Even Where MAGA Won, MAGA Lost

The Atlantic · Adam Serwer ·

A vision of a multicultural America emerges from this election.

One of the biggest Republican wins in an otherwise-terrible midterm night for the GOP was the victory of the Trump-supporting Byron Donalds in Florida’s race for governor. Donalds will become the first Black governor of that state. If you could resurrect Jefferson Davis and tell him that the governor of Florida will be a Black Republican married to a white woman, he would crawl straight back into his coffin.

That this was MAGA’s big win in a night of defeats is remarkable, given the movement’s hostility toward diversity, and its nostalgia for an America where rigid race and gender hierarchies were enforced by the state. Even where Republicans won, in other words, President Trump’s racially exclusive conception of American citizenship lost. Trump could browbeat corporate America into eliminating DEI programs; he could threaten colleges to let in fewer students of color; he could direct the full power of the federal government toward deporting immigrants. But he could not will away the America that actually exists.

The America that emerges from the midterm elections is not the monochrome world of Madison Avenue ad campaigns from the 1950s. It is a diverse country, made up of many different kinds of people, all of whom are American. The victories of Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Aaron Ford in Nevada, and David Crowley in Wisconsin, in addition to that of Donalds, mean that there will be more Black governors than ever in U.S. history. In Texas, where Mexican Americans were subject to legalized forms of racial discrimination until the mid-20th century, Gina Hinojosa will become the first Hispanic governor. Xavier Becerra is the first Hispanic governor to be elected in California, and Deb Haaland will become New Mexico’s first Native American governor. Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota will become the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. And Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan will become the first Muslim U.S. senator.

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