Welcome to Thunderdome. I have been part of the television coverage of election nights going back twenty years. I have stories from all of them that are of note. Election nights bring out the craziness in people: they lose their minds, lose the plot and react with a jittery manic mindset based on disabused assumptions about the world they inhabit. This happens often. I even made Jamelle Bouie so mad he left the CBS bureau in 2016 to take a walk.

That’s how much of a jerk I can be on election nights when people are desperately holding on to hope for their candidates… Since my candidates always lose, I don’t care about their feelings, and that’s very freeing. Oh, your hopes for the future have been irrevocably dashed? This must be something new for you. I don’t give a crap.

On election night in 2024, I was more than happy to join the Fox News set where the people, even those who disagree with me, are less prone to manic behavior. It was a surreal experience, since so much of the lead-up contained the idea that this was going to be an election that played out over weeks. I was in the lonely corner saying I thought we’d have an early night.

Well, I turned out to be right. And I’m not surprised at all — it was an option that was vastly under-indexed by people in the last several weeks. If Kamala Harris misjudged the priorities of this electorate there was always the possibility that she was headed toward a disaster of Dukakis-like proportions, but no one wanted to hear that. And on the Trump side, many people seemed to think his only path to victory was threading a needle, which — while very possible from my perspective — seemed less likely than the idea that the RNC theory of this election (fundamentals! I say again: fundamentals!) was much more powerful than the vibes + celebrities + ads approach that Kamala utilized.

Trump’s enormous win is a good thing for the country. I’m not saying that as someone more ideologically inclined toward his direction, which I obviously am — I’m saying it as an American who thinks it’s good to have the popular and electoral vote line up. Eliminating that doubt, that feeling that the Electoral College is some antagonizing agent, is a good thing.

Now the Democratic Party is licking their wounds. They’re trying to figure out who can possibly win nationally from their cadre in this environment. They want someone who is normie, culturally moderate, scans as middle+working-class, pro tech, buy American, law and order, no time for “wokeness,” pessimistic about capacity of bureaucracy vs public+private, gives Catholics space and respect, speaks fluent non-Wall Street economic views, abortion safe-legal-rare, market Hamiltonian foreign policy…

In other words: they believe in Harvey Dent.

When the election was called, I was standing in the green room between Kevin McCarthy, the former speaker of the House, and Karl Rove, longtime consultant for every Republican. Knowing that Donald Trump would soon emerge to claim victory, it felt awkward to be standing in the Fox bureau’s green room just waiting to see him in action. So I left, wandering through the dark New York streets (oddly quiet given the result) to end up at Connolly’s Pub, where about three dozen drunken Irish couples were singing “Proud to Be an American” together as Trump took the stage. It was a much more memorable scene.

The Trump victory is complete: a sweep of the swing states and of the demographics that long eluded him, he’s now a president granted new authority and faith thanks to his unique positioning. What he does with that? It remains to be seen. This was a revenge tour — and he’s achieved that. What comes next?

How Kamala lost

The end of a dream.

The political ground that Harris forfeited was expansive. Women as well as men shifted toward the Republican Party, compared with their preferences in 2020. Harris gave up a bit of her party’s advantage among college-educated voters while losing substantially among voters without a four-year degree, who account for almost 60 percent of the electorate. Black voters doubled their support for Trump to 16 percent, while Latino support grew by six points, to 41 percent. Harris also lost ground among voters with less than $100,000 in household income while making gains among the smaller group of voters who earn more than that amount.

In Michigan on the eve of the election, one vivid sign the Democrats were in trouble came at a rally thrown by vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, held at downtown Detroit’s Hart Plaza. The venue can accommodate thousands of people, but the crowd filled only a fraction of the space, according to one volunteer. At one point, campaign staffers asked people to cluster in bleachers that were in view of a camera, so it would give the impression of a full crowd.

Walz and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer were among those who delivered brief remarks to a lackluster reception. The rally also featured entertainers, including REM frontman Michael Stipe and Jon Bon Jovi, who sang hits that included a 1992 release that served as a rallying cry: “Keep the Faith.”

On Tuesday night, wealthy Democratic donors and operatives, who had been getting positive updates from the campaign throughout the day, watched in horror at the Conrad Hotel in Washington as election results came in. Many who had been invited to a VIP gathering at Howard University, where Harris’s campaign held its election night party, decided to stay at the bar or go back to their hotel rooms to mourn alone.

The power in Trump’s Washington

Who holds it?

— Jeff Miller. Miller Strategies has a stable of blue-chip clients including Altria, Apple, Blackstone, Charles Schwab, Delta, Oracle and Southern Company. But most importantly, Miller is one of Trump’s top fundraisers. Miller raised $120 million for Trump last cycle and will almost certainly beat that record this time around.

— Brian Ballard. Ballard is an institution in Florida and built a healthy business in the first Trump term. But if you ask around the Trump orbit about Ballard, you’ll hear that he endorsed Governor Ron DeSantis this time around. Yet Ballard still has a lot of friends in Trump world.

— Arthur Schwartz. Schwartz is a longtime behind-the-scenes operator who has extremely close relationships with corporations looking for advice in Trump’s DC. He’s been Donald Trump Jr.’s political advisor for years and is close to the Trump family and Vice President-elect JD Vance. Schwartz also has a big House and Senate leadership network.

— Cliff Sims. Sims is playing an integral role in the Trump transition effort. Sims served in the first Trump administration, penned a critical book about the president but still found himself back in the mix shortly afterward. With John Ratcliffe poised to be CIA director, Sims may find himself in Langley; he worked for Ratcliffe when the Texas Republican was director of the Office of National Intelligence.

— Andy Surabian. Surabian was one of the architects of Vance’s Senate campaign and a close advisor on the VP campaign as well.

— Johnny DeStefano. DeStefano was a key player in Trump’s first White House, helping run personnel for the 45th president. Now, he’s the top outside advisor to Senator John Thune, a leading candidate to be the next Senate majority leader.

— Wayne Berman. Berman is the longtime head of global government affairs for Blackstone. He’s been a power player for decades. There are efforts afoot to recruit Berman to be deputy secretary of Treasury.

The autopsy Democrats need

Curt Anderson.

First, let’s start with the obvious — black voters. The people at DNC HQ will be furious that black voters did not obey instructions and vote 95 percent for Democrats. It’s outrageous, really, when you think of all the great things white liberals have done for black people: BLM yard signs, volunteering once a year at a soup kitchen and promising young black men that Kamala would help them open weed stores. Yet even though the Democratic Party freed the slaves (young Democrats believe this), soooooo many black people voted for Trump. Shockingly ungrateful.

Second, brown voters. After everything Democrats have done for the brown people, their thanklessness stings even worse. All Democratic leaders religiously say “black and brown” in all their talking points, and Democrats have even opened the border to appease and accommodate Hispanics (who swung by fourteen points to Trump). Appallingly, Hispanic voters, who are legal American citizens, don’t want open borders! White liberal women have generously hired brown people to do their landscaping, clean their houses and raise their children — and despite all that, Hispanics have the nerve to vote for Trump and other Republicans. Even more ungrateful!

Third, Joe and Jill Biden. Joe and Jill held on too long. Imagine how much better Kamala would have done if the voters had the benefit of another two months to hear her not say anything coherent. Oh, well… this one is hard to defend.

Fourth, The Obamas. Can’t be them. They are royalty in the Democratic Party, so nope, not their fault.

Fifth, the antisemites. Democrats chose the goofball governor instead of the Jewish governor as their vice presidential candidate. And the reason was obvious to everyone: Governor Shapiro was too short. Will anyone acknowledge a different explanation? Perhaps there is a war inside the Democratic Party: the new ascendant, antisemite racists in the Democratic Party have overpowered the old, pro-Israel guard? “From the river to the sea,” say the protesters; few know which river or sea they are talking about.

Sixth, the voters. No arguing this one; the voters are clearly at fault. Despite Barack Obama’s instructive lectures, the voters have once again disappointed Democrats. Voters obviously displayed no appreciation for the party that graced them with high prices, unaffordable housing, looters going unpunished, men dominating women’s sports, wars and rumors of wars all over the globe, a border invasion, 70,000 new IRS agents or the Democrat thought police. As Dick Tuck famously said while assessing an election he lost, “The people have spoken, the bastards.”

Finally, the real reason Democrats lost: Americans are not left-wing radical extremist lunatics and the Democrats are.

One more thing

There are a lot of takes out there about why Democrats lost, but one perspective I have not yet read is why so many elites, particularly international elites, remain so out of step with American voters — including people such as oh, I don’t know, the editor-in-chief on our UK side. I heard his position last month and thought it sounded utterly divorced from the American experience, saying a on my podcast at the time. As someone who doesn’t endorse generally, at least he had the courage to put his views out there. But sometimes courage is an indication of something else — distance from the people that is a reflection on how the world is not as you think it is.