EDITORIAL: To the victors go the glory — and pressure

In 1940, the Chicago Bears walloped the Washington Redskins 73-0. It remains the biggest blowout in NFL history.

The 2024 Republican uprising isn’t even close to the biggest landslide in electoral history, but to millions of Democrats it might feel that way. 

For Democratic Party faithful in Idaho the picture isn’t any prettier. 

Statewide, the Ds actually lost precious seats in the Legislature. When the 15 Democrats look warily across the aisle in January, they’ll see 90 Republicans grinning back at them.

Proposition 1, Democrats’ best hope to sap some of the extremism out of the Republican Party, went down in bright red flames. More Idaho voters cast ballots against Prop 1 (70%) than for Donald Trump (67%).

It’s understandable that in the aftermath of the electoral smackdown, many among the minority are expressing shock, frustration and anger. Their warnings of apocalyptic dominoes lining up echo through coffee shops, social media chats and newspaper opinion pages across the land, much as Republicans' warnings echoed four years earlier. 

But here’s the deal. The kind of wipeout the GOP pulled off on Nov. 5 was no fluke. It was an abrupt, national about-face from the direction the Democratic Party was heading or at least was perceived to be heading.

The vanquished should not remain silent or still. Their voices have every bit as much right to be heard as the victors’. But in a fair and square fight, the winners earned the privilege of setting the agenda, having received a clear mandate from the citizens of this democratic republic.

For the next two years, the world will see what President Trump-led Republicans can accomplish while holding a straight flush. They’ve got the White House, the Senate, the House, the Supreme Court and a majority of state legislatures. 

There can be no excuses if the economy doesn’t improve significantly, if the borders aren't buttoned up, if the federal debt isn’t brought under control, if our nation doesn’t, indeed, become indisputably great again. 

Democrats and non-MAGA moderates will learn if the famous prediction from Baltimore Sun columnist H.L. Mencken, penned 20 years before the Bears’ historic devastation of the Redskins, has finally come true.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people,” Mencken wrote. “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” 

In the meantime, absent claims of election fraud and FDT bumper stickers, there is much work to do and many lessons to be learned on both sides of the great political divide. Let’s try to work and learn together.