This Week, Today: The Swell Forecast Was Off
The Dems defy history in the Midterms, blunting the “Red Wave” everyone and their mother had prognosticated. But how did this happen? And what does it mean for the Party of Trump?
Welcome to This Week, Today, your one-stop shop for fresh commentary on the newsmakers of the week and the important stories that evaded your radar.
You can blame my tardiness in getting this week’s edition out on our dilapidated election infrastructure which in effect turns Election Day into Election Week. Yes, I’m looking at you Arizona and Nevada – pick up the pace next time you slackers!
One other housekeeping note: the next update won’t come until December 9th at the earliest (booo - I know), as I’ll be traveling all over America’s great tundra attending weddings, eating Turkeys, and shootin the shit with my wife’s Great Uncles (Great-Uncles-in-Law?). Happy Thanksgiving in advance!
With all that hobnob outta the way, let’s get into it.
A Blue Levee
Like many, I tuned in to the midterm election coverage on Tuesday night with my proverbial surfboard in hand, readying myself for the “red wave” that Democratic and Republican strategists alike had predicted.
I’d spent the better part of my day drafting up an essay in which I explored whether this inevitable can of Republican whoop-ass would be the wakeup call that finally forced the Democrats to purge the influence of its ultra-progressive wing and ditch identity-based policies in favor of an agenda and tone that would appeal to working-class Americans, its traditional base of support.
My working title for this piece: “Is the Left’s Elite Fever About to Break?”
Even though some early election returns began to suggest the Dems were faring better than expected, I went to bed Tuesday night expecting a GOP blowout. Perhaps I was too quick to write off early Dem wins in key House swing races because I had already put in a fair amount of time and energy thinking through the implications of this assumption (the infamous Sunk-Cost Fallacy). Then again, as I mentioned last week, the midterms are historically a sweeping referendum on the party that holds the presidency. Add to that Biden’s moribund approval rating, the worst inflation in four decades, the highest gas prices ever in U.S. history, elevated crime across the country, and record numbers of migrants crossing the southern border illegally, and I, like everyone else and their mother, believed this one was in the GOP’s bag. Only someone with a gambling addiction would bet the other way.
So, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ absolute shellacking of Democratic challenger Charlie Crist that night, while not unsurprising given his unique popularity in the state, sort of felt like a sign of what was to come for the Dems as vote-counting in key races extended to the following days.
When I awoke for dawn patrol early the next morning and looked out at the surf break (i.e., my computer), it was clear that the swell forecast was wildly off. The colossal “red wave” was nothing more than a rolling “red ripple.”
DeSantis’ nearly 20-point beat over Crist (some 1.5 million votes) was but an asterisk for the GOP – a sign more than anything that Florida no longer ought to be thought of as a swing state.
To my utter disbelief, Democrat John Fetterman, whose speech became impaired (understatement) after suffering a stroke during his campaign, had beat out celebrity doctor and Trump-backed candidate Mehmet Oz to secure the open Senate seat in Pennsylvania in the wee hours of the morning.
This was a pivotal race for both parties, evidenced by the whopping 375 million dollars that Super PACs of both stripes funneled into the race to boost their respective candidates. And it was really Oz’s race to lose given that the seat he was running for had been occupied by GOP colleague Pat Toomey for some ten years (Toomey will retire in January).
But lose he did, by a convincing 250,000 votes, to a candidate who struggled to string two sentences together in their debate, and during an election cycle where seemingly every ball was in his party’s court.
Elsewhere, signs of Republican weakness had become apparent. Democrat Maggie Hassan secured a second term as Senator for New Hampshire, defeating Republican Don Bolduc by a convincing margin despite indications in the days before the vote that the far-right retired Army general might ride a wave of Republican optimism to pull off an upset.
By Wednesday afternoon, Incumbent Senator from Wisconsin Ron Johnson (Republican) had managed to eke out a win over Democratic progressive Mandela Barns, but only by some 25,000 votes – a razor-thin margin for a 12-year senator.
Later that day it became clear that embattled Trump-backed candidate Hershel Walker had failed to overtake Democratic Incumbent Raphael Warnock for Georgia’s Senate seat, capturing just 48.5% of the vote compared to Walker’s 49.4%. Per Georgia state law, that race will be decided in a December runoff election because neither candidate reached 50% of the vote.
It was at this point that we were all left to fiddle our thumbs as election officials ever-so-slowly began to process votes for Senate candidates in Arizona and Nevada. If the Republicans won both these states, they would take back control of the Senate. If they secured only one of these states, the result of the Georgia runoff would determine who controlled the chamber.
Three (grueling) days later, late on Friday night, we got more fidelity on the state of play. The Arizona Senate race had finally been called. And it was yet another disappointing loss for the Republicans as Democratic Incumbent Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut, beat out Trump-endorsed—and Peter-Theil funded—challenger Blake Masters by nearly 6 points.
Now we were back to fiddling our thumbs some more, as election officials in Nevada really tested the limit of our collective patience.
A day later, around 9pm on a Saturday night, breaking news alerts lit up the phones of the nutjobs around the world whacked enough to have opted in to push notifications. We had our answer.
It was yet more bad news for the GOP as the Democratic Incumbent Senator from Nevada, Cortez Masto, had narrowly beaten Trump-backed challenger Adam Laxalt by a margin of some 6,000 votes.
And with that, the Democrats had officially retained control of the Senate – holding on to 50 seats, even with the fate of the Georgia Senate seat outstanding. Mitch McConnell’s worst nightmare had come to pass.
Old Joe and the Dems had defied the odds. They’d defied history. Since World War II, the President’s party has lost on average 4 Senate seats to the opposition. Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, lost 6 Senate seats in his first midterms. Now there is a very real possibility that the President could even increase his majority in the Senate if the December runoff in Georgia cuts his way, which looks more likely than not to happen.
With all the cards seemingly stacked in their court, this is a piercing loss for the GOP.
The Republican’s lackluster performance is even more apparent in the House of Representatives, where, with a handful of races yet to be called, it appears they will take control of the chamber with only a very slim margin, perhaps by only 1 seat. The President’s party has lost an average of 28 House seats in the midterms since World War II. The Dems will likely come out of the election losing just 14 seats, according to NBC projections. What’s more – when the final tally is out, it will be the best midterm performance of any U.S. President since 2002, when trepidation over the 9/11 attacks helped George W. Bush pick up seats in the House. Old Joe’s Democratic predecessor’s Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, for their part, lost a whopping 54 seats and 63 seats respectively in their first-term midterms.
This is a HUGE win for Biden. And again – he did this in a political environment where all the QUOTE-UNQOUTE fundamentals were stacked against him.
The only apparent “red wave” other than Florida came in deep-blue New York, where Republicans capitalized on New Yorker’s understandable fears over crime to flip 4 House seats, including the seat of Patrick Mahoney, chair of the powerful Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Democrats also outperformed in their race for governor mansions across the country, securing wins in swing state after swing state. Centrist Democrat Josh Shapiro absolutely routed Trump-backed Republican Doug Mastriano in his bid for the governorship of Pennsylvania, beating the 2020 election-denier by a whopping 700,000 votes. Democratic incumbent Governor of Michigan Gretchen Whitmer wiped her Trump-backed Republican challenger Tudor Dixon, who also questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 election, by some 500,000 votes. Democratic incumbent Governor of Wisconsin Tony Evers beat his challenger, Trump-endorsed Tim Michels, another election-denier (there is a theme here), quite handily.
And as it stands, Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs has a slight edge over Trump-backed Republican Kari Lake, another election-denier (shocker, I know), in their race for the Governor’s seat in Arizona, with 89% of the votes tallied so far. This says a lot about how well the Democrats have fared since Katie Hobbs is about as charismatic as a roll of toilet paper.
So, now we’re left with the question every political junkie in America is asking themselves this week.
What the hell happened to that “red wave”?
I got some theories, that are informed in part by theories of more seasoned political analysts, that are really just best-guesses because deconstructing U.S. elections is about as difficult as predicting them, even for the so-called “pros” (re: the Red Wave, Donald Trump’s 2016 win, etc.).
But here goes. I think the answer is twofold.
1. Abortion really was an animating issue.
Republican hopes—and Democratic fears—that skyrocketing inflation would completely overshadow voters’ animus over the Supreme Court’s decision in May to rescind national abortion rights were a bit misplaced. Yes, exit polls suggest inflation topped the list of concerns for voters nationwide. But abortion came in a close second, and a higher percentage of voters cited it as the most important issue animating their vote than earlier polling had suggested.
In every state where abortion rights referendums were on the ballot, the pro-right-to-choose vote won out. It wasn’t a shock that California and Vermont voters codified the right to abortion in their state constitutions. It was, however, pretty notable that voters from Michigan—a key swing state—decided they ought to do the same. This issue helped Dems in Michigan flip a handful of House districts and take full control over the state legislature for the first time in 40 years.
What was even more surprising was that voter’s in Kentucky—the deep red state represented by the likes of Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul—rejected a proposed amendment to their state constitution that would have protected their state’s abortion ban from legal challenge. Kansas voters rejected a similar measure a couple months back.
It’s yet more evidence that there is popular support for some level of abortion access, even in the most conservative pockets of our country.
The abortion issue could very well have decided the Fetterman-Oz race in Pennsylvania. Fetterman foot stomped his support for codifying Roe into law during his campaign, albeit in broken English. Oz, for his part, gaffed royally on live television when he said a decision to get an abortion should be between “a woman, her doctor, and local political leaders.”
(I mean, yeah, Oz, that certainly is the stance of the Republican Party. But don’t you think you could have dressed your statement up in some flowery vagaries?)
In a race that was close enough for gaffes to really matter, Oz’s “draconian” stance on abortion, as Vanity Fair characterized it, could have cost him the election.
In states where abortion wasn’t on the ballot, nor made a central part of candidates’ campaigns, Republicans performed swimmingly. Florida and New York are exhibit #1 and 2.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who had resisted earlier calls to ban abortion outright in his state (opting instead to limit abortion past the 15th week – an international standard), had no trouble (understatement), even in traditionally blue strongholds like Miami-Dade County.
In New York, where abortion wasn’t an issue in the slightest because there’s virtually no scenario where the blue state ever imposes restrictions, Republican House candidates came in like a wrecking ball, unseating Democratic incumbents by campaigning on crime and inflation.
It seems the left’s optimism that the early-summer Dobbs decision would unleash a drove of enthusiastic voters wasn’t, after all, entirely misplaced.
2. Voters prefer an unpopular Biden over an unpredictable Trump…and candidate quality matters.
Key Trump-backed candidates wet the bed. Big time. And in a big way. Throw out the mattress!
Some of his endorsees did clinch notable wins, namely Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, who beat out centrist Democrat Tim Ryan for Ohio’s open Senate seat. And dozens of Trump endorsees secured reelection in the House. But all in all, Trump acolytes who ran in key swing races haven’t had a good week.
Republicans likely would have performed better in race after race had they nominated generic conservative candidates. Instead, they acquiesced to Trump, allowing him to put his finger on the scale in Republican primaries earlier this year – elevating deeply flawed candidates whose only notable quality was their loyalty to the former president.
Take Mehmet Oz, a celebrity doctor with questionable ties to the state he was running in, but someone who had nevertheless bent the knee to Agent Orange. Trump intervened on his behalf in part because Oz’s GOP primary challenger, David McCormick, an Army veteran with actual roots in Pennsylvania, condemned the January 6 run on the capital. As Bari Weiss of the fantastic Substack newsletter Common Sense pointed out, it’s not as if McCormick was anti-Trump. His wife, after all, was Trump’s former Deputy National Security Adviser.
But McCormick wasn’t sufficiently “MAGA,” so Trump threw his weight behind a wiry T.V. doctor who made a fortune peddling unproven “get-fit-quick” pills. Had McCormick been the GOP’s nominee, he very well could have beaten Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate race.
Hershel Walker is another Trump dud with evident contradictions. The inarticulate former football star won the Republican primary for the Georgia Senate race thanks to his endorsement, beating out more establishment candidates. Walker then went on to run a campaign in which his pro-life stance featured prominently. This, of course, backfired in his face after two lovers from a past-life came forward publicly alleging that Walker had at point pressured them to get abortions.
His weakness as candidate is evident in the fact that he is now headed to a runoff with 48.5% of the vote, while Republican Governor Brian Kemp—who resisted Trump’s demands that he reject the results of the 2020 election and ran a more moderate campaign—won reelection with 53.4% of the vote.
The delta in voting percentages between the two Republican candidates suggests that there was a sizable number of split-ticket voters who cast ballots for candidates based off their competence rather than their partisan stripe. In this case, it appears a swathe of Georgians voted for Republican Brian Kemp for Governor, while also voting for Democrat Raphael Warnock for the Senate.
Ticket-splitting was even more evident in key races where 2020 election denialism was more blatantly on the ballot.
Oz, a Trump supplicant but not a gung-ho election-denier, won 46.6% of the vote in his bid for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat. On the same ticket, Doug Mastriano, a Trump-backed candidate who actually bussed protesters to the capital on January 6th, received only 41.9% of the vote in his bid for Pennsylvania’s Governor mansion. This suggests a large swathe of Pennsylvanians voted for Oz, while also voting for Democratic candidate for Governor Josh Shapiro, who whooped Mastriano by capturing 56.3% of the vote.
In New Hampshire the dynamic was similar. Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Don Bolduc, who made election-denialism a centerpiece of his campaign, received only 44% of the vote. Meanwhile, incumbent Republican Governor of New Hampshire Chris Sununu, who famously called Trump “F#@*ing Crazy,” soared to reelection with 57.1% of the vote. This suggests a large swathe of New Hampshirites voted for their foul-mouthed Republican governor while also voting for Democratic Senate candidate Maggie Hassan, who beat Bolduc roundly by capturing 53.6% of the vote.
The lesson here is that swing voters, and maybe even a sliver of longtime registered Republicans, have had it with Trump’s unfounded recriminations about an election that occurred 2 years ago. Some may have even feared that Trump-proteges would have threatened the very fabric of America’s democracy should they have made it into office – a prospect that the Dems prophesized out the wazoo over the course of the past few months.
I, for one, am relieved that saner heads prevailed and the kookiest of the kooky lost their races, thus lessening the chances of that democratic (small ‘d’) crisis I cautioned about last week.
It’s encouraging to see that even the staunchest of election-deniers conceded their defeat, including Democrat Stacey Abrams, who handily lost her second bid to become the Governor of Georgia. We may not be out of the woods yet; Kari Lake’s race in Arizona has yet to be called one way or the other and there’s a very real chance she won’t go down without a fight if she loses. But as of this writing, I’m feeling optimistic that the guardrails of our democratic system will hold.
I’m also heartened by the sizable number of split-ticket voters there were in this election. Many Americans chose to cast votes on a candidate-by-candidate basis, rather than blindly vote for every candidate on the ballot that was part of their preordained political team. It’s inspiring to see. Maybe we’re not as polarized as the polling always suggests.
Time for the GOP to quit Trump?
The Republican’s moribund performance in these midterms has kindled a fresh round of soul-searching within the party’s ranks. Clearly, acquiescing to Trump’s outsized influence and getting behind his flawed candidates was not a winning strategy.
As David Frum of The Atlantic notes, Trump has delivered the Republicans loss after loss in the last 4 years – the 2018 Midterms, the 2020 Presidential election, the 2021 Georgia Senate runoff, and now the 2022 Midterms. Yet the party still remains beholden to his every whim, even though it’s clear the man is damaged goods for their continued election prospects.
But the GOP’s underwhelming midterm performance presents the best opportunity since the January 6th insurrection for the party to pivot away from the former president.
And the time to do it is now, before Trump’s 2024 run (which could kick off as soon as this Tuesday) really picks up.
That’s exactly what some daring figures within the Republican Party have called for over the past few days.
Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland didn’t mince any words when he called for this during his appearance on CNN today. “It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race, and it’s like, three strikes, you’re out,” he said. “This should have been a huge red wave. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we’ve ever had,” he added.
Paul Ryan, former Republican Speaker of the House, echoed Hogan’s sentiment, saying he thinks Trump is a “drag” on the Republican ticket. “Donald Trump gives us problems, politically. We lost the House, the Senate and the White House in two years when Trump was on the ballot, or in office,” he said.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana got defensive on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, pushing back on suggestions that the GOP can’t get over Trump even though he’s handed them losses. “We’re not a cult. We’re not like, OK, there’s one person who leads our party,” he said.
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, responded in a similar way during his appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” today, saying, “When any party is out of power, as Republicans are now, we don’t have a single leader.”
Other prominent voices in the party took to Twitter, issuing not-so-veiled messages that strongly suggesting they think it’s time for the GOP to move on from Trump. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley tweeted, “Let’s look to the next election. Quit talking [about] 2020.” Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State under Trump and potential 2024 GOP primary contender, tweeted, “Conservatives are elected when we deliver. Not when we just rail on social media.” This was an evident shot at the scapegoating and name-calling Trump dished out on his platform Truth Social in the days that followed the election.
But it was Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, the Lt. Governor of Virginia who delivered the most prescient retort, saying, “A true leader understands when they have become a liability. A true leader understands that it’s time to step off the stage. And the voters have given us that very clear message.”
Ron DeSantis the Anointed?
Republican animus directed at Trump for weighing down the conservative ticket has coincided with an exuberance over Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ blow-out win in Florida. His win there, which effectively proved that Florida is now a ruby red state, was the only real bright spot of the election for the party. DeSantis became the first Republican governor in 20 years to capture historically blue Miami-Dade County, and by a resounding margin too. That’s a big deal for a figure of a party that has sought to make inroads with the Latino electorate.
So, it makes sense why all eyes are on Ron as the GOP (tries) to look to the future.
DeSantis has long been rumored to be eyeing a 2024 run for president. Of the whopping $200 million he raised for his re-election campaign, he reportedly has some $90 million left in the bank, adding to speculation that he will put that money toward a national run. He also just received the endorsement of hedge fund CEO and GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin, who just last week severed ties with Trump because he “think[s] it’s time to move on to the next generation.”
And in politics there’s really no time like the present. It’s best for DeSantis to make a go for the White House while he’s riding a wave of popularity. The cautionary tale is former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who declined a run in 2012 when he was at peak popularity following Hurricane Sandy, then got squashed when he ran in 2016 because his sparkle in the American psyche had apparently dulled (and, well, Trump).
That is all to say that the necessary scaffolding is there for DeSantis to make a go for the presidency.
But for establishment Republicans, the real promise they see in DeSantis is that he presents himself as only the candidate that could bring the Republicans out of their Trump doom cycle, without also alienating the Trump base. DeSantis has that Trump bark (he rallies hard against “Wokeism”), but he lacks the Trump bite (he won’t break the system; he’s a conservative technocrat). He’s adored by both Trumpworld and big business (unless you’re Disney); evangelical Christians and Hispanic immigrants; and New England retirees and ‘Florida Men’ alike.
He’s the best candidate the GOP has on the docket that could shepherd the party into a new era.
Scott Jennings, a former advisor to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, captured this feeling during his appearance on CNN this week when he said:
"There's a potential narrative out of this night that if you're a discerning Republican voter trying to figure out the future direction of this party, we once again learn that Trump is not a national winner for the Republicans…But DeSantis may be the next evolution of someone who can marry what you like about Trump but also recover some people that went away from the party during Trump."
The powerful Rupert Murdoch, and his conservative media empire, appear on board with this proposition. The morning after the election The New York Post, his tabloid arm, hailed DeSantis as “DeFuture” of the Republican Party on the front page of their newspaper. The front page of their subsequent issue featured a meme-ifyed “Trumpty Dumpty” who “couldn’t build a wall” and “had a great fall.”
The same day, the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal, Murdoch’s more sophisticated media arm, ran a front-page headline “Trump is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.” A slew of opinion pieces arguing shades of this same point have populated the pages of the newspaper in the days since.
For its part, Fox News, Murdoch’s cash cow (and Trump’s favorite channel), has noticeably changed tune on Trump, while devoting whole segments to fawning over DeSantis.
Laura Ingram, a Trump favorite, opened up her show on Wednesday night saying, “Going into 2024, the Republicans are going to be looking for candidates who are focused on winning, not just making a point or settling a score.” It’s an obvious shot at The Donald.
Kaylee McEnaney, Trump’s former Press Secretary turned Fox star, echoed the same sentiment on a Thursday broadcast, suggesting the Republican Party’s future leadership is up for grabs. “There are 72 million people in this country that make up a movement. It is a conservative movement; it’s not tied to any one person,” she said.
But even though it seems like all the vibes have shifted his way—and that conservative powerbrokers in his court—DeSantis is no doubt is sweating bullets over WHEN, or even IF, he should declare his candidacy.
DeSantis owes a lot of his political fortunes to Trump. And Trump has already sent warning signals to DeSantis over making a run. Days before the election, he unveiled his new derisive nickname for DeSantis—“Ron DeSanctimonious” (not your best, Donald)—adding the Florida governor to the pantheon of caricatured rivals (Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, Jeff Flakey, Gretchen Half-Whitmer, Broken Old Crow McConnel). And just hours before the governor would soar to reelection he told The Wall Street Journal that if DeSantis did run he would “tell [the world] things about him that wont be very flattering.”
Trump has an uncanny way of sullying politician’s careers (think 2016 Republican Primary) and unleashing his base on targets of his ire, so DeSantis would do right to plan his next moves very carefully.
The real question, though, is not whether he can sustain this beating, but whether the Republican establishment can. Will they rally behind DeSantis amidst what’s sure to be nasty infighting?
Or will they continue to cower, like they always have, to Trump’s inexorable sway when the going gets rough?
Their future electoral success likely hinges on the former.
In Closing…
What a crazy whirlwind of an election!
I came into this week thinking this election would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Dems and their identity-politics fetish. I leave this week thinking it’s actually the Republicans who have a real impetus to change course, due left, closer to the center where a large swathe of Americans signaled they are.
I really do think we’ll look back on this election as one of the more pivotal of our time. Or at least I hope this is the case.
Either way, I have to take accountability for my prediction last week that the Republicans would take BOTH chambers of Congress. This of course didn’t happen; the GOP barely even squeaked a majority in the House of Representatives.
This doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing from here for Biden and his agenda. We’re back to gridlock in Washington. Even with that slim majority, the Republicans can make his life difficult. Expect investigations into his son Hunter, the origins of COVID, immigration policy, and his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Also expect partisan tussles over the debt ceiling and federal budgets – something that may lead to government shutdowns. And of course, DO NOT expect any significant Dem-sponsored legislation to pass in the next two years that has not solicited buy-in from the Republicans.
Even though he was the relative victor, I hope this check on Biden’s power convinces him to govern closer to the center too.
That’s where the majority of us lie. In the realm of common sense, common decency, compromise; where civility is a given and blind partisan zeal is laughable.
What I’m reading:
Why Is America Always Divided 50–50?, The Atlantic
Did Ron DeSantis Just Become the 2024 Republican Front-Runner?, The New York Times
Donald Trump’s GOP Establishment Has Failed, National Review
How did I get the midterms so wrong?, The Spectator
Democrats’ Long Goodbye to the Working Class, The Atlantic
Threads I’m watching:
Trump is set to announce his candidacy on Tuesday, though he could push this back in consideration of the Georgia runoff race, scheduled for December 6th. It would be the smart thing for him to delay the announcement (so he doesn’t animate even more voters to come out in support of Hershel Walker’s opponent). Some of his closest advisors are counseling him to do this. But we all know the guy frequently flouts his advisors’ recommendations.
The coming Trump-DeSantis proxy war is going to be a doozy. But the fight might not just involve the Florida Governor; Mike Pence is scheduled to speak at a CNN townhall on Wednesday. Will he announce a run? He’s been hinting. Mike Pompeo also could announce too. His new memoir comes out next week. He will no doubt get peppered with questions about whether or not he’s running while he’s out promoting this book.
Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in person tomorrow on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Indonesia. It will be the first in-person visit between the two leaders since Biden took office, and the first time leaders of both countries will meet face-to-face since before COVID. They’ll talk Taiwan, Ukraine, and perhaps most presciently, North Korea. Biden will try to convince Xi to exercise his influence over Kim Jung Un, in the hopes the lil’ man will stop launching missiles every other hour.
Finally, in my blip of patriotic idealism—Get it while it’s hot!—I wanted to share with you the concession speech moderate Democrat Tim Ryan gave after losing to his Senate race in Ohio to Republican J.D. Vance. Tim Ryan ran a very human campaign, one which sought to appeal to a broad coalition of regular Americans and didn’t resort to blind partisan finger-pointing. This comes through in the video. Check it out!
See ya when I see ya, and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Great read Jack!