Editorial: Sixteen Minutes

At 10:04 p.m. Central on Tuesday, the Associated Press called the Texas Senate seat for the Democrat James Talarico. At 10:20 — sixteen minutes later — his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, took his own supporters' stage, opened by congratulating the man who had beaten him, and said he would pray for him to serve Texas and the country well.

Sixteen minutes. That, and not the seat count, is this magazine's measure of the night.

Pushback (tadāfuʿ) is, as we restate in every issue, a descriptive law rather than a normative slogan: groups push against one another whether their members wish it or not, and what history asks about is the instrument they used. The ballot box is an instrument that spares a society the sword — but it performs that function on one condition only: that the loser accepts the verdict. If he accepts it, the push repairs the earth. If he refuses, the box itself becomes the field of conflict, and people fall back on older and costlier instruments.

That condition was visibly met. Paxton conceded in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott conceded to Gina Hinojosa. Senator Susan Collins conceded in Maine before the networks had called it. Senator John Cornyn — whom his own party had removed in the primary — congratulated the man who defeated his party's nominee. President Trump said he would accept the results.

None of this is praise for one camp or blame for another; this magazine favours no party. It is the record of a fact: the instrument worked, and those who lost handed over.

This issue offers six readings of figures who won that night, chosen for their historical significance and not for their platforms: a seat that had not changed hands since 1988, a seat that had not changed hands since 1932, and symbolic doors that opened on the right of the map as well as on its left.