{"id":167080,"date":"2026-11-10T10:22:23","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T18:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/10\/john-fetterman-and-other-losers-on-election-day\/"},"modified":"2026-11-10T10:22:23","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T18:22:23","slug":"john-fetterman-and-other-losers-on-election-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/11\/10\/john-fetterman-and-other-losers-on-election-day\/","title":{"rendered":"John Fetterman And Other Losers On Election Day"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw an opinion piece recently talking about the winners on Election Day:\u00a0Decency, diversity, blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s doing things the easy way.<\/p>\n

In this space, we do things the hard way.<\/p>\n

Who were the biggest losers on Election Day?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with John Fetterman, a Democratic senator who often supports Republican policies. If, as had been widely expected, the Democrats had won a narrow majority in the Senate \u2014 say, 51 or 52 seats \u2014 Fetterman would have been empowered.\u00a0Like Joe Manchin five years ago, Fetterman\u2019s one vote would have decided whether Democrats could pass bills.\u00a0Fetterman would have had an awful lot of power.<\/p>\n

Fetterman lost on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

With a multiseat majority, the Democrats can afford to lose Fetterman\u2019s vote and still pass bills.\u00a0In Congress, I like it when individual senators don\u2019t have too much power.\u00a0It\u2019s better both for the senator\u2019s massive ego and for America.<\/p>\n

Who else lost on Election Day?<\/p>\n

The far left of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

My thinking here is the same as with Fetterman:\u00a0With a slim majority, Democrats would need the votes of the far left fringe to pass any bills.\u00a0With more seats in Democratic control, the centrists can pass laws without the support of a far left senator or two.\u00a0That\u2019s good; I\u2019m glad it happened.<\/p>\n

Other losers on Election Day?<\/p>\n

Putin, thank God.<\/p>\n

American can once again take Ukraine\u2019s side in the war, resist Putin\u2019s incursions on NATO, and impose sanctions as necessary.\u00a0Presidents of course still have a lot of unilateral power in foreign affairs, but with large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, I\u2019m hopeful that even lickspittle Republicans will remember that in the past they believed in a strong defense against Russia.<\/p>\n

(It\u2019s remarkable how people\u2019s opinions change with the political winds.\u00a0Within the next 10 years, I bet that the Southern Baptist Convention will again be telling me \u2014 as it did in the late 1990s, but did not in 2016 \u2014\u00a0that a president\u2019s character matters.\u00a0Never forget the hypocrisy of the Southern Baptist Convention.)<\/p>\n

Is it also possible that sycophantic Republicans will rediscover that they believe in controlling the deficit, and free trade, and respect for the rule of law?\u00a0As I\u2019ve said before, I personally don\u2019t care; Republican silence for the past 10 years has cost the party my vote in perpetuity. I just hope I have some good independents to vote for in the future, since I\u2019m sure that the Democrats will soon disappoint me.\u00a0(Don\u2019t get me started on the financial condition of my home state of Illinois, where Democrats have controlled the state legislature for a couple of decades.)<\/p>\n

Where was I?<\/p>\n

Oh!\u00a0Losers on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Netanyahu.\u00a0A close relationship with Donald Trump was once an asset in Israel.\u00a0Not so much any more, Bibi.<\/p>\n

How about Iran?<\/p>\n

Iran opposed Trump.\u00a0Trump\u2019s party lost.\u00a0So Iran\u2019s a winner, I guess.<\/p>\n

But Trump knows that Congressional support for the war with Iran will go over a cliff in January, when the new Congress is sworn in.\u00a0If Trump wants to make any military moves in Iran, he\u2019s got two months to act.\u00a0(I write these columns a couple of days before you read them.\u00a0If the bombs are already falling in Iran when you are reading these words, that\u2019s an issue of timing.)<\/p>\n

Why would Trump bomb Iran between now and January?\u00a0Does Trump really think he can trigger regime change in Iran with another few bombing runs?\u00a0Does he think that a few more bombs will set back Iran\u2019s nuclear program substantially further than where it is now?\u00a0Does he think that restarting the war with Iran will help his domestic popularity?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that dropping more bombs on Iran will make any difference at this point, but it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Trump does it anyway.\u00a0He\u2019s promised to bomb, and he wants to blame the loss in Iran on Democrats (who, he\u2019ll say, foolishly stopped his new bombing campaign just days before it would have succeeded).<\/p>\n

If I had to predict, I\u2019d say a few bombs will fall in November or December, followed by some kind of weird (and unhappy) peace next year. (The Democrats insist we should stop the war in Iran.\u00a0But they\u2019re far less loquacious when asked for details about what we should do.\u00a0Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0Iran may well start developing nukes.\u00a0Do we just stop bombing?\u00a0Do we negotiate something?\u00a0What terms should we try to negotiate, and with what leverage?\u00a0That\u2019s a much harder issue than the campaign ads, which simply announce that we should, \u201cStop the war and reduce gas prices!\u201d)<\/p>\n

One last loser on Election Night:\u00a0The Republican Party.\u00a0The Republicans didn\u2019t lose only because they lost the elections; Republicans lost because it\u2019s now obvious that Trump never gave a damn about the Republican Party to begin with.\u00a0If Trump had been on the ballot on Tuesday, he couldn\u2019t possibly have lost; just ask him<\/a>.\u00a0The election would have been rigged!\u00a0Trump would be screaming, \u201cElection fraud!\u201d and exhorting his followers to storm state and federal capitol buildings.<\/p>\n

But Trump wasn\u2019t on the ballot.\u00a0Trump didn\u2019t lose; other Republicans did.\u00a0And Trump doesn\u2019t give a damn about other Republicans.<\/p>\n

Republicans sold their souls to Trump and he, in the end, deserted them.<\/p>\n

Knock me over with a feather.<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>inhouse@abovethelaw.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The post John Fetterman And Other Losers On Election Day<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw an opinion piece recently talking about the winners on Election Day:\u00a0Decency, diversity, blah, blah, blah.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s doing things the easy way.<\/p>\n

In this space, we do things the hard way.<\/p>\n

Who were the biggest losers on Election Day?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with John Fetterman, a Democratic senator who often supports Republican policies. If, as had been widely expected, the Democrats had won a narrow majority in the Senate \u2014 say, 51 or 52 seats \u2014 Fetterman would have been empowered.\u00a0Like Joe Manchin five years ago, Fetterman\u2019s one vote would have decided whether Democrats could pass bills.\u00a0Fetterman would have had an awful lot of power.<\/p>\n

Fetterman lost on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

With a multiseat majority, the Democrats can afford to lose Fetterman\u2019s vote and still pass bills.\u00a0In Congress, I like it when individual senators don\u2019t have too much power.\u00a0It\u2019s better both for the senator\u2019s massive ego and for America.<\/p>\n

Who else lost on Election Day?<\/p>\n

The far left of the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n

My thinking here is the same as with Fetterman:\u00a0With a slim majority, Democrats would need the votes of the far left fringe to pass any bills.\u00a0With more seats in Democratic control, the centrists can pass laws without the support of a far left senator or two.\u00a0That\u2019s good; I\u2019m glad it happened.<\/p>\n

Other losers on Election Day?<\/p>\n

Putin, thank God.<\/p>\n

American can once again take Ukraine\u2019s side in the war, resist Putin\u2019s incursions on NATO, and impose sanctions as necessary.\u00a0Presidents of course still have a lot of unilateral power in foreign affairs, but with large Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, I\u2019m hopeful that even lickspittle Republicans will remember that in the past they believed in a strong defense against Russia.<\/p>\n

(It\u2019s remarkable how people\u2019s opinions change with the political winds.\u00a0Within the next 10 years, I bet that the Southern Baptist Convention will again be telling me \u2014 as it did in the late 1990s, but did not in 2016 \u2014\u00a0that a president\u2019s character matters.\u00a0Never forget the hypocrisy of the Southern Baptist Convention.)<\/p>\n

Is it also possible that sycophantic Republicans will rediscover that they believe in controlling the deficit, and free trade, and respect for the rule of law?\u00a0As I\u2019ve said before, I personally don\u2019t care; Republican silence for the past 10 years has cost the party my vote in perpetuity. I just hope I have some good independents to vote for in the future, since I\u2019m sure that the Democrats will soon disappoint me.\u00a0(Don\u2019t get me started on the financial condition of my home state of Illinois, where Democrats have controlled the state legislature for a couple of decades.)<\/p>\n

Where was I?<\/p>\n

Oh!\u00a0Losers on Election Day.<\/p>\n

Benjamin Netanyahu.\u00a0A close relationship with Donald Trump was once an asset in Israel.\u00a0Not so much any more, Bibi.<\/p>\n

How about Iran?<\/p>\n

Iran opposed Trump.\u00a0Trump\u2019s party lost.\u00a0So Iran\u2019s a winner, I guess.<\/p>\n

But Trump knows that Congressional support for the war with Iran will go over a cliff in January, when the new Congress is sworn in.\u00a0If Trump wants to make any military moves in Iran, he\u2019s got two months to act.\u00a0(I write these columns a couple of days before you read them.\u00a0If the bombs are already falling in Iran when you are reading these words, that\u2019s an issue of timing.)<\/p>\n

Why would Trump bomb Iran between now and January?\u00a0Does Trump really think he can trigger regime change in Iran with another few bombing runs?\u00a0Does he think that a few more bombs will set back Iran\u2019s nuclear program substantially further than where it is now?\u00a0Does he think that restarting the war with Iran will help his domestic popularity?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure that dropping more bombs on Iran will make any difference at this point, but it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if Trump does it anyway.\u00a0He\u2019s promised to bomb, and he wants to blame the loss in Iran on Democrats (who, he\u2019ll say, foolishly stopped his new bombing campaign just days before it would have succeeded).<\/p>\n

If I had to predict, I\u2019d say a few bombs will fall in November or December, followed by some kind of weird (and unhappy) peace next year. (The Democrats insist we should stop the war in Iran.\u00a0But they\u2019re far less loquacious when asked for details about what we should do.\u00a0Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0Iran may well start developing nukes.\u00a0Do we just stop bombing?\u00a0Do we negotiate something?\u00a0What terms should we try to negotiate, and with what leverage?\u00a0That\u2019s a much harder issue than the campaign ads, which simply announce that we should, \u201cStop the war and reduce gas prices!\u201d)<\/p>\n

One last loser on Election Night:\u00a0The Republican Party.\u00a0The Republicans didn\u2019t lose only because they lost the elections; Republicans lost because it\u2019s now obvious that Trump never gave a damn about the Republican Party to begin with.\u00a0If Trump had been on the ballot on Tuesday, he couldn\u2019t possibly have lost; just ask him<\/a>.\u00a0The election would have been rigged!\u00a0Trump would be screaming, \u201cElection fraud!\u201d and exhorting his followers to storm state and federal capitol buildings.<\/p>\n

But Trump wasn\u2019t on the ballot.\u00a0Trump didn\u2019t lose; other Republicans did.\u00a0And Trump doesn\u2019t give a damn about other Republicans.<\/p>\n

Republicans sold their souls to Trump and he, in the end, deserted them.<\/p>\n

Knock me over with a feather.<\/p>\n

\n

Mark\u00a0Herrmann\u00a0spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>The Curmudgeon\u2019s Guide to Practicing Law<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0(affiliate links). You can reach him by email at\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>inhouse@abovethelaw.com<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The post John Fetterman And Other Losers On Election Day<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw an opinion piece recently talking about the winners on Election Day:\u00a0Decency, diversity, blah, blah, blah. That\u2019s doing things the easy way. In this space, we do things the hard way. Who were the biggest losers on Election Day? Let\u2019s start with John Fetterman, a Democratic senator who often supports Republican policies. If, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":167025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}