By Bob Gaydos

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    You could almost feel it. One, huge sigh of relief. The whole country saying to itself at the same time, “We’re not as crazy as we thought we were.”

    Thank god.

    The historic national Democratic sweep of offices, from Congress to governorships, was like a cathartic moment in a nation that for several years has seemed hell bent on suicide. We didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, we pulled the lever for Democrat after Democrat, including voters in states that hadn’t elected a Democrat for governor or senator in decades.

    Texas. Maine. Ohio. Kansas!

    Not only that. Woman after woman. A Latina Democrat won the governorship in Texas. Georgia elected the first Black female governor in the nation. A member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe became the first female Native American governor in the nation thanks to voters in New Mexico.

   Take that, white nationalists! Take that, misogynists! Take that, Trump!

     Make no mistake, this was about Donald Trump. In a midterm election that Trump went to great pains to make about himself, holding poorly attended rallies around the nation at which he delivered incomprehensible speeches, the light apparently came on all at once for many Americans, including some formerly ardent MAGA Trumpers.

      Five-dollar-a-gallon gas, inflationary tariffs, masked agents kidnapping people off the streets and starting a lingering war nobody asked for in the Middle East apparently can do that. Acting like those things are no big deal when you have a reflecting pool, a ballroom, a golf course and an arch to design in Washington, D.C. doesn’t help.

     Trump, of course, is blaming the losing candidates, including the ones he handpicked. Asked about the massacre at the polls, he said that if he had been on the ballot the results would have been different.

     Formerly silent Republicans, including some of those who lost, said that he had, in fact, made the election a referendum on him and his policies by campaigning around the country instead of working on ending the war with Iran and the cost of going to the grocery store.

     As if he knew how.

     So, the Trump era as we’ve known it appears to be over. What comes next will be interesting, maybe exciting and, hopefully, healing. Two boys from Brooklyn at the moment stand to become the new leaders in Congress. Chuck Schumer could go from Senate minority leader to majority leader, a powerful post that controls what gets voted on and who gets approved for government posts. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, could become speaker of the House, controlling spending and two heartbeats from the presidency. The two men are celebrating the Democratic sweep. But a lot of Democrats see them as too moderate (cautious?) for what will need to be done come January.

      That is, briefly: 1) A full report on the Epstein files and the efforts by Attorney General Todd Blanche to keep them from becoming public in order to protect Trump. 2) An accounting of the billions Trump and his family have made because of his office since he was elected. 3) The relationship between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and how it has impacted the war in Ukraine. 4) The purging of the nation’s top military leaders by Pete Hegseth. 5) The uncontrolled violence of ICE agents on America’s streets. 6) Cuts in programs to help, well, virtually any group of people who legitimately need help. 7) The influence of Elon Musk and other tech billionaires on policy. 

      There’s plenty more, but that should keep Democrats in Congress busy investigating for two years. Republicans, of course, have their own reckoning to deal with. Is their fealty to Donald Trump over? If so, what are they now?

     In the meantime, many of us can lean back, take a sigh of relief and be thankful that millions of other Americans finally realized that Donald Trump really is as stupid and self-absorbed and dangerous as he sounds and decided to do something about it.

      Good job, America.