It was a good night for the opposition to Trump, which is to say, for Democrats. From the New Jersey and Virginia governor races to Zohran’s victory in New York City to right here in the Golden State of California, where we approved Prop 50 by an overwhelming 65%, Democrats won huge victories that must be viewed as primarily a repudiation of Donald J. Trump.
Taken with the No Kings marches of two weeks ago, it should be clear that this country has turned decisively against Trump and his MAGA cult. I know this is hard for MAGAs to admit—I can hear you grinding your teeth--but I’m sorry/not sorry for you. You placed all your chips on that man, and you lost.
But I have a warning for Democrats, including Gov. Newsom: While the election was a national rebuke of Trump, it was not an endorsement of woke. Voters, it turns out, can do two things at the same time: hate Trump, and hate woke. Any attempts by Democrats to conflate anti-Trump votes with pro-woke sentiment is misguided, and will simply be more nails in the Democrats’ coffin.
Trump’s instincts on woke were legitimate. Woke—defined by me as an abnormal obsession with race in politics—has proven to be a national danger and embarrassment. Democrats had their chance to prove its legitimacy and failed. Instead, the American people, in their majestic glory, turned against the concept with a violence seldom seen in our politics. Time and again, they expressed their revulsion with an ideology that tells them they’re hateful, biased racists. Trump correctly picked up on this revulsion and was twice elected President because of it. The American people gave him the responsibility for ending woke, and he did his job as promised.
But he went too far. Way too far. We all know that Trump is psychologically unhinged. Paranoid, megalomaniacal, narcissistic, vengeful, financially corrupt and sexually twisted: for this person to be in charge of the country is crazy. The American people finally perceived this: a tipping point with regard to Trump’s suitability to hold office has now been reached, and is irreversible. Donald Trump from now on will be a joke, a cartoon character on South Park. I welcome this change. I thank him for bringing to our attention the damages of woke (which I perceived a long time ago), and I now give him permission to leave the stage of history and return to whatever pervy things he does at Mar-a-Lago.
As for Gov. Newsom, whom I mentioned, I agree with the pundits that the enormous victory of Prop 50 has launched him into a rarified atmosphere that most other Presidential hopefuls can only dream of. He is now The Man most likely to be the Democratic nominee in 2028 and to be elected President in November of that year. I hope for his sake he will not commit the sin of hubris, and that he will not interpret yesterday’s election results as a get-out-of-jail card for woke. Woke remains very much in jail, behind bars, where it belongs. We need to keep a careful eye on any attempts by leftists to spring woke from jail, just as we need to keep an eye on Trump, who in his last fitful days of power might attempt some kind of Gotterdammerung ending in which he tries to tear down the pillars upholding what remains of our democracy.
Steve Heimoff