Tick, tock, Electoral College / Ships and rats / Springfield revolt / Quizzes

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Tick, tock, Electoral College. This week’s blue wave could effectively end the most antidemocratic aspect of U.S. politics—allowing the election of presidents by a national popular vote.
■ Newly Democratically controlled Congress and state governments could do it even without a constitutional amendment …
■ … via a “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact,” onto which Illinois signed in 2008.
■ Mother Jones: “Electing the president by a national popular vote could reshape American politics, empower voters and protect our elections from interference.”
■ The New Republic: “Voters just changed the trajectory of the Supreme Court.”

‘This isn’t the Donald Trump we know.’ Columnist Neil Steinberg has a tough time believing “the biggest crybaby in public life since Nero is going to just shrug and go, ‘Oh, right, I lost. Good for you.’”
■ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “Trump appears to be acting, as President Abraham Lincoln once said of Major General William S. Rosecrans, ‘confused and stunned, like a duck hit on the head’” …
■ … witness his declaration that the Oval Office, as he’s decorated it, is a national monument.
■ Prairie Home Companion creator Garrison Keillor: “No president in our history has demonstrated this level of dementia.”
■ A federal judge has put a 14-day block on Trump’s plan for a memorial arch.
■ The Atlantic (gift link): “Democrats want to cut off funding for the president’s building projects—or tear them down later.”
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “Any competent leader, after being handed such a humiliating loss, would be meeting with staff, and going, ‘How do we fix this? How do we rebuild the trust of the people?’ But not Donny.”

‘You know what? We’d rather have a guy on a ventilator than the Republican candidate.’ That’s Jimmy Kimmel paraphrasing Iowa voters who elected a Democratic state representative who suspended his campaign two months ago because of health issues.
■ Wonkette’s Brooke Binkowski is updating “the more satisfying losses” in Tuesday’s election.
■ Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch (gift link) says the biggest story this week is that “When fascism came to America, it was driven out by ballots, not bullets.”
■ Law professor Joyce Vance on the Senate race cliffhanger in Mississippi: The lawyers are swarming.
■ Folk-rock protest troubadour Jesse Welles has whipped up a new song about the midterms: “I saw Elon leaving Austin, fat and hunchbacked, strange and pale—a half a billion-dollar lesson that them Texans ain’t for sale …”
■ Former ABC 7 Chicago boss Emily Barr—now living in Maine, where she says viewers were “waterboarded to death by political advertising”—says this week’s election shows that “the richest man in the world could not buy the outcome he wanted.”
■ Declaring Musk her Dingus of the Week, columnist Lyz Lenz says he “needs to go to jail.”
■ Frank Landymore at Futurism: “Tech industry in denial that the midterms show everyone hates them.”
■ The American Prospect on CVS’ decision to split its retail and pharmacy business from its Aetna and Caremark pharmacy benefits program: “Corporations are pretending to reform themselves.”

What’s that thing about ships and rats? Conservative attorney Harmeet Dhillon, who transformed the Justice Department Civil Rights Division into an un-civil operation, has quit …
■ … and she’s not alone.
■ The Independent: Secretary of State Marco Rubio is planning to resign—to run for president.
■ Sycophantic Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticizes Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war.
■ Columnist Heather Delaney Reese: Trump’s Secretary of “War,” Pete Hegseth, knows what’s coming …
■ … a thing he acknowledged in a self-serving video he released yesterday.
■ The Intercept: “Hegseth is in the crosshairs of lawmakers whom he has treated with contempt for two years.”
■ Hegseth leads The Washington Sun’s list of “would-be fallpeople.”

‘Buckle up, Fox News viewers.’ USA Today’s Chicago-based columnist Rex Huppke: “The libs are comin’ for ya.”
■ Chicago-born journalist Terry Moran—fired as ABC’s national correspondent after a tweet critical of Trump—has assignments for Democrats and Republicans.
■ Columnist and former Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Newman: “Democrats need to become the party that can ‘run and chew gum at the same time.’”
■ Gov. Pritzker, looking like a potential presidential candidate, has released what Contrarian Jen Rubin calls a “wonkish 75-page plan (apparently months in the making) ‘with ideas on everything from increasing the federal minimum wage to restoring SNAP and Medicaid cuts.’”

Springfield revolt. In the face of opposition from 26 House Democrats, Speaker Chris Welch says he won’t seek another term in that job.
■ That follows what the Tribune (gift link) calls “months of criticism over his handling of sexual harassment allegations.”
■ The Daily Herald (free link): Tuesday’s elections “devastated” suburban Republicans.

‘I’m calling bullshit.’ Press Watch columnist Dan Froomkin says the elite media’s coverage of Tuesday’s election has avoided almost “any mention whatsoever of No Kings—or the resistance, or the mass movement against Trump, or pro-democracy protests.”
■ Fast Company: “Pundits on X framed the 2024 election as a massive political realignment and Bluesky as a ‘copium’ den for progressives in a bubble. Boy, were they wrong.”
■ Media critic Simon Owens: “Media executives who spent the past two years cozying up to Trump could soon find themselves hauled before congressional committees.”
■ After 31 years, the online magazine Salon is gone.

Midterm madness! Buckle up for past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel’s latest news quiz—this week with questions about voting, presidential nonlibraries … and holiday shopping …
■ … on which your Chicago Public Square columnist scored only 6/8 correct.
■ As Chicago improv company iO celebrates its 45th anniversary, Axios’ Justin Kaufmann serves up a quiz about the city’s celebrated improvisers—with a 7/10 correct score here.

’Tis the season. Chicago’s WLIT-FM is back to playing Christmas music nonstop.
■ Looking for parking in Chicago this weekend? Lot workers’ strike could complicate that.

‘Please explain the difference between etc. and ect.’ Pulitzer-winning columnist Dave Barry again dons his “Mister Language Person” hat.

Thanks. Chris Koenig made this edition better.

Pritzker’s Texas payback / ‘Just quit’ / Square loses a reader

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Pritzker’s Texas payback. Credit Illinois’ governor with the defeat of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott—who dispatched thousands of immigrants to Chicago.
■ Every candidate Pritzker backed in Texas won Tuesday—as Democrats stunningly took the reins of power up and down that state’s ballot.
■ Wired (free link): “Voters set $400 million of Elon Musk’s money on fire.”
■ Stop the Presses columnist Mark Jacob: “Musk lost the election because Americans know he’s the enemy.”
■ Climate reporter Emily Atkin: Tuesday was “a very expensive night for Big Oil.”
■ Blake Montgomery at The Guardian: “Tech barons cozied up to Trump. What will they do in newly blue America?”
■ MS NOW’s Jacqueline Alemany: “Corporate America spent two years courting Trump. Now it’s lawyering up.”

‘The historic nature of this election cannot be overstated.’ Historian Heather Cox Richardson: “It is a rejection of … the idea that some people are better than others and have the right to rule.”
■ Columnist Matt Yglesias sees the demise of bipartisan consensus on Israel: “It’s so over for AIPAC.”
■ Columnist and former Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger: Republicans’ rout has triggered an intraparty civil war.

Blue statehouses. Axios: For the first time in 16 years, Democrats are in line to control a majority of state legislative chambers …
■ Hayes Brown at MS NOW: Republicans’ gerrymanderpalooza blew up in their faces. (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
■ Wired (free link): Among Republicans, “the race is on to find someone besides Donald Trump to blame for … catastrophic losses.”
■ Financial Times D.C. bureau chief James Politi: Almost every county in the country has swung toward Democrats since 2024.
■ Helen Lewis at The Atlantic (gift link): “In the end, not even Jon Husted’s phenomenal ass was enough to save the Republicans.”

‘The blue tsunami left Trump afloat.’ But NBC and CNN alumnus Charles Jaco has a shopping list for what Democrats can do nevertheless.
■ American Prospect co-founder Robert Kuttner: “The repudiation of Trump could lead some Republicans to vote with Democrats to block administration priorities.”
■ Popular Information offers Democrats guidance in how to investigate Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner: “How is it legal for someone representing the United States in foreign policy negotiations to be on the payroll of foreign governments? It’s not.”
■ Esquire’s Charlie Pierce: “Lawyer up, MAGA. Your hell has only just begun.”

‘Now’s the time to seize power.’ Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas was disappointed by House Minority Leader—and likely next Speaker—Hakeem Jeffries’ anodyne speech Tuesday night.
■ Columnist Jeff Tiedrich: “All we want are Democrats who’ll fight the fascists. … Enough with this weak-tea bullshit already.”
■ Political science professor Kristoffer Ealy: “Democrats won the Senate. Somebody tell Chuck Schumer he wasn’t the reason.”
■ The Atlantic’s David Graham: “Democrats will likely disappoint voters soon. We don’t need to guess what happens to politicians who campaign on affordability and don’t deliver” (gift link).

‘Just quit. Nobody wants you.’ Jimmy Kimmel was unrestrained—and unusually not all that funny—as he offered Trump unsolicited career advice in the election’s wake.
■ The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols (gift link): “Whether Trump has sincerely accepted the victory of the Democrats and intends to cooperate with them in governing the country is, in a sense, irrelevant: The more important reality is that he faces an electoral result too decisive to challenge.”
■ Jimmy Fallon: “There’s going to be so many Republicans leaving the Capitol it will look like a reverse Jan. 6.”

Back in Illinois … The election casts a shadow over the future for scandal-scarred Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch.
■ All the Cook County judges up for retention looked on track to stick around.
■ Juliana Stratton’s election will make Illinois the first state in the union with two women of color serving in the U.S. Senate.

Google’s ‘AI Trojan horse in America’s schools.’ Tech columnist Will Oremus says the company’s telling school districts now reliant on its ubiquitous low-cost laptops to choose: Let its Gemini AI into the classroom or give up students’ access to Google Search.
■ One parent tells Wired (free link): “Kids are already using these search-bar summaries to skip real effort, pulling instant math answers and letting AI write their essays.”
■ Columnist Eric Zorn: “It … seems odd to me that schools are trying to stem the tide of AI rather than teach children how to use it well and skeptically.”

Anchor’s away. ABC 7 Chicago is cutting ties with journalist Ravi Baichwal …
■ … after what the Tribune (free link) calls “a social media post describing an alleged altercation involving Baichwal at a River North restaurant in October.”

For the want of a word … Yesterday’s Chicago Public Square omitted male from the description of Christian Mitchell as “the state’s first male Black lieutenant governor.”
■ Thanks to the many (many!) readers who flagged that error, which was corrected on the Square website at 10:01 a.m. Wednesday.
■ Also fixed: Gift link added for the item “The Atlantic declares South Carolina’s Senate race ‘the unlikeliest Democratic win of all.’”
■ As every emailed edition notes up top, you can always “Read this in your browser, with updates and corrections.”

Square loses a reader. This note accompanied a cancellation yesterday: “I thought you were going to stop using AI cartoons, but there today, another one. There are so many talented cartoonists out there. Use actual art, not fake machine-generated cr*p.”
■ While this medium—and society’s attitudes about it—remain in flux, Square’s committed to identifying AI-generated work, but hasn’t ruled it out …
■ … especially when creative folk such as Jan Kodner deliver on an original concept that, under deadline, complements the news.
■ Here’s how we left this matter in June … ending with the pointed question, “What’s the last computer-animated movie you enjoyed?”

Thanks. Beth Kujawski made this edition better.

Square public service announcements

Election decompression: Laugh it off. Kick back Sunday afternoon with three of Chicago’s funniest women—for a League of Women Voters post-election fundraiser at Oak Park’s Comedy Plex.

‘Donations keep us purring.’ Barb’s Precious Rescue is a no-kill, registered 501(c)3) nonprofit organization. Donations help save cats’ and kittens’ lives and find them forever homes. You can make a difference.

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