Initial notes from a political earthquake
“Wow.”
Tom Jones of Poynter led with “wow” in his piece about Tuesday’s election, quoting the reaction of more than one commentator trying to wrap their heads around the magnitude of the outcome:
On Tuesday night, the word “wow” might have been uttered on TV more than any other interjection ever. Anchors, analysts, election experts — you name it — all ran out of words to express their surprise at a variety of races. NBC’s Steve Kornacki might have been the league leader in “wows.” Or it might have been CNN’s Jake Tapper. Or maybe it was MS NOW’s Rachel Maddow.
Even Fox News anchors, stunned by Tuesday’s results, couldn’t help but blurt out the word.
The New York Times contrasted the MS NOW evening with Fox News.
Two years ago, back when the network was called MSNBC, hangdog faces dominated as President Trump clinched one battleground state after the next. On Tuesday, Chris Hayes was looking giddy.
“There are races on the board right now that have no business whatsoever of being close,” he said, marveling at the reach of a blue wave that was sweeping even obscure Democratic candidates into Congress. “I’ve never seen these people’s names before! The Democrat — I’m like, ‘Who’s this dude?’”
The mood at Fox was decidedly different.
Over on Fox News, the mood was subdued. The buoyancy of Mr. Trump’s 2024 election night was replaced with pensive exchanges about what it meant for the Republican Party to be repudiated so starkly.
In a rare concession, Sean Hannity, perhaps Mr. Trump’s most loyal television defender, acknowledged that the president’s foreign policy had proven politically unsound. Asked by Bret Baier if the war in Iran had changed the night’s outcome, Mr. Hannity replied: “One hundred percent. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it.”
While the evening was an avalanche of unexpected numbers — of many wows — some moments revealed something underneath the math. Jones, at Poynter, noted heartfelt comments by Simone Sanders Townsend at MS NOW:
Sanders Townsend said, “Today, America has elected its first Black woman as governor in this country. Keisha Lance Bottoms made history tonight, but she didn’t run on making history. She ran on the issues, and I think that resonated with folks in the state. … Whatever else happens tonight, this is a reminder that in America the people have the power. And Georgia has a governor named Keisha.”
She added, “I’m over here about to cry, Lord. After the 2024 presidential election, I myself, but Black women all over this country — it felt like a repudiation of us. The fact that in North Carolina, for example, in 2024, every Democrat that was on the ballot statewide won, except Kamala Harris. I’m like, well, what is this? So there were Black women, myself included, that felt like, well, maybe America just does not want us. And Keisha Lance Bottoms went out there, and to be clear, when she first was on the campaign trail, she went out there in some box braids this summer. And I was like, look at the mayor in her box braids. I don’t know if this is gonna help us win it. And she has won. She won going out there, being herself, talking about the issue, connecting with the people, and, you know, for the 92% out there that was feeling like, ‘Oh, maybe this, maybe the country just doesn’t want us.’ Georgia wanted Keisha.”
If you’re a journalist, the first few days after such a seismic change, grappling with the firehose of news is the most you can hope for. As the shock passes, though, the challenge will be doing justice to the meaning underlying all those facts.