After the Deluge of the Election

I used up most of my mental energy commenting about the election on Twitter and Facebook last night, under my uncloaked identity, so there's not a lot left to say here. Obviously, I am thrilled that Minnesota defeated both of its retrograde constitutional amendments! (Yes, that is an exclamation point from me.) Looks like those phone calls were worth it.

Other favorite outcomes:

• Democrats retaining the U.S. Senate
• Minnesota Democrats retaking both houses of our legislature
• Binders full of women getting elected, including Tammy Duckworth, Tammy Baldwin, Krysten Sinema, Elizabeth Warren, and Heidi Heitkamp
• Defeating Missouri's Todd Akin and the other rape apologist from Indiana
• Passage of same-sex marriage in three states and marijuana legalization in two
• Getting rid of Three Strikes sentencing in California
• Allen West losing his seat in the House (too bad we couldn't quite get rid of Michelle Bachmann; sorry about that)

I'm sad that Henry Waxman and Pete Stark both lost their seats, but in some ways, I have to think almost 40 years in office is enough, even for great members like they have been. Guys—make like Barney Frank and retire to write a book.

A few fun tweets from the blizzard:

• @robpegoraro: Hey, when do all the CEOs who tried to intimidate their employees into voting for Romney start the promised mass firings?
• ‏@drgrist: Billionaires wasted more money trying to get rid of Obama than any reasonable carbon policy would have cost them.
• ‏@AliVelshi: If GOP senators hadn't prevented Elizabeth Warren's nomination to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, she'd never have run for Senate
• @Alex: "The Rape guy lost." "Which one?" Your party has serious issues if people have to ask "Which one?"
• @kristenschaaled I want the congress to work like James Carville and Mary Matalin's marriage.
• @guyadams: Fox News just now: "God created pollsters to make astrologers look accurate"

John Scalzi wrote one of his usually bracing posts relaying his opinions. A not-bad comment thread follows, especially if you kind of blur your eyes when you encounter the couple of trollish guys who escaped the Mallet of Loving Correction®. There was one comment I particularly want to call attention to, by a woman named Aunt Vixen, responding to the trolls who repeated the "Obama and Democrats think everyone should suck at the teat of big government" refrain:

Do I want everyone (for whatever values you assign to “everyone”) to be dependent on the government? Of course not. Self-sufficiency is a marvelous thing, for those who can achieve it. No: what I want is for everyone to be able to rely on the government.

Language is so important. Dependence vs. reliance. Look it up. Oh hey: it works with the co- prefix also. Co-dependence is bad for everyone; but wouldn’t it be great if, given a citizenry who could rely on their government, we also had a government that could rely on its citizens?

And to conclude this election coverage, here's a brief essay (poem?) delivered by Melissa Harris-Perry during her Sunday MSNBC show on why she votes:

I vote because it took so long for so many of us to be included in "We the people."
We the people who tilled the soil, cleared the forest, harvested the crops -- for no compensation.
We the people who endured the horror of redemption after Reconstruction and carried the weight of Jim Crow.
We the people who swung from Southern trees and stood on the front lines of foreign wars.
We the people who taught our children to read even when the schools had no books.
We the people who worshiped a god of liberation even as we suffered oppression.
We the people who gave America back its highest ideals with our nonviolent struggle against injustice.
We the people are Americans, and we prove it by voting. That's why I vote.