Last night's election results - initial thoughts

Ed Gillespie had wondered if his Establishment bona fides were becoming a hindrance, so in recent weeks he'd been tacking somewhat Trumpward, garnering signs of support from Squirrel-Hair himself. All that came to a screaming halt when. the numbers sealed the deal. S-H doesn't like losers:

Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!

Gillespie was also maligned - with really a really stupid charge of bigotry - by the guy I did vote for in the 2016 presidential race, Evan McMullen:

.@EdWGillespie was one of the good guys, but now he peddles fear and white nationalism. It’s better for VA and America that he not prevail.

Is this the moment where I'm supposed to say, "I regret what I did a year ago"? Um, no. I pretty much knew there was something innately goofy about a guy who would make a Hail-Mary run for the world's most powerful office. The lesson that has been hammered into my brain is that post-America is such a fetid place, beginning with its culture, that it can't have good choices in these situations, generally speaking.

Northam has plenty of progressive cred - hiking the minimum wage to $15, "free" community college - but he stops short of endorsing full-tilt single payer for his state, endorsing a "public option" instead. This is what passes for centrism in today's Democrat party.

No surprise at all in NYC. What kind of opponent would have been able to compete with the machine of a guy like DeBlasio? The surprise would have been if the city had turned en masse away from tyranny and cultural rot.

Ditto New Jersey. When it elects Republicans, they are the weakest of tea: Whitman, Christie.

Can't argue with Ben Shapiro's short take on Twitter:

Unpopular president + off-year election + radically energized opposition enraged they lost last time = getting your ass kicked

Or that of John Podhoretz:

So here's the story: Dems are now winning in exactly the manner that portends GOP disaster. Tonight will hasten GOP retirements and accelerate the portents.

All this further demonstrates the point I've been making for over two years: Donald Trump was going to exacerbate the basic and perennial hate Dems have for conservatism by virtue of his repellent personality, and allow Dems to conflate three things that are, in reality, not related at. all: actual conservatism, yee-haw off-the-cuff populism, and boneheaded bigotry.

If one is concerned about really - and you folks know I don't mean this in the Trumpist sense at all - making America great again, there is no substitute for arguing for actual conservatism. Because it is the grown-up's worldview, it lacks the sex appeal of either collectivism or populism, which makes it a harder sell. But maybe events of the present moment will help distill the thoughts of some formerly admirable folks who bought into the frenzy. But then again, maybe they'll just continue to disparage us as ineffectual dweebs.

As it gets ever later in the day, we shall see what they are really made of.