SELF GOVERNMENT: We've been thinking of Kevin Drum this week!

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2026

He was an American journalist: We start with a speculation about the late Kevin Drum:  

He would have loved to see this.   

Last Tuesday night, he would have loved to see the election results roll in. Almost surely, he would have loved the beauty of the messaging which had emerged from the emerging talent—from the new, newly scrappy faces and names who were suddenly winning elections. 

("Talent" is a word we rarely use. We're willing to use it to describe the week's emerging public figures.)   

As reported here by his wife ("with a heavy heart," in a Health Update), Kevin left this life in early March of last year. It was a gloomy, challenging time for the forces of Blue America.   

Roughly a month before his passing, as his health continued to worsen, Kevin himself had included this note to his readers in this brief Health Update:

"Take care of Donald Trump for me."

So said the late Kevin Drum. 

In Tuesday's elections, it may seem that the electorate did take care of the sitting president. But large political gains can quickly turn into political backslides. How do we find a way to move (successfully) forward? 

If only briefly, Kevin resumed normal posting after the update to which we've just linked. As we continue to think about his work, here's the start of an overview he offered on February 15, 2025—four weeks into the sitting president's second term:

Madness

Before Trump was elected, I figured there were a a range of possibilities if he won.

1) On one end: he's a blowhard. He says lots of stuff he never follows up on.

2) On the other end: He's dead serious this time. He's going to deport millions; put tariffs on everyone; take a sledgehammer to DEI; and nominate lunatics to his cabinet. It would be a bloodbath, but the courts and Republicans in the Senate would rein in the worst of it.

But it's been so much worse—though not on stuff he ran on. Deportations have been low and he's backed off on a bunch of tariffs. But DEI has turned into a jihad against anything that so much as mentions Black accomplishment—or women or Hispanics or anything else. USAID has been demolished for no reason and the medical research community is being torn to pieces. The entire federal workforce is being given a haircut with a blowtorch, with no apparent rhyme or reason. Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies doing God knows what—he won't tell anyone...

Kevin continued from there at some length. As you can see from part of that excerpt—"Deportations have been low and he's backed off on a bunch of tariffs"—much of the "madness" in question hadn't started at that time.

"Madness" is a colloquial term. As readers of this site will know, we think the recent state of American politics does involve issues of (literal) "mental illness."  (Also, we regard a diagnosable "mental illness" as an actual illness—often, as an illness with a physiological basis.)

Tragically but dangerously, we assume that the recent state of our politics involves issues of "mental illness." Once again, the New York Times has taken a total pass on that obvious possibility:

It did so in last Sunday's front-page pseudo-report about the recent weird behaviors of the sitting president. To peruse that report, just click here.

Sad! The "front-page report" was, in fact, on the front page of that day's print editions. But most people read the Times online, and in the kind of braindead behavior in which this paper often engages, the very existence of that lengthy report went unrecorded in the site which the Times headlines as "Today's Paper." 

(We know—you think we have to be joking. But go ahead—click this.)

Sad! For readers who work from the "Today's Paper" site, that relatively toothless report didn't even exist! Persistent haplessness of this type has impeded American attempts at self-government during the (more than) 28 years in which we've maintained this site.

(Then too, there's what the later Wittgenstein alleged about the persistent haplessness of the heralded work performed by the western world's most heralded alleged thinkers! We began to wonder about that possible version of systemic error during our first year out of Aragon High. To see what Professor Horwich wrote for the Times, you can click right here.)

How can we, the American people, build a better, stronger polity? 

The sitting president remains in office. He's now decided to elevate Stephen Miller. How might we the people of Blue America build better outreach to our millions of neighbors and friends? 

How can we build that more durable outreach? The late Kevin Drum left this life at the age of 66. He'd typed and typed and typed and typed. That question remains unanswered today.   

We've been thinking of Kevin this week. We assume that he would have loved what happened on Tuesday night. We assume that he would have liked the messaging which had emerged from a lot of emerging talent. 

The leading authority offers its bio of Kevin right here. The authority starts by saying this:   

"Kevin Drum (October 19, 1958 – March 7, 2025) was an American journalist."

 

SELF GOVERNMENT: Hinojosa, Talarico emerged oh my!

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2026

But can we steer clear of the backslide? In the wake of Tuesday's rout, Ron DeSantis was pulling no punches.

On Wednesday morning, in Tallahassee, the governor spoke to the press. In her report for Mediaite, Stephanie Kaloi provides videotape of what the governor said:

Ron DeSantis Goes Scorched Earth on the State of the GOP After Party’s Election Debacle: ‘Extinction-Level Event’

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) delivered a strong speech against the state of the GOP following the results of the 2026 midterm elections on Wednesday.

After first acknowledging that Florida, unlike many states previously considered safe by the Republican Party, managed to pull gains and retain power, DeSantis lit into other states and the GOP as a whole.

That's the way the report began. Here's what DeSantis said: 

"Let's just be clear about what happened last night. This is as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years. In January, when everyone in office leaves, who were either term-limited or voted out, of the ten largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control of their state—the state of Florida.    

"If you look at our chief rival—in a healthy sense, the state of Texas—and I would say over my lifetime, Texas has been the crown jewel of Republican politics. I think we’ve been the leader for Republicans and conservatives since I’ve been governor, but you go over the whole generation, no one holds a candle on the Republican side to the Lone Star State. And yet, not only did they lose a highly publicized U.S. Senate race, they lost everything. The governor, attorney general, all the other statewide [offices]...   

"Let's just be clear. That is going to hurt, not just for the next two years. That's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more—and if the Republican Party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, we won’t be viable nationally going forward." 

It was (almost) "an extinction-level event," the Florida governor said. He described the way the GOP had been wiped off the map in Texas, the party's anchor state.

And sure enough! In Florida, the GOP had managed to hold on. But in Texas, the rout had been total. In Texas, it had been Hinojosa and Talarico and many others oh my! 

Across the country, new talent had emerged. In Texas, it was the endlessly slandered young seminarian, and it was this gubernatorial emergence:

Gina Hinojosa   

Regina Inez Hinojosa (born December 8, 1973) is an American politician and lawyer who is the governor-elect of Texas. A member of the Democratic Party, she has represented the 49th district in the Texas House of Representatives since 2017...

Before becoming a state legislator, Hinojosa was a labor and civil rights lawyer. She worked for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and for the law firm of Kator, Parks & Weiser. In 2005, she was part of the legal team that sued U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. She was also a member of the Austin Independent School District's school board and has worked part-time for Catholic Charities USA, Texas Rural Legal Aid, and the Equal Justice Center.

Hinojosa was elected governor of Texas in the 2026 election, defeating incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott and becoming the first Democrat to be elected governor of Texas since Ann Richards in 1990...   

[...]

Hinojosa is the daughter of politician Gilberto Hinojosa, a former chair of the Texas Democratic Party, and Crisanta Guerra Lozano, a legal aid attorney. She is of Mexican descent.   

Whatever a person might think of his policies, Abbott has always been highly capable. This year, it wasn't enough. Hinojosa beat him by more than seven points. Talarico beat Paxton by twelve.

Across the country, life rafts of new political talent emerged on this new morning. That said, it's important for us the people of Blue America to understand who and what we (finally) put to rout.  

Miscalculation is a basic part of our flawed human wiring. It's important for us Blues to understand that this is the profoundly malfunctioning person we finally did turn back:

BURNETT (2/26/26): You've known him your whole life. Do you actually see a decline?

MARY L. TRUMP: I do, but I think it's important to remember that Donald has never been fit in any capacity. Obviously, what we're dealing with now are age-related cognitive declines. We're dealing with physical issues that the White House tries to cover over.

But this is somebody who for decades now has had serious, undiagnosed and untreated psychiatric disorders, which are only going to worsen, especially given the pressure he's under and given the cognitive and physical declines.

That's who we seem to have bested. The president who was put to rout has long been seriously disordered, in ways which went untreated. And in part due to the "obvious cognitive declines" which were also cited, his behavior has become more and more visibly nutty all through the course of this year.   

He's been putting his name on every structure. He tore down part of the White House after swearing he wouldn't.  He staged UFC fights on the White House lawn. He won't stop talking about that freaking ballroom of his, along with that freaking arch. 

He flies around on the plane which he's going to steal. He was down at the Reflecting Pool again on Monday, yammering in ways which everyone knows to be nuts.

As this year has stumbled ahead, his disordered thinking and his weird behaviors have become stunningly obvious. On a personal level, that vast disorder, which seems to stretch back to his childhood, is an obvious human tragedy. But it made it possible for lunkheads like us to finally turn him back.   

Mary Trump described the history of this vast disorder in her 2020 best-seller, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man. It's the report of a human tragedy—a human tragedy which gets its start when the subject is two years old, or perhaps as a matter of physiological inheritance.  

For extended passages from her book, you can just click here.

We Blues! That book was over our press corps' heads. Our "press corps" chose to disappear the bulk of what it said. Last Sunday, at the top of page one. the New York Times was still playing dumb about this state of affairs, even as it pretended to offer its latest report on this struggling man's endless behaviors.

(More on that front-page report to come.)   

It was (almost) "an extinction-level event," the Florida governor said. And of course, it always seems, at times like these, that the millennium has arrived—that there will be no going back to the mess from which we seem to have escaped. 

In fact, we Blues are capable of miscalculation as we move forward from here. It will fall to newly emerged talents like Hinojosa and Talarico—and Acton and Bottoms and El-Sayed and Hamilton—to show us the way past that backslide.

A whole lot of voters voted our way. Where do we go from here?

Tomorrow: The garbage continues at Fox

THURSDAY: El-Sayed as former Rhodes scholar!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2026

Democratic numbers grow: Preachers and healers and a logger oh my! In the various fields of play, the Democratic Party's numbers seem to be increasing.   

As we type, the New York Times says the 435 seats in the House currently break down as shown: 

Allocation of House seats 
Democratic winners to date:  247
Republican winners to date; 153
Seats still undecided: 35

Did any major entity predict a split this large? With 35 seats still undecided, the Democrats could end up with a three-digit advantage in the House.   

(Or not! We have no way of knowing.)

Meanwhile, this:

Candidate Colom's lead in the Mississippi Senate race has ballooned from yesterday's 43 votes up to "a little more than 1,700 votes, while in Alaska, former Representative Mary Peltola was leading Senator Dan S. Sullivan by an even smaller margin." 

We'll guess that neither number tells us much, given the number of ballots which will end up getting counter. Regarding Colom, we'll say this again:

He dared to struggle, dared to win! 

He went out and chased that seat. In the process, he may end up defeating the Republican incumbent.   

Finally, though, we refer you again to Abdul El-Sayed's interview segments on today's Morning Joe.  At 8 a.m. sharp, this 17-minute segment started. It was followed by this second, 11-minute segment. 

A first thought. It seemed to us that El-Sayed comes across as the obvious Rhodes scholar he actually was. We've been struck by how rarely that academic distinction was mentioned along the way to Tuesday's seven-point win.   

Second, we suggest that you might click ahead to the final minute of that second segment. Here's part of what you'll hear and see from the (American born and raised) Senator-elect:  

EL-SAYED (11/5/26): Win or lose on Tuesday night, I was just so grateful to be able to do this. My family comes from a place where there is no democracy. So I don't take it lightly that we get to do this, and I'm just really honored that ten [sic] million people in my state gave me the trust to be able to serve.   

MIKA: So before you go, Senator-elect, we want to play a video that has resurfaced online of former president Bill Clinton praising your valedictory speech in his 2007 commencement address at the University of Michigan...  

You'll see Clinton praising the college senior's address and noting the lesson he drew from it.  You'll also see El-Sayed's reaction.

SELF GOVERNMENT: We were glad we got to see...

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2026   

...what Senator El-Sayed said: The best thing we saw this morning we saw on Morning Joe. 

Thanks to Mediaite's David Gilmour, part of what we saw and heard can be seen and heard by you.

Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Michigan) was interviewed at some length around the start of the eight o'clock hour. We the people are lucky when we get to hear a bright public figure saying such things as this:

QUESTION (11/5/26): ...What is your message, now that you've won this election, to Jewish voters in the state of Michigan, and frankly national voters who have been watching you very closely and want to know what you will do to protect them in this era of antisemitism?

SENATOR-ELECT EL-SAYED: Growing up, I was really privileged to grow up in a community where about forty percent of my high school class were Jewish. I grew up going to synagogue, going to Seder, going to bar and bat mitzvahs growing up.

I have so much respect for the Jewish faith and Jewish contributions to American life. I also know what it’s like to be discriminated against for how I pray. And I want an America where nobody is discriminated against. Under our Constitution, you can pray as you choose to pray or not pray at all.

The idea that anybody should feel unsafe in their synagogue or their day school, to me, is anathema. I know what it’s like to drop off my kids to a mosque and wonder if they’re going to be safe, and I’m going to be able to pick them up safely afterwards.

I think we are all united in the work of making sure that no matter who you are, you are safe in this country, and I’m committed to the safety of Jewish children like I’m committed to the safety of my own children.  

The question was asked by Willie Geist. To see this part of the interview, and for Gilmore's fuller report, you can just click here.

El-Sayed has said these things many times. Last night, his very name was still being mocked and ridiculed by the eternally brainless Jesse Watters on the brainless Fox News Channel program brainlessly known as The Five.  

Later, on the Gutfeld! show, the astoundingly brainless demonization and slander only got worse. These are the garbage cans which get rolled out by the Fox News Channel each weekday night.   

This afternoon, we'll offer a thought about the remarkable sweep of Tuesday's election wins. At this site, we were impressed by El-Sayed's lengthy interview, but we were especially glad we got to se him make those familiar remarks again.

(Yes, we do believe that he means what he says. We realize that some people don't.)

Briefly, a personal note:

We were lucky as a kid, in the summer of 1960, when our family moved from the more hidebound segregations of the Boston suburbs out to the freer air breathed in San Mateo. To us, our friends were all just Aragon kids, with one Hillsdale kid thrown in, but they were allowed to present with different identities, with no one much seeming to care. 

That includes the Jewish kids who became some of our most treasured friends. That sort of thing still wasn't allowed in the previous locale. On our way into eighth grade, we were very, very, very lucky when our family picked up and went west.

We're glad that we got to see what El-Sayed just said. Last night, we'd seen the garbage cans rolled out. Before the week is done, we'll link you to what was said.