AMERICANA: Mississippi, no longer burning!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2026

Then too, what happened in Florida: Will this unusual election year become a key part of the story? A key part of the evolving, imperfect American story?

A logger in Maine, a preacher in Kansas? An improbable giant-slayer in the former nation known as Texas? A pair of (lady) Democratic doctors flipping states believed to be red?

Will this year become a part of American history? For obvious reasons, Scott Colom's win in Mississippi is generating headlines like these, as seen online today in the New York Times:

Scott Colom, a Democrat, Wins Mississippi Senate Seat in Historic Upset
Mr. Colom, a prosecutor, will be the first Black senator elected from Mississippi since the post-Civil War Reconstruction period.  

Even there, those headlines stress the fact of party offer the fact of race. Atop the front page of today's print editions, the pair of headlines flips the point of emphasis: 

Colom Attains A Major Upset In Mississippi 
Elected As Its First Black Senator Since 1800s 

As indeed he was, at the age of 43. But which is the more newsworthy part of this upset? His party or his "race?"

Candidate Colom came through for the win. A great deal of the pain of American history is centered in Deep South states like the state from which he's emerged.

That said, we were struck last night, watching reaction on cable news shows, by the numbers of young Black Mississippians expressing their ongoing dedication to the state they regard as their home. Colom himself, at the end of his victory speech, made it clear that he was there to serve "every Mississippian—the ones that voted for me, the ones that didn't vote for me, and the ones that didn't vote."   

"Mississippi matters," he said. He didn't sound like someone who saw himself as part of a winning tribe.

There were "firsts" all over the electoral map this year. In fact, there were so many that many such "firsts" have attracted barely a word of notice. We think, for example, David Crowley, governor-elect of Wisconsin, and of Debra Haaland, governor-elect of New Mexico. 

Crowley and Haaland are both firsts, but in the flood of other such firsts, that fact has received little notice. For the record, Governor-elect Crowley will be the first Black governor of his state. Governor-elect Haaland will be the first Native American woman governor of any American state—and so on from there.

There were many firsts this year. That said, is the age of firsts perhaps reaching its end? Will that be a part of this year's story—a part of the evolving American story?

"These are the days of miracle and wonder?"  (Paul Simon, Graceland album.) In a report last week for the New York Times, Jia Lynn Yang starts trying to puzzle it out:

NEWS ANALYSIS
They Made History as ‘Firsts.’ That’s Not What They Ran On.  

The first Muslim senator. The first Black woman to be elected governor of any state. The first openly gay male senator. The first Black governor of Florida. The first elected Hispanic governors in Texas and in California.

The number of “firsts” achieved on Tuesday’s elections was extraordinary. Barriers came crashing down across the country. And yet during the campaigns, the candidates themselves hardly uttered a word about being on the precipice of history. There were no exhortations to vote for a particular person because “representation matters.”

Instead, most of them spoke relentlessly about household finances that had become impossible to manage, an unpopular war and corruption. They did not—and could not—hide their identities. But these facts were not central to their pitches to voters.

This is a major shift in the politics of identity...  

Yang goes on in somewhat jumbled fashion from there, suggesting that we live in a new and different America: Even as the sitting president "has continued insulting entire racial and ethnic groups," Yang says that Democratic candidates "have downplayed identity" in the course of this year's campaigns.   

It seems to us that Yang is hearing something which is actually there. She closes with a possible explanation for what she believes she has heard:    

[I]n a way, the long-awaited demographic turnover finally arrived in American politics this week. The slate of winners broke so many barriers in part because the country itself has become far more diverse. Since opening up to immigrants from around the world in the second half of the 20th century, the country is now generations deep into a whole new demographic reality.

Baby Boomers, who have long dominated the country’s political scene, are about 70 percent white. Millennials are around half. Gen-Z is more ethnically and racially diverse than any generation in American history. People like Mr. El-Sayed (42 years old), Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia (39) and James Talarico in Texas (37) have simply grown up in a different country.

The story this week, then, is not only about racial or gender demographics. It’s about the arrival of a new generation. For these Americans, diversity is not a campaign slogan. It’s a simple fact of life.    

In this portrait, America is moving away from "identity." Increasingly, talent is understood to emerge from every part of this sprawling, demographically complex nation, from every identifiable group.  

Increasingly, voters understand this fact. Increasingly, nobody cares about which group a talented candidate hails from.

Inevitably, some firsts are still more noteworthy than others. Colom's first in Mississippi is a difficult first to ignore. Last night, he promised to carry his whole state into its future, not just members of his own political or racial group.

That said, another first should perhaps be hard to ignore—and Yang mentions it in her opening paragraph.  We refer to her citation of "the first Black governor of Florida." 

We wouldn't have voted for him ourselves, but a lot of Republicans did. We think his election helps flesh out an American story we Blues have unwisely ignored.

Tomorrow: What Paul Thurmond said