America The Visceral

Friday, November 7, 2025

I was in California for Tuesday’s election.  California is not reporting turnout numbers just yet but based on what I saw, they were low.  There were certainly fewer than normal venues as I drove past several that were very active when I was a resident just 30 short months ago and nothing was there.  Reports of a “realignment” are quite premature.  But I will tell you it was ugly.

Firstly, apologies for the lateness of this analysis, travel on Wednesday followed by a medical emergency in the household (everything is fine now – thankfully) has made writing impossible until now.

Here is a Prop 50 ad that was in high rotation in the formerly golden state.  There is not a single mention of what the actual issue in the proposition is, not even a hint.  Now, that by itself is not news in California – proposition campaigns are often quite diversionary, even deceptive.  What is unusual is the tone and subject matter.  That’s a “Hate Trump” spot and that is all it is.  The ad sets things up so that voting in favor of Prop 50 was not exercising your judgment on an important issue, but rather a cathartic act, expressing your distaste, even hatred, for Donald J. Trump.

As the host said in his analysis for Fox:

Tuesday wasn’t a realignment. The simple reality is three blue states got bluer with Trump in the White House…

There was this from The View:

One of Sunny Hostin’s biggest takeaways from Democrats’ election victories on Tuesday night is that when Republicans “go low,” Democrats need to “go lower”…

This was not an election, this was a petulant tantrum born of anger and disappointment.  There is not trend here.  Mamdani cannot pull off half of what he has been talking about.  He is after all mayor, not dictator.  California will gain Democratic seats in the House, but they have ticked off a lot of the country in the meantime, so it is quite possible the net effect will be zero or even a slight setback.

The City of Knoxville, TN is blue, but the county is quite red.  The vast majority of government income In Tennessee comes from value-added, or sales, tax.  The City of Knoxville had a half-percent increase in that tax on the ballot.  They campaigned hard for it.  But even in that blue city, it lost.

So, yes, this election was a rejection of Trump, but not by the nation, and not of his policies.  This was an expression of some people’s personal distaste for the man – and that is all it was.  The sad thing is it will produce real effects that they are not going to like in those places affected.  But then, hatred is like that.

My hope is that bile now spewed, we can all take a deep breath and begin once again to vote with reason, not emotion.  We cannot afford to continue down this path.  The consequences will be too grave.  Neither party needs to “go lower.”  The time has come to begin raising the bar once again.