If, like me, you have during this past election season found yourself on several occasions thinking, See? This is why dictatorship is not a wholly bad system of government (except for the secret police, disappearances and torture), then you, too, probably feel a great sense of relief that we will never again need to hear about dressage, P90X or dogs riding on top of cars. Nevertheless, as at any passage from one phase of life to another, especially a phase that has lasted as long as the current election season, which kicked off in the early 19th century (John Quincy Adams was totally in the tank for Obama, while Joseph Smith, needless to say, went big for Obama's opponent), we should perhaps reflect on what we have learned. That's particularly easy in the case of the current election, as we've learned nothing; we may, indeed, have gotten just a little bit stupider and more ignorant. We did, however, spend billions of dollars that could have helped people with, you know, their lives, so we have that going for us. Regardless, here, for your delight and edification, are the lessons of this election that we will be ignoring the next election.
Apparently being pro-rape is not a winning campaign strategy. Who knew, right? When you blither about "legitimate rape," as Missouri's Todd Akin so famously did, the body politic has a way of shutting that whole thing down; it's called Claire McCaskill. When you suggest that a rape-baby is a gift from God (God really needs to get a personal shopper for his gift-buying), the voters line up to hand you another gift: a big giant defeaty defeat. Sorry, they forgot to include a gift receipt, so you can't bring that gift back, not even for store credit. Also, apparently women don't like rape and they can vote now. When did that happen?
Big winner of the night: Nate Silver. And math. Well, and the president, of course. Obama won in every swing state except North Carolina (Florida is still out, but Obama is well ahead there), exactly matching the predictions Silver made in his New York Times FiveThirtyEight blog. Silver's model, based on math rather than "gut feel" or "tea leaves" or "my 20 years in politics" or "whatever random bullshit I can adduce that makes it seem like I know what I'm talking about," came under fire from Joe Scarborough and the big brains at Politico, who clearly did not understand the meaning of the probabilities Silver reported. Or possibly of averaging, which is all Silver did to interpret the state polls. Or, maybe, of numbers over two. I might have a little bit of a geek-crush on Silver. He almost makes statistics cool.
Hey, I said almost.
Other big winners of the night: gay people and pot-smokers. So imagine how great a night it was for gay potheads. And to the three states that voted to allow or retain marriage equality (doubling the number of states in which people who love each other may marry, regardless of their gender), Maine (where I lived for a time, I'm proud to say), Maryland and Minnesota: thank you. Sometimes I need a reminder that we Americans are not all brainless gun-wielding bigots, that in fact a majority of us, given half a chance, are kind, thoughtful and decent people.
Being a dick is not a good way to stay in Congress. Here I'd like to send a special fuck-you-and-don't-let-the-door-hit-your-ass-on-the-way-out to Tea Party Congressthing Joe Walsh (not the one who was in the Eagles), the verbally abusive deadbeat dad who ran for re-election to Congress in the 8th District of Illinois against a war hero named Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in Irag; Walsh suggested that Duckworth talked too much about her military service. He lost. Big. Scumbag, we hardly knew ye, luckily.
Donald Trump remains the biggest asshole in the known world. I add the qualifier "in the known world" because hidden somewhere in the jungles of the Amazon, in a heretofore unknown tribe, there might be a bigger asshole than Trump, though the chance, like that jungle tribe, seems remote. Last night, a donald (I will not give him the definite article nor upper-case his name) tweeted of Obama, "He lost the popular vote by a lot [nice prediction, a donald, if totally wrong] and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country," "This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy!" and my favorite: "Lets [sic] fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us." In a donald's defense, the world probably is laughing at us, if by "us" you mean "him," and he usually does; also, the world is mostly laughing at his hairpiece. A donald, no one cares about you or your tanties any more, except your dependents: Melania, Meatloaf and the toup.
We must never speak the name of Obama's opponent again. No. Shhhh. I'm serious. Let That Name be like Voldemort; if we say it, he might appear to us, like the ravening ghost in the urban legend that comes when you say its name three times in front of the mirror. It'll come riding a dancing horse with a shit-smeared dog in a cage strapped to it. It'll come and 47 out of 100 times ignore you; the rest of the time it'll lie about what it just said. Admittedly, Obama's opponent's final speech might have redeemed him slightly (though some would disagree); nothing became his candidacy like the leaving of it. (Hot tip to writers: paraphrase Shakespeare if you want to sound profound as shit.) But oh dear lord, I will praise thee daily (or at least not make so many jokes about thee) if I never have to hear That Name again.
This Thanksgiving I will be giving thanks that reason (and math--call me, Nate!) won out in this election, and that we never have to think about the 2012 election again, unless we study history, and we do not. It's over, the good guys and women mostly won, and we still have huge problems that will swamp us (literally, in the case of global warming) if we do not face them intelligently and solve them efficiently. All of which is to say: is Honey Boo Boo on tonight?
We're so doomed.