Swamp Rabbit was doubled over laughing at me for having thought the 2020 elections might generate a wave that would sweep Democrats to victory even in some former Confederate states that were, according to the pollsters, trending blue.

“Hahaha, you believed the hype. You drank the media’s blue Kool-Aid.”

“Not true,” I replied. “I said Trump would lose and then dispute the results for as long as he could. That’s exactly what’s happening. And I said Biden’s victory wouldn’t amount to much unless the Democrats also managed to flip the Senate. They needed a blue wave.”

“Hahaha, blue wave! I make bigger waves in my bathtub.”

He was getting under my skin. “You don’t have a bathtub, you mangy rodent. You don’t even have running water.”

The truth is, I was losing my temper because Swamp Rabbit was half-right. When it’s officially over, Biden will have somewhere near five million more votes than Trump and, more important, he’ll most likely have the magic number of Electoral College votes. But the idea that Dems would easily flip the Senate was wishful thinking stemming from the popular belief that pollsters would be more accurate this time than in 2016 when they predicted Hillary would prevail.

“I was fooling myself,” I confessed. “I figured a lot of Trumpers lost faith in their would-be dictator after he said ingesting bleach might be a good treatment for Covid-19, or when he didn’t denounce the Proud Boys, or after he told his twenty-thousandth presidential lie. But they stayed with him because he voices their hatred of everyone they envy or fear. They need their misdirected hatred more than they need the truth.”

“Nice speech, but where do you go from here?” Swamp Rabbit said. “What good is a Dem president if he’s gonna get blocked in a Senate run by Mitch the Amazing Turtle Man?”

“That might not happen,” I said. “Votes are still being counted in some states. The Democrats only need three seats.”

I told him to look on the bright side. Biden was a weak candidate but as president he won’t back reactionary judges or antagonize NATO allies or destroy the environment or use taxpayer money to prop up his failing businesses or…

“The Dems didn’t clean out the Senate,” Swamp Rabbit said, interrupting me. “McConnell, Ernst, Graham and them other uglies will still be there. Republicans even picked up some House seats and held on to statehouses. More gridlock up ahead. This here is what you call a cold civil war.”

I stepped off the porch of my shack in search of a large rock to shut him up with. “Don’t flip your wig,” he said, sensing danger. “It ain’t a hot war… Not yet, at least.”