The petty joy of a blue election night

Ten years ago, watching the dawning of the Trump era on Fox News felt appropriate somehow. Notice that I didn’t say it felt right; after all, we were sinking into an anti-Enlightenment age propped up by Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine. Nothing about any of that felt right.

Still, once the phrase “President-elect Donald Trump” became as inevitable as Thanos, and Fox’s anchors giggled like ascendant supervillains, staring into that snarling maw seemed like the responsible thing to do.

Training my focus on CNN and MS NOW in time to catch 2026’s predicted blue wave, then promised to be just as illuminating. Back in 2016, while everyone else on CNN struggled to make sense of what was happening, commentator Van Jones somberly characterized the results as “whitelash against a changing country.”

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, he turned against CNN full force, branding it and every other outlet denying favorable coverage as fake news. Trump’s 2024 victory further endangered any media outlets outside of the right-wing echo chamber, as he hit news organizations with obscenely ridiculous legal complaints to force them to bend the knee.

So we’ll pardon Jones for his deliciously petty reaction to what Jake Tapper, the emcee of CNN’s “Election Night in America” telecast, awkwardly described as a “blue-nami.” By the time the Democrats took control of the House and Senate, the previously funereal Anderson Cooper was gleefully eager to hear what Jones had to say. And his colleague did not disappoint, delivering what may have been the night’s most satisfying monologue.

“If you join a cult, at some point the cult leader takes you to Jonestown and tries to get you to drink the Kool-Aid,” he observed as chastened GOP pundit Scott Jennings sat inches away. “This is Jonestown for the Republican Party. They drank the Kool-Aid, and they have candidates that are dropping like flies across the country because they did not stand up to this guy when he was doing things that were wrong . . .

“You join a cult, at some point, you go to Jonestown,” Jones repeated in closing. “That’s where you are tonight, Republicans.” Then he pretended to pass a cup to his Trumpian counterpart.

Election night news coverage is a stressful affair in the best of times. In 2026, CNN and MS NOW, the channel formerly known as MSNBC, entered the fray as battered underdogs. MS NOW is now owned by Versant, a group of cable channels spun off from NBCUniversal. CNN, part of Warner Bros. Discovery, will soon be owned by Skydance and its Trump-allied owner David Ellison.

Neither newsroom can claim relief at what’s on the horizon, which is why Cooper led CNN’s coverage with the air of an undertaker greeting democracy’s mourners. America’s major news outlets have been taking it on the chin with the rest of us – including Cooper, a former “60 Minutes” correspondent who fled Bari Weiss’ CBS takeover only for Ellison to come for his cable news shire anyway. Blue wave or not, CNN’s future is uncertain.

So although MS NOW may be scrappier and looser these days, at least its reporters and pundits aren’t working through an institutional existential crisis. That fatigue showed up in how CNN’s Magic Wall wrangler, John King, lived cautiously from moment to moment, allowing only a mild display of wonder as he shifted between the largely scarlet 2024 map and the much bluer 2026 version.

“What’s happening right now?” King wondered. “What’s the right word? Is it a rebuke? Is it repudiation? Is it shellacking? Is it a spanking? I mean, at the moment, this is the collapse of the president’s party on live television as you watch it play out.”

And for the first time in a decade of watching election nights, it was a joy to experience — like learning how to hope again.

Peddling optimism isn’t the job of any journalistic organization, of course. But knowing what CNN’s newsroom is contending with regardless of this election outcome makes their composure especially admirable. The CNN team had a 10-ton weight pressing down on them and still managed to convey the sense of celebration presumably gripping most of its viewers.

Most people tune out election night noise regardless of whether the vote goes in their favor, perhaps gleaning what they can from the flashy graphics and chyrons. This gave MS NOW’s Ali Velshi an advantage at the network’s Big Board now that his former co-worker Steve Kornacki has moved over to NBC. Both have earned fandoms by injecting levity into managing each election’s data flood.  On Tuesday night, Kornacki inspired a meme simply by being captured on his new network’s Kornacki Cam as he walked down a hall.

But Velshi kept his version of his predecessor’s two-step going, buzzing around on MS NOW’s Big Board with a hummingbird’s energy. “Annie Andrews is outperforming, and Darlene Graham is underperforming,” he rapidly blurted, breaking down the Democratic challenger’s road to her unexpected win in South Carolina over the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, before turning to the camera with a delightfully bemused look to say, “This is a totally weird conversation that we are having. Right?” It’s true. After years of polls overstating the Democrats’ chances, it did feel strange to have underestimated how much they’d win. 

Still, Rachel Maddow‘s ebullience from the moment MS NOW’s coverage began was tough to beat. Before a single result came in, she cheerfully offered, “So far, the one thing we can definitively say is that Americans like our democracy, and they are enjoying using it in record numbers in this cycle.”

Once Democrats claimed majorities in the House and Senate a few hours later, she let loose. In calling the race for Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district for Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Maddow couldn’t resist calling her Republican opponent, Rob Bresnahan, a “sometime ghost hunter” as her colleagues snickered in the background. 

This is an understandable reaction to voters’ referendum on the president’s unpopular and economically detrimental policies. Americans, regardless of partisan stance, are struggling to afford the basics. But as Chris Hayes pointed to the shock of so many Democratic upsets, he noted that high prices aren’t the only thing forcing this drastic change. “The rot that is coming from the top of the country is very, very, very clearly on voters’ minds,” he said.

So if Jones wants to indulge in a little grave dancing, so be it.

It was even better to see other correspondents take stock of all the history made on Tuesday night. New Hampshire voters chose a Democrat, Chris Pappas, to join the U.S. Senate, making him the first out gay man elected to the chamber.

Voters turned Texas blue and elected four Black governors – including former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who became the first woman and the first Black person to be elected governor in Georgia, and the first female Black governor in our country’s history.

Once that state’s contest for governor was called for Bottoms, MS NOW’s team tapped Symone Sanders-Townsend to contextualize what that meant for voters and Black women. Sanders-Townsend reminded us that when Trump calls Georgia to gripe, it will be Bottoms on the other end of the line. She’ll also be the one to ensure that the 2028 election is certified for the rightful winner.

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But when Sanders-Townsend’s colleagues asked her to share how Bottoms’ victory made her feel, her reaction hit home. “After the 2024 presidential election, for myself and Black women all over this country, it felt like a repudiation of us,” she said, holding back tears. “…There were Black women, myself included, that felt like, ‘Well, maybe America just does not want us.'”

So to Sanders-Townsend, and all the other Black women disappointed by their fellow citizens in 2024, Bottoms’ victory said, “Georgia wanted Keisha.”

That moment didn’t diminish Jones’ take on what this election night meant to him. “This is like Christmas and a birthday and an Easter bunny and Halloween!” he said. “This is the repudiation of Trumpism that people have been hoping for, seeing American democracy stand up.”

But by allowing herself to cry on camera, Sanders-Townsend broadcast a different kind of signal. She let us know that on this night, and for the first time in a long time, it was OK to ease into some sense of relief. And that’s better than the fleeting pleasure of retaliatory pettiness, well-earned though it may be.