Dear Weekend Jolter,
Jimmy Carter outlived the Democratic Party.
In hindsight, one can point to a thousand reasons why Donald Trump and congressional Republicans won — or, more specifically, why Democrats lost. You want postmortems? We've got postmortems. Read Phil Klein. Or Noah Rothman. Or Jim Geraghty. Joe Biden's refusal to ditch his reelection bid from the outset, Kamala Harris's VP pick, her inability to articulate how she'd be any different from the incumbent president, the border, crime, inflation, Afghanistan, and the sheer unpopularity of however you want to describe what is commonly referred to as "wokeness" and all its offshoots in corporate, academic, and government affairs — all these factors tell the story, or part of it. Actually, come to think of it, National Review has been telling these stories for years — and we hope you'll consider chipping into our post-election webathon, which I'll get to in a moment.
Perhaps the most concise assessment of why Democrats did so poorly came from Jim, in the election run-up: "Democrats refused to do any serious 'self-scouting' — a hard, unsparing assessment of their own strengths and weaknesses," instead believing revulsion toward Trump would overcome any weakness on their side. As independents moved toward Republicans on issue after issue, Democrats internalized the idea that any defections must be attributable to the lure of "fascism" and maybe white supremacy, assumptions punctured by exit polls that showed Hispanics voted Republican in historic numbers and voters who think democracy is "very threatened" tipped to Trump. None of this is to underplay the problems with Trump, whose personality defects and dishonorable post-election actions last time made him deservedly vulnerable. But he alchemized controversy into victory, and he won. We hope that Trump will internalize some lessons of his own — and that Democrats will pull back from the fringe, at last.
In other words, Democrats are due for the kind of "autopsy" the Republicans underwent after 2012. They should listen to Congressman Ritchie Torres, for starters.
Presuming that Democrats will not, in fact, undergo much introspection over Tuesday's events, we're likely in for a good deal of hysteria in the coming months and beyond. This, as previewed, is a long wind-up for The Ask: that you consider donating to NR as part of our webathon.
Throughout it all — the Trump shock of 2016, the Biden-era tilt to FDR-inspired government, the roller-coaster 2024 campaign that ended up resetting American politics, again — we have endeavored to call balls and strikes. We'll keep doing so. Level-headed coverage and adherence to timeless conservative principles, all with good humor, wit, and élan — that's where we come in. Whether it's been Dan McLaughlin's assiduous tracking of the Senate races; Audrey Fahlberg's on-the-ground, country-crossing, campaign-trail reporting; Jeff Blehar's inimitable irreverence in Carnival of Fools; Jim Geraghty's daily dose of straight talk in the Morning Jolt; the biweekly insights of The Editors podcast; Caroline Downey's YouTube explainers; or in the magazine itself, we've covered this historic campaign at all levels, from all angles, and prepare next for the transition.
As Rich Lowry writes in his webathon kickoff, "the assault on the pillars of the country will continue and may pick up momentum in the inevitable reaction to a second Trump administration." And we will be here, "manning the ramparts for constitutional government and the U.S. system, and will be willing, as necessary, to blow the whistle on our own side when it strays."
This has been one of the wildest presidential races of our lives, complete with historic plot twists and, frankly, media outlets that in many respects have forfeited their claims to objectivity — factors that all underscore why National Review is so important. As we may have mentioned a few times before, what we do is not cheap. You don't even want to see Audrey's fuel bill. So, if you can spare it, please chip in a lot, a little, or whatever amount seems right to you. We appreciate your support, today, tomorrow, and four years from now. Every drachma, forint, and shekel helps keep us humming, and that's something we'd like to do for a long time still.
Thank you. And read on.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
On the outcome: A Stunning Victory
On Florida's abortion measure: Life Wins in Florida
Republicans should seize the moment: Keep the Nine
ARTICLES
Dan McLaughlin: You Did This to Yourselves, Democrats
Rich Lowry: No, Trump Wasn't Just 'Dark'
Mark Antonio Wright: Trump's Victory Is the Most Remarkable Political Comeback in American History
Mark Antonio Wright: Why Didn't the Democrats Steal It This Time?
Ryan Mills: Los Angeles Voters Overwhelmingly Oust Far-Left DA George Gascón
Ryan Mills: How the Biden-Harris Administration Used the Media to Convince Voters It Fixed the Border Crisis
Andrew McCarthy: Biden-Harris DOJ Is Poised to End Lawfare Pursuit of Trump
Audrey Fahlberg: Trump Campaign Takes the Victory Lap of the Century
Audrey Fahlberg & Brittany Bernstein: Historic Realignment Leaves Democrats Asking, 'Where'd All the Latino Men Go?'
Abigail Anthony: Harvard and Princeton Professors Cancel Classes to Let Students 'Recover' from Election
James Lynch: Tim Walz's Home County Picks Trump over Harris
Neal B. Freeman: The Time for the Little Magazine Is . . . Now
Danielle Pletka & Brett Schaefer: Why Does the U.S. Put Up with the U.N.'s Antisemitism?
Haley Strack: Antisemitic Mob Savagely Attacks Israeli Soccer Fans in Amsterdam
Jack Butler: How I Almost Became a Love Is Blind Cast Member
Ethan Blevins: It's Time to Reclaim the West from Federal Control
CAPITAL MATTERS
Whew. From Thomas Savidge: California Municipalities Dodge a Fiscal Bullet
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Brian Allen visits, and reports back on, one of the world's great archeological treasures. Watch your step: A Day in Pompeii
Armond White, with the headline of the week: Julia Roberts, Home-Wrecker, Nation-Destroyer
EXCERPTS FOR ANY OCCASION
There's too much to include here from this week's election earthquake. But start with Audrey Fahlberg's report from the scene at Trump's victory party of the century:
For Donald Trump and his closest allies, vindication has never felt so good.
Inside the Palm Beach County Convention Center at last night's GOP victory party, Republican after Republican boasted to anyone within earshot that Trump's decisive victory represents the culmination of a transformative, generational political movement. In interviews and text messages with National Review, even the sleep-deprived Republican lawmakers and operatives who expected a decisive GOP win marveled at the remarkable nature of Trump's achievement.
Put simply by Republican senator Eric Schmitt on his way out of Trump's party: "It's the greatest political comeback in American history."
The redemption arc is indeed one for the history books. This week caps a roller coaster of a campaign cycle for Trump marked by two assassination attempts, four criminal indictments, a switcheroo atop the Democratic ticket, and much more. And that's after a party establishment in Washington hoped and prayed he wouldn't run again in 2024 following his two impeachments, the storming of the U.S. Capitol nearly four years ago, and the poor GOP midterm performance that followed.
None of this stopped him. Not only did he run away with the GOP presidential primary for the third consecutive cycle in a row, he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris this cycle quickly and decisively, running up historic margins in blue states and, according to exit polls, improving his performance among key demographics Democrats have taken for granted.
And he did it with a united party behind him. Unlike in 2016, when Trump faced a floor fight from rattled Republican National Committee delegates and lawmakers baffled by his rise, he received a hero's welcome at this year's convention in Milwaukee from a united party that was triumphalist about his chances of retaking the White House.
In a matter of weeks, he will enter the White House and begin his second term with a stronger grip on the party than ever before, a reality that seemed unthinkable even to many Republican lawmakers not so long ago. As longtime Trump ally Roger Stone put it to National Review last night in West Palm Beach: "He had an intensity in his base that surpassed even Reagan."
Now that you're warmed up, dig into Dan McLaughlin's tour de force on why the Democrats lost:
Sorry, Democrats, you did this to yourselves. However Republicans may be at fault for choosing their nominee, you were the ones who made the choices that lost this election. A strong majority gave you the White House, the House, and the Senate. They trusted you. And you blew it.
You blew it so badly the voters brought back the guy they fired four years ago. A guy they never particularly liked, and still don't like (judging by his favorability rating in polls and in the exit polls). A guy who tried to overturn the last election — and the voters disliked you so much, they gave him more support than he had before he did that.
That guy. You lost to that guy.
You won 51.3 percent of the national popular vote in 2020, in a high-turnout election. You didn't need to persuade a single Trump voter to keep your jobs. You just needed the people who voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris last time to be satisfied with what they asked for.
You didn't give it to them.
Sure, Biden had challenges land in his lap that weren't his fault. Inflation was going to be a problem in 2021–22 no matter what he did. Trump had committed to abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban. The pandemic still raged at the start of his presidency, presenting issues of how to roll out the vaccines and how to get the country back to normal. External crises like the Gaza and Ukraine wars could be affected by American policy, but their underlying drivers came from overseas.
But that's the job. Every American president inherits messes and unfinished business. Every American president faces troubles abroad. And then they make choices.
It was the choices that undid Biden and Harris and laid them so low that Trump may even end up having won a popular majority to evict them from the White House.
Ryan Mills's pre-election story about how the media helped the Biden-Harris administration hide the truth about the border is this year's collusion tale:
While it is true that illegal border crossings have plummeted this year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports, CBP data similarly show that the bulk of border crossers have simply been funneled to official ports of entry where they're increasingly being paroled into the country with a quasi-legal status and likely little vetting.
And while the media pin the drop in illegal border crossings on the asylum restrictions Biden approved in June — CBS News called it "arguably the most restrictive border policy by a Democratic president in recent history" — the data show the bulk of the decrease actually occurred in the months prior, after the Mexican government began cracking down on migrants heading to the U.S. and keeping them in the country's southern provinces.
While Biden and Harris are happy for voters to believe they've calmed the border, there were still more than 2.9 million total border encounters in fiscal 2024, the second-highest on record behind only the 3.2 million encounters in fiscal 2023, CBP data show.
"All those people that would have been coming in between the ports of entry are now coming in through the ports of entry. The numbers just flip-flopped," said National Border Patrol Council president Paul Perez, whose union endorsed immigration hard-liner Donald Trump for president. . . .
The CBP data do show a drastic drop in illegal border crossing encounters between official U.S. ports of entry since December — there were 55,993 in September, down from 251,178 in December (the most dramatic drop was actually between December and January, when illegal border crossing encounters were nearly halved — more about that below).
These are the numbers the Biden-Harris administration and mainstream news outlets are pointing at.
But the numbers that have received less attention involve the immigrants the Biden-Harris administration is paroling into the country at official ports of entry.
When Biden and Harris took office, customs officers were encountering fewer than 20,000 immigrants per month at ports of entry. Those numbers have increased dramatically during the Biden-Harris term, in part because of the CBP One app, launched in January 2023, which allows immigrants in Mexico to schedule appointments for asylum-claim interviews using a smartphone. Within months, CBP increased the number of available appointments to 1,450 per day, and over the summer it expanded the locations where appointments can be requested to include southern Mexico.
CBP reported more than 100,000 encounters at official ports of entry every month from May 2023 through July 2024. The number of encounters dropped slightly in August and then again in September, but remains far above pre-2023 levels, the CBP data show.
CODA
Seriously, though: Why not some Zep right now? "Get the Led out," as the sage, classic radio show advises.
Have a good one. Get some rest.
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