If the polls are to be believed (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!), we are headed for a Blue Tsunami tomorrow. And despite the likelihood that even if it happens, it will be followed by a legal war of attrition lasting at least a couple of months, I’m somewhat less despairing than I’ve been in quite a while. I’m actually less despairing even if it’s just a wave.

What I expect, though, in addition to the judicial shit show, is that by late spring next year, when the Democratic Congress has seemed to make no progress in righting the ship, we’ll start hearing more and more dumb ass remarks about all politicians being alike, all of them being crooked or incompetent, etc. This will come from Democrats and Independents alike (and of course Republicans have always said this).

I get really tired and annoyed when people talk about the mendacity and oiliness of politicians. I’m just reminding folks here that ambition is not the same as greed. If it were, we’d have no Simone Biles or Abraham Lincoln. And willingness to compromise isn’t the same as being unprincipled. Politicians as a class are an ambitious crowd. The most gifted of them are also adept at compromise and dealmaking. The best of them get results for the people they represent. And the worst of them, well, just as baseball has Barry Bonds or the 1919 White Sox, politicians have George Santos and Eric Swallwell.

So this is written in anticipation of that idiocy, and if you want, you don’t even need to read it until May.

First of all, remember, six months from now, that people weren’t really voting for Democrats. They were voting against Trump. And because they couldn’t throw him out, they threw out the Republicans. (Or . . . I guess we’ll see?) So next May, when you complain about there being no results, you’ll be wrong. You’ll have thrown out the Republicans. That was accomplished.

Second, no matter how big the wave is, it won’t be big enough to have a veto-proof Congress. This means we’ll have two years of very little actually being done. Though, considering how many awful things have been done lately, this can be seen as an accomplishment in itself, if a fairly mitigated, unsexy one. Preventing more awful things. If not yet able to dismantle ICE, at least cutting it off at the knees.. Beginning to get the US out of the morass in Iran. Ending the tariffs. Re-enacting Affordable Care Act subsidies. On the sillier end of things, preventing more Reflecting Pool disasters with enforcement of competitive bidding. And who knows? Stopping construction of the ballroom? The destruction of Lincoln Center? There are possibilities. But do remember they won’t all become reality, so don’t throw up your hands when they don’t.

Remember, too, that there’s a spectrum of opinion in the Democratic Party, and it’s going to manifest itself. Even to get bills passed that the President can veto, deals will have to be struck, including deals with Republicans. This is what politics is, and it isn’t dirty. It’s democracy. It’s purposely messy and slow. (As opposed to messy and fast, which is what the last two years have been. This snail’s pace of change might, in fact, actually be a word of comfort to any Republican reading this blog!)

Who knows if an economy can begin to turn around with a Democratic Congress and a Mad King? What’s ironic is that the economy—the one thing people are always influenced by when they vote—is usually something a President has only so much control over. It’s usually a little more complicated than being His Fault. This time, with Trump’s tariffs and the insane war he picked, it pretty obviously is, of course, and I guess in a couple years we’ll have the opportunity to do what they used to do to kings when the crops failed. In the meantime, things may or may not get better.

That said, first things first, and if you haven’t voted yet, please either get to the drop box today or to the polls tomorrow. If you don’t have wheels, find someone who does and get them to take you. There are going to be lawsuits all over the country over the next weeks and months. The more unequivocal the numbers, the weaker those cases will be. Don’t assume it’s in the bag, no matter what district you’re in. Don’t stay home if the person you voted for in the primary isn’t the one on the ballot. That’s how Trump got his second term. You honestly think we’d be in the same situation if Kamala Harris had been President all this time? As Rebecca Solnit said, “Voting isn’t a valentine, it’s a chess move.”