Susan Glasser in The New York Times:
The day after the midterm election of 2022 that both parties had agreed was the most consequential ever—except for the previous election, and the next one, of course—one thing was clear: the Democrats had defied both history and expectations. There had been no red wave, never mind Donald Trump’s promised “great red wave.” Was it a red ripple or merely a red drizzle? A blue escape? Purple rain? Even Fox News decreed the results to be no more than a pro-Republican “trickle.” Whatever it was called, President Biden and his Democrats, by limiting their losses in the House to less than the average for such elections and likely keeping the Senate as well, scored an against-the-odds political upset that suggests the country remains deeply skeptical of handing too much national power to the Trumpified Republican Party.
From his exile at Mar-a-Lago, the sore loser of an ex-President had envisioned the election as both a revenge play and a prelude to his triumphal return to the campaign trail next week as an official 2024 candidate. He spent the days and hours leading up to the vote threatening his main presumptive rival for the Republican nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and claiming that, should the Republicans win midterm contests, the glory should be his and his alone. “If they win, I should get all the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all,” Trump said. “But it will probably be just the opposite.” His son Don, Jr., suggested where the family thought things were headed when he tweeted, soon after 8 p.m., “Bloodbath!!!”
More here.