America won.
Too bad Oklahoma couldn’t.
And still it’s so amazing.
I have so many places to begin, none having a thing to do with who might be Oklahoma’s offensive coordinator in time for the spring, nor who might be head coach, either, which must be in play as long as the Sooners don’t win more than four or five games.
I think of my father, who every time I’d ask why he was a steadfast Democrat, he’d say without missing a beat, “Party of civil rights.”
I think of every time I’ve listened to Joe Scarborough on his morning show, beginning just days and weeks after our now lame duck president first took office on Jan. 20, 2017, warning Republicans standing with Donald Trump would lead to their irrelevancy and, holy cow, almost 10 years later, he’s right.
Come to think of it, I’ve now lived through the Iranian Hostage Crisis, lasting Nov. 4, 1979, until Jan. 20, 1981, and the American Hostage Crisis, lasting Jan. 20, 2017, until, oh, let’s go with yesterday, when Republicans dramatically lost their majorities in the House and Senate.
The hostage being the body politic of this great nation, a decade-long waste of time initiated by Trump, but contributed to by Democrats who knew not what to do with him, nor what to do with four years in the middle away from him, failing to realize the times needed their changing as party leadership stood still and aged, the second leading to the first.
I think of these lyrics, from The Call’s “The Walls Came Down.”
Well they blew the horns
And the walls came down
They’d all been warned
And the walls came down
They stood there laughing
They’re not laughing anymore
The walls came downSanctuary fades
Congregation splits
Nightly military raids
The congregation splits
It’s a song of assassins
Ringin’ in your ears
We got terrorist thinking
Playing on fears
Across the nation and even here, given the trend lines proving even Oklahoma became marginally more blue on Tuesday, the congregation indeed split. And oh, yeah, have we had “terrorist thinking” “playing on fears.”
If it takes Democratic leadership consulting with military leaders to not let Trump use nuclear weapons in Iran, or anywhere else, before he’s out of office, it will have to be tackled, as would any other impossible world-killing or murder-suicide pact he might cook up.
But mostly, as a country, I think we’re through it.
Those inclined to be Democrats and Republicans again can do that, and those inclined to go down with the MAGA ship can do that, too, doing what remains of our two-party system a great favor.
Think of it like pro wrestling in the territory days, let’s say Georgia.
The Republicans are “Mad Dog” Buzz Sawyer and the Dems are “Wildfire” Tommy Rich.
Somewhere along the way, Sawyer and Rich found themselves competing for the NWA National Heavyweight title — think of it as control of Congress — only for it to become so dastardly personal. Rich, the good guy, would have been fine playing within established norms and rules, but that was never going to work for The Mad Dog.
Eventually, Sawyer worked himself into such a lather, and because “Wildfire” wasn’t inclined to step away, the entire competition became a bloody and awful feud lasting months and months until, finally, one last match settled it, “The Last Battle of Atlanta,” they called it.
Rich, as the great Gordon Solie used to say, got the duke, and the feud ended.
Tuesday was that battle, and the Dems won.
Of course, we must return to the rule of law.
But the feud can end, too.
We’re all Americans, right?
So that’s what it feels like.
It feels, too, like Trump, fearing his future, may play nice going forward, worrying more about his post-term freedom than how many things he can slap his name on before that term’s over.
It feels like every Republican in Congress, save maybe the Oklahoma delegation, has reason to run away from the president as fast as they can. And it feels like we’ll become a kinder and gentler nation beginning today.
It feels like Republicans will have no choice now but to run on policy rather than demonization of the other side, aided by hundreds of millions from a billionaire class that must now bow to, or at least cooperate with, a party disinclined to favor it over working Americans, and I can’t tell you what a difference that should make.
Like, the first Republican with a bunch of new ideas might breeze to their party’s nomination because that would make them the first with any new ideas at all, and how different would that be following Trump, Trump and Trump as the party’s previous three nominees.
It feels like the charge in the air will no longer be so charged.
It will feel easier.
I might even watch the news again, rather than hear about before deciding if I have the stomach for it, because that’s been the last 10 years.
Believe it.
When we woke Tuesday, Republicans owned the House 218-214. But if every seat they won or led at 2 a.m. Wednesday were to remain unchanged, the Dem advantage could be as high as 261-174 come January.
Meanwhile, what had been a 53-47 Republican advantage in the Senate is bound to be a 55-45 or 56-44 (or better) Democratic advantage.
It’s my party and I’ll take it.
It means the temperature’s changed.
It needed changing.