The Dodgers have lost four straight playoff games to the Milwaukee Brewers in a humiliating end to the season.
But it was worse.
Steve Hilton lost to Xavier Becerra in the gubernatorial race before “Jeopardy” aired.
But it was worse.
President Trump lost early, late and often Tuesday night in the midterm elections.
In elections across the country – for governor, for Senate, for House – he had asked people to vote as if he were on the ballot.
They did, and the Democrats took power, taking the House and then the Senate.
Trump lost big, surveyed the rubble and claimed the problem was bad candidates.
Has he lost a step? I expected him to say the election was stolen. All elections.
But perhaps he has realized that, for all intents and purposes, his political career is over. Trump was defeated, the country triumphed, and the long national nightmare is over, but for the rest of his lame-duck presidency.
I don’t think we’re seeing a national love affair with Democrats, nor do I think whichever political party wins Tuesday night has all the answers on the pressing issues of the day. Democrats have their own problems, including an identity crisis and a shortage of bankable presidential candidates.
But voters across the country have made it clear they’ve had enough of:
The lies.
Insults and insults.
Hate.
Chaos.
Interested transactions.
Lack of civility.
The absence of humility.
Last week I watched the news and saw Trump mocking the name of Michigan’s newly elected Muslim senator, Abdul El-Sayed.
It’s horrible to see a president do this, but here’s what’s worse:
I wasn’t surprised.
Then I saw him say at a political rally that he had looked at a man’s behind, “and I’ve never done that before… Unofficially, women yes, men no, okay?”
Again, no surprise.
He once mocked the physical appearance of a female presidential primary foe, as well as the wife of a male foe, and insisted for years that the first black president was secretly from Africa.
Trump had always managed to get away with this kind of stupidity. His true believers were willing to accept him as long as he seemed faithful to his promise to work on their behalf. Until it could no longer be denied that he was working solely for his own account.
The profit of cryptocurrencies. The Bloody Ballroom. The gold plating of the White House.
All this while workers, including their staunch supporters, struggled to understand the outlandish tariffs and wondered when the promise of lower food prices would be fulfilled.
Trump and the Republicans could have won Tuesday night without the war in Iran, which everyone continues to pay for at the gas pump. The president who promised that we would stay out of international conflicts went all in, for no good reason, then said it was over, that we had won, except that it was not over and that we had not won.
And there is no exit plan.
But so what?
It’s not like Trump pays for gas. His golf cart is probably electric.
Initially, as a Republican populist who exploited voters’ legitimate disapproval of Democratic leadership, Trump was right when he first ran for president. Scapegoating immigrants was already abhorrent, but in 2016, at a Trump campaign rally in Arizona, I got a glimpse of his appeal to adoring fans who were cheering the presidential candidate’s vow to build a border wall, strengthen the military, and make America great again. A struggling low-wage worker told me Trump was the best hope for a new day.
“We’re going to come back and rebuild our country,” Trump told the approving crowd that day in Arizona. “You will never be disappointed in me… You are going to be so proud of your president.”
The act worked much longer than I would have predicted. But ten years later, and halfway through a second presidency, the game is up. The voters said yes, they are disappointed, and no, they are not so proud.
We thought we would have midterm elections.
This turned out to be a political spin.
But also an awakening.
Red states voted for blue candidates, which is a near-total rebuke of Trump.
Watching the returns Tuesday night, I thought of my daughter – a graduate student in earth sciences – and her generation. She’s 23, which means that for almost half of his life, Trump has been a political force. Imagine being so young and living in a country that twice elected one of the most controversial and scandalous figures in history.
A man who attacked judges, invaded American cities, insisted ad nauseum that a lost election was stolen, pardoned the barbarians of January 6, exonerated political donors and their allies, called climate change a scam, gutted environmental protections, and upended America’s global lead in scientific research.
It’s easy to understand why younger generations have lost faith in elections, both in the primary parties and in the political and corporate establishment.
But on Tuesday, voters of all ages turned out and said enough already, in red and blue states.
The man who so bitterly divided us could have finally united us, at least for an evening.
This does not mean that there is consensus on anything. It is certain that calamity awaits us, just beyond the shadows, and that new species of political trolls appear as we live and breathe. But there was hope on election night in the collective declaration that we deserve and demand better.
Trump once said he was so popular and so powerful that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue in New York, shoot someone and not lose a single voter.
This might once have been true.
But he has lost them now.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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