Congratulations to Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose longshot effort to represent the 3rd Congressional District in Congress glows with triumph.
The Democratic nominee's spirited but sensible campaign stressed empathetic concern with pocketbook issues, steadfast dedication to women's rights and constitutional principles, and an objective, pragmatic, independent approach to governance. Against a determined and well-financed opponent, it worked.
In midterm elections, the party holding the White House usually loses by large margins.
In 2010, for example, the electorate turned its back on Barack Obama, costing the Democrats 64 House seats and six in the Senate. Similar debacles hit Ronald Reagan in 1982, Bill Clinton in 1994 and Donald Trump in 2018.
Only under exceptional circumstances does the in-party prevail.
In 1934, as the nation emerged from the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt's Democrats added 10 senators and nine representatives to the already enormous majorities they had secured in the landslide defeat of Herbert Hoover in 1932.
In 1962, in the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Democrats added two senators while losing only four members in the House, retaining the comfortable dominance they had won in 1960. President Kennedy's popularity was soaring in the stratosphere, and the nation applauded the abasement of Soviet ambition and the avoidance of nuclear war.
While final results remain to be tabulated, it is certain that there was no "red wave" in this election, nor even a trickle.
President Biden's Democrats gobsmacked the historical averages and retained their slim but effective control of the Senate while losing — at most — only a handful of seats in the House.
Why? Because the American people are far more intelligent and well-informed than the narcissist Donald Trump, the "stable genius," assumes them to be.
They know a threat to the Constitution and to the national character when they see one. MAGA malfeasance and mendacity do not this nation make.
The Donald has had his day and should fade away — the sooner, the better.
Good riddance. Good riddance. Good riddance.
Joseph Tipler
Centralia
