP treats minority group members who challenge them is to dismiss them. While Scott’s patrons in the Republican Party had been happy to hold him up as proof that the GOP had Black supporters, they did not actually have any particular commitment to engaging with the Black community—even nominal “allies” in those communities—in any circumstance where it might generate challenge or change.

If Tim Scott keeps on wanting to hand me examples for my published work, who am I to argue? But this goes to show just how steady this practice of tokenization is. I'm not going to say that Tim Scott should "become a Democrat" (anymore than I think every person should!) -- his politics are his business. But surely he must realize that this will be the reality of his treatment as a Republican in perpetuity -- if he challenges the GOP on race, he will be slapped down and hard.

The Other Lesson of the Pedro Gonzalez Expose

The internet is atwitter reading a lengthy expose in Breitbart (of all places) detailing the long history of antisemitic and racist comments from major Ron DeSantis booster Pedro Gonzalez. The source is a bit funny -- the impetus very clearly is some internal Trump-on-DeSantis violence (Breitbart is decidedly in the former camp). 

The stuff is very blatant (when snips about the "Rothschild physiognomy" are the public comments, you know it's bad). Of course, none of it has stopped Gonzalez from being embraced by the usual suspects on the Jewish far-right, like Josh Hammer, who defended Gonzalez on the striking grounds that, well, he's really racist to a lot of people so the antisemitism doesn't stand out (Gonzalez has been a regular contributor at Newsweek under the dominion of Hammer and Batya Ungar-Sargon).

All of this is the usual combination of amusing and terrifying that typifies every story about right-wing infighting over increasingly brazen bigotry. But there is one other element I want to flag here that likely will be missed by most: the soaring levels of antisemitism one finds amongst minority and especially Latino conservatives, specifically. Gonzalez is an avatar of that trend, one that has been underappreciated in broader discourse. Once again, antisemitism is a huge growth opportunity for the GOP in minority communities -- not because most minorities are antisemitic, but because the subset of minorities most likely to be flipped by GOP appeals, specifically, is disproportionately antisemitic.

F-ing Banned Roundup

 Ron DeSantis' botched campaign rollout includes the following hats.

What happened to the letter "F"? I have to assume that some parent filled out a form calling it obscene, and now it's banned in the state of, er, "Lorida".

Anyway, my browser needs clearing, so today you get a roundup.

* * *

Texas Republicans set up a bespoke center at the University of Texas to promote a conservative ideological vision. Texas Republicans also look set to wreck tenure. Turns out the latter poses a recruitment problem for the former.

The Fourth Circuit upholds race-neutral admissions standards at Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia against a challenge that they discriminate against Asian-American applicants. Ilya Somin objects here; I may have my own comments later.

Now that he's running, JTA runs down all the Jewish things you need to know about Ron DeSantis. He loves Israel. Also, his campaign against wokeness has resulted in banning books on the Holocaust, and neo-Nazis are flocking to the state.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) admits she "struggles" with the idea of removing Israeli settlers from the West Bank, suggests they have the right to stay where they are. I've said it before and I'll say it again; one need not like or even fully credit Tlaib's putative commitment to "one state with equal rights for all" to admit that it's clearly better than the many, many politicians whose position is "one state that does not even pretend to provide equal rights for all."

Louisiana Republicans are completely uninterested in hearing from the child rape victims whom they want to force to give birth.

Texas forces a woman with an unviable pregnancy to stay in the hospital until she gives birth to her stillborn fetus (or becomes sick enough to potentially die) by threatening her with criminal prosecution if she tries to leave.

If we don't raise the debt ceiling, it seems we have to triage who gets paid. I've seen many proposals on how to do this. But Kevin Drum raises the possibility that our treasury system isn't built to allow for any "choosing", and so we'd be forced to basically just arbitrarily pay whoever comes to the door first.

America Sees Florida Man, Is Creeped Out

It looks like the Ron DeSantis bubble might have already burst. After a brief period where he looked like a viable GOP challenger to Supreme Overlord Donald Trump, his poll numbers even amongst Republicans are cratering.

There's something about this which is just tickling, and it's not only that it couldn't happen to a more deserving autocrat. The media enthusiasm for DeSantis was based on his big reelection win in Florida -- if he can win by that margin in a "swing" state, surely he's a force to be reckoned with on a national level! That logic was always a bit faulty, and instead of DeSantis' Florida-appeal translating nationwide, what  actually happened was that America saw what apparently appeals to Florida voters and was reminded again that Floridians have weird, creepy tastes and can't be trusted. 

Turns out a regime based on government-period monitoring, assaulting Mickey Mouse, banning books on Roberto Clemente, outlawing Black history, and censoring Michelangelo isn't a recipe for national success! Who knew?

Conservatives need to get out of the gulf-coastal-elite bubble and recognize that what plays in Tallahassee doesn't appeal to the rest of America.

— David Schraub @schraubd@mastodon.lawprofs.org (@schraubd) November 9, 2022

Nobody Is More Gullible Than Alt-Center "Free Speech" Advocates

When Florida announced it was banning the AP African-American history course, 90% of Ron DeSantis' supporters know exactly what he's doing -- legally banning wrongthink on race to the greatest extent possible -- and support it on that basis. They know that's what he's doing because he's been crystal clear about his agenda from day one and entirely consistent in applying it.

But you still can easily find alt-center "free speech!" advocates who tie themselves in knots to plead that it's actually about "opposing indoctrination" or "ensuring that multiple perspectives are taught" or something that just has to be different from "rank censorship". Meanwhile, the Florida government just states outright that if the college board wants its class taught in the Sunshine State, "we expect the removal of content on Critical Race Theory, Black Queer Studies, Intersectionality and other topics that violate our laws." They're not even bothering to hide it, but the alt-center sorts are perfectly happy to pull the wool over their own eyes in order to maintain harmony on their Scales of Broder.

It is incredible, looking back, to remember that approximately 9 month period where conservatives went on a high horse about protecting "free speech" and "uncomfortable learning" in the educational space as against various real and imagined left-wing bugaboos. The rapidity to which they shifted without even breaking a sweat into "enact legal bans on left-wing ideas whenever and wherever we can", and the degree to which their "free speech" hangers-on just followed along without seeming to notice or care that they suddenly were becoming foot soldiers of legally-mandated censorship, is a development I still can't fully wrap my head around. At most, you get some "both sides" grousing about how while they aren't exactly fans of throwing librarians in jail if they stock books that deviate from state-imposed orthodoxy, they can't focus on that too extensively because it might distract them from finishing their 67-tweet thread on an overzealous student protest at Swarthmore, followed by a portentous statement expressing outrage that anyone would even think of withdrawing any honors or accolades from state-censor-in-chief Ron DeSantis.

But seriously -- has any movement more quickly demonstrated itself to be populated entirely by useful idiots than this one?

A Tale of Two McCarthys

Abdul El-Sayed has an article in TNR about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' latest endeavor to stake out anti-vaxx turf, promising a full-scale legal investigation into "any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to Covid-19 vaccines." El-Sayed dubs DeSantis' strategy "vaccine McCarthyism", which is a term I appreciate. After all, is not today's GOP little more than equal shares of Joseph and Jenny McCarthy?

I tend to think that anti-vaxx politics are a trap for the GOP. Yes, anti-vaxx views are passionately held by the conspiratorial Republican base, which means that under the God-given rules of media fairness we must treat that position with the utmost seriousness. But anti-vaxx politics remain broadly unpopular even with Republicans, to say nothing of independents (or Democrats). Much like (either) McCarthy, opposing vaccines may gain DeSantis press and clout for a little while, but it's likely to make him an irrelevant laughingstock in the long term.

Where the Sun Does Shine

Arguably the most prolific antisemitic organization operating in America today, Goyim TV, is decamping from its Bay Area base and moving to Florida. Notorious for distributing flyers and dropping banners blaming Jews for everything from COVID restrictions to the Ukraine war, Goyim TV's leader, Jon Minadeo, has indicated that he is tired of his negative treatment in California and thinks Florida will be more hospitable to him and his message:

Despite his close family ties and following in Northern California, Minadeo had increasingly felt besieged by negative press and by criticism of his behavior by authorities. Minadeo’s family owns the historic Valley Ford restaurant Dinucci’s Italian Dinners, a popular road stop en route to the Sonoma Coast, and a source close to Minadeo said the 39-year-old once worked as a waiter at the restaurant, one of his last real jobs.

Yet he had developed a dismal reputation in the North Bay after a flood of media attention on his provocative antisemitic propaganda operation in J., the San Francisco Chronicle, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and other outlets.

[...]

Minadeo hopes Florida will be more hospitable to him and his worldview, and he may have reason to believe that to be true. A recent report from the ADL described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by new white supremacist groups including White Lives Matter, Sunshine State Nationalists, NatSoc Florida and Florida Nationalists. 

It is, of course, notable that one of America's most vicious antisemites looked across the country for more hospitable terrain and said "Florida -- that's the ticket". There is absolutely a straight line between the "anti-woke" neo-fascism promoted by Gov. DeSantis and the belief by the likes of Minadeo that Florida will be a welcoming home for his brand of hate. In fairness, Minadeo released a video targeting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing a bill targeting antisemitism and for visiting Israel; it's not that Minadeo views DeSantis as directly an ally. But the ideological consanguinity is real, to the point that I'm genuinely curious what would happen if an enterprising journalist asked the following question of some DeSantis press flack:

Jon Minadeo, proprietor of the prominent "Goyim TV" outlet, has announced he's moving his base of operations from California to Florida due to the former's ideological inhospitality and overall "woke" atmosphere. Do you credit Gov. DeSantis' policies for facilitating this sort of move, and do expect similar organizations to likewise flee states like California for Florida going forward?

I bet at least half of the press team on DeSantis' crew would give an answer praising the move and bragging about it. It'll be followed up by a clarifying disavowal, of course, but still, it'd be A+ trolling and I want someone to try it.

Will DeSantis Run Against Trump's Antisemitism?

On Twitter the other day, I registered what I called a slightly "off-beat prediction" that DeSantis might attack Trump on his antisemitic associations (Kanye, Fuentes) in a 2024 primary setting.

Lo and behold, others are having the same idea: 

"This is a f---ing nightmare," said one longtime Trump adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of stoking the former president's ire at "disloyal" people who criticize him. "If people are looking at [Florida Gov. Ron] DeSantis to run against Trump, here's another reason why."

Now, I want to expand on my logic a bit. 

To be clear, the reason DeSantis might take this approach is not because DeSantis is against antisemitism in any non-trivial sense. DeSantis has long been a promoter of the most popular forms of antisemitism in the GOP; the sorts that focus on Soros conspiracy mongering and which ultimately are gateway drugs to the more explicit White supremacist stuff forwarded by the likes of Fuentes.

Nor do I think DeSantis has some principled opposition to the line Trump has crossed. If it ever became clear that snuggling up to Nick Fuentes was good GOP politics, I have no doubt that DeSantis would be getting his cuddle on.

But DeSantis is in an interesting position if he's running against Trump. He needs to find a way to distinguish himself from Trump. But it has to be something that doesn't immediately code him as a cuck RINO. And that's especially difficult when for the most part any position Trump takes immediately becomes the gospel right-wing truth for GOP primary voters. It's hard to be more Catholic than the Pope when the Pope can issue catechisms.

Hitting Trump on express antisemitism is a rare example of a potential differentiation that might fit the bill. I stress "might" because there is absolutely no guarantee that it will work. Between "Trump is Israel's greatest friend" and "Trump has Jewish family members", the GOP has long been primed to dismiss as absurd allegations of antisemitism. And at the same time, classic right-wing antisemitism conjoined with "stabbed in the back" narratives may make GOP voters more inclined to accept Trumpist antisemitism on its own terms.

But there aren't many better alternatives I can think of, and DeSantis might need to gamble here. Much of the GOP's current self-id about Jews is that they're the Jews' best friends; a high-profile white knighting on Jews' behalf does in some ways fit current GOP self image. DeSantis would basically be placing a bet that GOP voters currently prefer "better Jews than the Jews" antisemitism to the completely unadorned variety. Is that a sure bet? No. But DeSantis needs to find something that could work, and this does seem to qualify.

What I can say is that if DeSantis does take this tack the media will positively drool over it. Sista Souljah moment! Look at how principled and anti-racist DeSantis is! So at the very least, we the Jews have that to look forward to.

Why Is Ron DeSantis Such a Marco Rubio?

Following his apparent 59/40 romp to reelection over Charlie Crist, Eugene Volokh wants descriptive answers to the question of why Ron DeSantis did so well, particularly in contrast to his razor-thin 2018 victory (where he won by less than half a point). What's the secret of his political success?

I'm not going to fully venture an answer to that question. But there's an important data point that I want to flag which is I think easily overlooked in the coming DeSantis mania, namely: that Marco Rubio had almost the exact same result as did DeSantis. He prevailed in his Senate race over Val Demings 57/41. This also represents a significant improvement over Rubio's margin in his last race (which was in 2016, not 2018, so not apples-to-apples, but still pertinent)

I mention this because it suggests that a consilient explanation for DeSantis' strong performance probably should be one that also explains Rubio's near-identical performance. The similarity in results is especially notable given that Rubio and DeSantis don't seem like especially similar political figures or cut similar profiles beyond both being conservative Republicans -- it'd be hard to come up with personal attributes that both share that represent plausible explanations for explaining their respective performance. That DeSantis and Rubio seem quite different (we're talking about DeSantis, not Rubio, as a potential 2024 contender) makes it all the more noteworthy that they basically had identical margins this election. That suggests that the factors driving the results had less to do with DeSantis' personal political genius (unless that genius is something he somehow shares with Rubio), and more on broader structural considerations that have little to do with DeSantis-qua-DeSantis.

So, to move towards an answer to Volokh's question of why DeSantis did so much better in 2022 than 2018, some plausible factors (none of which naturally demonstrate particular "political brilliance" by DeSantis) include:

• The general "reddening" of Florida.
• 2018 being a worse year for Republicans than 2022.*
• Incumbency advantage.

Now, of course, all of these could be unpacked further, and potentially in a fashion that gives more individualized credit to DeSantis. For example, maybe Florida is "reddening" in part because of DeSantis' policies or personal popularity (though the trend seems to predate him -- there hasn't been a Democratic Governor in Florida since 2000, hasn't been a Democratic Senator since 2018, and by 2018 Democrats were already down to a single statewide elected official). Or maybe Rubio's performance this time around is attributable to good coattails from running with DeSantis.

But to a large extent, I think we're overstating DeSantis' political acumen based on this election. I understand the first-blush appeal -- he did far better than many of his Republican colleagues in the 2022 cycle. But he didn't do materially better than his other Florida Republican colleagues, which suggests that the explanation for his success might be Florida-specific, but probably isn't DeSantis-specific. Contrast that to, say, Marcy Kaptur in Ohio, who seemed to dramatically outperform other Ohio Democrats -- that suggests that she might have some personally unique mojo worth looking into. Ditto Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, who easily won reelection in a swing state where Democrats won three tightly contested Senate and House races. Compared to Kaptur and Sununu, DeSantis looks pretty well ordinary -- no more impressive than Marco Rubio.

* This is obviously true, though it's a bit obscured because Democrats probably overperformed expectations more in 2022 compared to 2018. But the actual results of the 2018 midterm were far better for the Democrats than was the case in 2022.

The 2022 Almost-Post Mortem

I was a bit hesitant to write my post-mortem recap today, since some very important races remain uncalled. Incredibly, both the House and Senate remain uncalled, though the GOP is favored in the former and Democrats have the slight advantage in the latter. It would be truly delightful if Catherine Cortez Masto can squeak out a win in Nevada and so make the upcoming Georgia run-off, if not moot, then slightly less high stakes. But again, things are up in the air that ought make a big difference in the overall "narrative" of the day.

Nonetheless, I think some conclusions can be fairly drawn at this point. In no particular order:

• There was no red wave. It was, at best, a red trickle. And given both the underlying fundamentals  on things like inflation and the historic overperformance of the outparty in midterm elections, this is just a truly underwhelming performance for the GOP. No sugarcoating that for them.

• If Trafalgar polling had any shame, they'd be shame-faced right now, but they have no shame, so they'll be fine.

• In my 2018 liveblog, I wrote that "Some tough early results (and the true disappointment in Florida) has masked a pretty solid night for Democrats." This year, too, a dreadful showing in Florida set an early downer tone that wasn't reflected in the overall course of the evening. Maybe it's time we just give up the notion that Florida is a swing state?

• That said, Republicans need to get out of their gulf-coastal-elite bubble and realize that what plays in Tallahassee doesn't play in the rest of the country. 

• That's snark, but also serious -- for all the talk about how "Democrats are out-of-touch", it seems that the GOP also has a problem in not understanding that outside of their fever-swamp base most normal people maybe don't like the obsession with pronouns and "kitty litter" and "anti-CRT". Their ideological bubble is at this point far more impermeable, and far more greatly removed from the mainstream, than anything comparable among Democrats.

• Abortion is maybe the biggest example of this, as anti-choice measures keep failing in even deep red states like Kentucky, while pro-choice enactments sail to victory in purple states like Michigan (to say nothing of blue bastions like California). Democratic organizers should make a habit of just putting abortion on the ballot in every state, and ride those coattails.

• It's going to fade away almost immediately, but I cannot get over the cynical bad faith of what happened regarding baseless GOP insinuations that any votes counted after election day were inherently suspicious. On November 7, this was all one heard from GOP officials across the country, even though delays in counting are largely the product of GOP-written laws. But on November 8, when they found themselves behind on election night returns, all of the sudden folks like Kari Lake are relying on late-counted votes to save them while raising new conspiracies about stolen elections. Sickening.

• Given the still powerful force of such conspiracy mongering, Democrats holding the executive branch in key swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan is a huge deal. Great job, guys.

• For the most part, however, most losing MAGA candidates are conceding. Congratulations on clearing literally the lowest possible bar to set.

• The GOP still should be favored to take over the House, albeit with a razor-thin majority. And that majority, in turn, seems almost wholly attributable to gerrymandering -- both Democrats unilateral disarmament in places like New York, but also truly brutal GOP gerrymanders in places like Florida. This goes beyond Rucho, though that case deserves its place in the hall of shame. The degree to which the courts bent over backwards to enable even the most nakedly unlawful districting decisions -- the absurd lawlessness of Ohio stands out, but the Supreme Court's own decision to effectively pause enforcement of the Voting Rights Act because too many Black people entering Congress qualifies as an "emergency" on the shadow docket can't be overlooked either -- is one of the great legal disgraces of my lifetime in a year full of them.

• Of course, I have literally no idea how the Kevin McCarthy will corral his caucus with a tiny majority. Yes, it gives crazies like Greene and Boebert (well, maybe not Boebert ...) more power, but that's because it gives everyone in the caucus more power, which is just a recipe for chaos. Somewhere John Boehner is curling up in a comfy chair with a glass of brandy and getting ready to have a wonderful day.

• My new proposal for gerrymandering in Democratic states: "trigger" laws which tie anti-gerrymandering rules to the existence of a national ban. If they're banned nationwide, the law immediately goes into effect. Until they are, legislatures have free reign. That way one creates momentum for a national gerrymandering ban while not unilaterally disarming like we saw in New York. Could it work? Hard to know -- but worth a shot.

• Let's celebrate some great candidates who will be entering higher office! Among the many -- and this is obviously non-exhaustive -- include incoming Maryland Governor Wes Moore, incoming Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, incoming Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman. Also kudos to some wonderful veterans who held their seats in tough environs, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Virginia congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, New Jersey congressman Andy Kim, Maine Governor Janet Mills, and New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan.

• Special shoutout to Tina Kotek, who overcame considerable headwinds (and the worst Carleton alum) to apparently hold the Governor's mansion in my home state of Oregon. Hopeful that Jaime McLeod-Skinner can eke out a victory in my congressional district too, though it looks like that might come down to the wire.

• I also think it's important to give credit even to losing candidates who fought hard races. Tim Ryan stands out here -- not only did he force the GOP to spend badly needed resources in a state they should've had no trouble keeping, but his coattails might have pushed Democrats across the finish line in at least two House seats Republicans were favored to hold. (I hate to say it, but Lee Zeldin may have played a similar role for the GOP in New York).

• I'm inclined to agree that, if Biden doesn't run in 2024, some of the emergent stars from this cycle (like Whitmer or Shapiro) are stronger picks for a presidential run than the also-rans from 2020. But I also think that Biden likely will get an approval bump off this performance -- people like being associated with winners!

• On the GOP side, the best outcome (from my vantage) is Trump romping to a primary victory and humiliating DeSantis -- I think voters are sick of him. The second best outcome might be DeSantis winning narrowly over Trump and provoking a tantrum for the ages that might rip the GOP apart. DeSantis himself, as a presidential candidate, is an uncertainty -- I'm not convinced he plays well outside of Florida, but I am convinced that if he prevails over Trump the media will fall over itself to congratulate the GOP on "repudiating" Trumpism even though DeSantis is materially indistinguishable from Trump along every axis save that he's not abjectly incompetent (which, in this context, is not a plus).

• The hardest thing to do is to recognize when even candidates you really like are, for whatever reason, just not going to get over the hump. This fits Charlie Crist, Beto O'Rourke, and (I'm sorry) Stacey Abrams. It's no knock on them -- seriously, it isn't -- but they're tainted goods at this point. Fortunately, Democrats have a deep bench of excellent young candidates who we can turn to next time around.

• And regarding the youth -- I'm not someone who's a big fan of the perennial Democratic sport of Pelosi/Schumer sniping. I think they've both done a very good job under difficult circumstances, and deserve real credit for the successes we saw tonight and across the Biden admin more broadly. However, we do need to find room for some representatives from the younger generation to assume leadership roles. Younger voters turned out hard for the Democratic Party and deserve their seat at the table. It says something that Hakeem Jeffries, age 52, is the immediate current leadership figure springing to mind as a "young" voice -- that (and again, there's no disrespect to Jeffries here) is not good enough.