If you were elected to national office yesterday, please skip down to your specific section. Thanks.

Republicans

Congratulations on your win in the Senate and, to a lesser extent, your wins in the House. As you try to figure out what to do next, bear in mind you were sent two messages yesterday, and not one.

The first is that you are on notice. Have you been able to spot any patterns yesterday among the candidates who lost in the House? Take a moment. Well, the media have it wrong. House Republicans didn’t lose yesterday: they were fired. And no, they weren’t fired for backing Trump or not backing him. They were fired because their voters think they putzed around for two years in Congress.

You had a heavy majority and, for once, some mandates. You were supposed to remove and replace Obamacare. But it was too hard, and lots of people were starting to get familiar with it, and messing with it could possibly cost you an election. In fact, you were elected to do hard work, and you definitely lost an election because you didn’t want to do hard work. You were supposed to do immigration reform, but didn’t. You were supposed to cut the size of government, but instead increased it. A lot. You were supposed to reduce regulations, but barely got started. So you were fired.

Know how you can tell? Because you lost the House. That’s the easiest thing to correct, and the voters seemed to have figured that out. Consider it a two-year probation, because that’s how long you have to fix it.

Sure, you did cut some regulations, and you did indeed slash taxes and get the economy moving. That’s why you lost only a couple dozen seats and not a bunch. Voters still think Republicans can fix things—just that not all of you seemed to want to. And those guys have been fired.

Look at the Czar’s own Representative. He’s been in office for years, in a district comfortably Republican for almost half a freaking century. Last night, it flipped to Democrat and can you now guess why? Because our rep did practically nothing. He wasn’t aggressive, he didn’t really fight, and he just assumed he’d be re-elected for giving us a couple of newsletters and a voice mail reassurance every year that he was still alive. The Czar assumes his heavily Republican neighbors decided he needed to go, and elected a putz who will easily be dumped in two years—provided someone more aggressive appears and is willing to do what he or she is told.

The second reason you lost the House is your ridiculous appeal. More specifically, your lack of it: it’s not enough to run yound candidates, black candidates, women candidates, Asian candidates, or young, black Asian women candidates. That’s just copying what Democrats do, and you have no experience with identity politics. Instead, you need to run exclamation points instead of semi-colons. A lot of new faces appears in Republican victory speeches last night: colorful, interesting, and compelling individuals with intelligence and personality. And some of the losers were pretty terrifying to Democrats: check out John James in Michigan. He went from no chance to very nearly putting Senator Stabenow out of work. Not because he’s black, but because he knows how to connect with voters. The Republicans have lots of these people out there, but they’re not getting enough attention. No, not from the Establishment! From the media!

The Republicans not only held the Senate, they gained even more seats. And that’s because, during the Kavanaugh hearings, Americans got to see Senators get pissed off and motivated. Suddenly, weathered old fossils like Senator Grassley became a youthful mastermind. Senator Hatch went from being a doddering fogey to a quick-witted, sharp-tongued whip. And Senator Graham! He went from being a pasty milquetoast to a social media sensation with the kids. That’s what voters want: a sense that these people are actually willing to throw on some armor and get good with a sword.

So, Republicans, you were given two years to clean out the deadwood and get yourself some interesting folks who get this. Look to the Senate: you’ve got all the templates you need.

Democrats

Congratulations on your win in the House and, to a lesser extent, your wins in the Senate. While you seem to be very confident that your first steps are to rebuild society into a national socialist paradise, maybe you need to sit down for this. Your victory in the House was fairly thin, compared to Republican victories in recent elections. You have less than a thirty-seat advantage, which is just enough to do nothing. You can high-five and selfie yourselves getting ready for impeachments and investigations, but you have no hope of pulling any of that off because you do not have the Senate on your side.

It’s quite clear to many of us that the average Democrat has a shallow understanding of how the Constitution works and why it’s set up the way it is. Here’s a hint: it’s to stop power-mad groups from getting over their skis. Like you. You aren’t going to change the world with a twenty-odd majority.

In fact, you should probably ask yourselves if you are superheros or just interim replacements. Your newly appointed roles in the House may be nothing more than temporary help until the permanent hires arrive. You could of course make a strong enough impression that you keep those jobs. But to figure out how to do that, you better look to see why the people your replaced got let go. Not because they were Republicans, but because they were weak. They were culled from the herd. You might want to be a little more strong.

Of course, you won’t listen. Democrats stopped listening to the American people in the mid-1960s. You’re sure that the reason you won the House is because Americans must want higher taxes, higher unemployment, to see your friends and family receive millions in questionable funds, and get you some tail in a hotel. But maybe you should look to what happened in the Senate: a lot of famous Democrats are now going to be stay-at-home grandparents come 2019, simply because they thought being in Congress was a big television reality show, and that they could act like jackasses in front of us.

The Democrats won the House—only by the permission of the Republican voters. Think about that for once.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.