Events

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens suggests that a holier-than-thou attitude from Democrats contributed to Tuesday's electoral disaster: The broad inability of liberals to understand Trump’s political appeal except in terms flattering to their beliefs is itself part of the explanation for his historic, and entirely avoidable, comeback. [Democrats'] mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if...

Some of these may be correct, but not all of them are: Rafael Baer: "The whole apparatus of voting for a candidate who might not satisfy your exact needs, and probably doesn’t embody all the values you hold sacred, but might at least make some half-decent decisions for the country as a whole over the coming years, feels oddly antiquated. It is alien to the click-and-collect spirit of digital commerce." The Economist: "Mr Trump’s victory has changed America, and the world will need to grasp what that...

I'm not going to lie; this one stings: We have a lot more data to gather to learn why we lost and why slightly more than half the electorate felt comfortable returning one of the least competent and most corrupt men back to the White House. Given this ridiculous person as our opponent, we have to acknowledge that we simply failed. I'll have a lot more to say about why over the next days and weeks, but the President's decision to run for a second term is probably the precipitating cause. This sucks....

It's early, and nothing shocking has yet occurred, I'm actually watching The Bear. But some returns have come in. The Post has called West Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky for the XPOTUS and Vermont for Harris. Again, no surprises. Early (<25%) returns in several states have the XPOTUS ahead, but as we've seen many times, Republican precincts report early, on average. But let's see the 8pm ET returns...and, in a shock, the Post calls Mississippi for the 1850s. To be continued... 19:04 CST: Nothing...

Polls are open, votes are being tabulated, misguided youth are casting ballots for 3rd-party candidates to "send a message," and I'm just doing my thing at work. I've got NBC's hour-by-hour guide bookmarked, though. And you should bookmark The Daily Parker; I will very likely live-blog again tonight, though I have promised myself to go to bed before 11 CST (unlike in 2016). And here's my starting point, which is basically the consensus map minus Iowa and Arizona: I'm not worried. Look, the Roman...

If you read nothing else before tomorrow night, read Tim Alberta's epic reporting on the XPOTUS's colossally dysfunctional campaign and the infants who run it. My favorite bit comes right at the end, with a quote from Joseph Goebbels Stephen Miller: Backstage at the Garden, in the blur of debate and indecision over damage control, it was Stephen Miller who pondered the bigger picture. (Miller did not respond to a request for comment.) According to two people who were present, Miller, the Trump policy...

Only 27 hours remain until polls close in parts of Indiana and Kentucky. Which means we're less than 27 hours away from the XPOTUS claiming he won, because that's how he operates. Even if he loses by 10 million votes, he'll still claim he won all the way until January 20th, and possibly even longer. Of course, no one will know anything interesting until at least 7pm Eastern when polls close in Georgia and 7:30pm Eastern when they close in North Carolina. Arizona's polls close at 7pm Mountain, which is...

You've heard the expression "crossing the Rubicon," but you may not know the history. In the Roman Republic, the Rubicon marked the border of Italy (read: the Home Counties/Eastern Seaboard), where it was illegal to garrison troops. In 49 BCE, Julius Caesar ran out of lawful ways to—wait for it—avoid prosecution for corruption stemming from his first term as Consul, and the Senate denied him the governorship of Cisalpine Gallus (read: the Midlands/the Midwest) which would have also granted him immunity....

Revolution Brewpub, which opened its Logan Square brewpub in 2010 and featured in the (really bad) film Drinking Buddies, announced it will close on December 14th: Almost 15 years ago, we threw open the doors of our Milwaukee Avenue brewpub and launched Revolution Brewing to the world. The brewpub is where the first Revolution beers were served and where we first brewed beers like Anti-Hero IPA which would change the shape of craft beer in Chicagoland. Today that chapter of our story starts to wind down...

The sky above Chicago has nothing but sun this morning. It won't last—the forecast for tomorrow night points to July-like atmospheric moisture and epic rainfall—but Cassie and I will enjoy it as much as we can. Maybe I should stay away from these news stories until the rain starts for real: Michelle Goldberg reminds all you Hannah Arendt fans that fascism takes time to establish itself, so we have perhaps a couple of years to emigrate if the XPOTUS takes power in January: "The transition from democracy...