A smattering of thoughts on the election returns:

– Everyone’s mentioning the fact that the Republicans will now get to completely solidify their control of the courts–having stocked the lower courts full of judges, they’ll now get their chance at the High Court and thus ensure conservative interpretations of the law for another generation. What’s equally frightening to me about the administration staying in Bush’s hands are its control of the federal budget and of the bureaucracy.

– Another common trope in the immediate mourning is that “now the Republicans will have to own the inevitable crash.” I wouldn’t be so sure; I never underestimate politicians’ ability to pass the buck. W managed to blame Clinton for the economy in the presidential debates, and Daschle lost his seat for being “obstructionist”–i.e., playing the role of the minority party in government.

– In the end, the militant counterrevolutionaries, er, Republicans are still on the losing side of history no matter how they turn. Turnout this year was fevered in the exurbs and rural areas, pumped up in many states by anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives or by “friends and family” networks in evangelical megachurches. As others have pointed out, gay marriage initiatives are a one-off bonus; it can’t be banned multiple times. Further, most of today’s young voters think gay marriage is okay; in 20 years, it will be largely a non-issue.

Geographically, exurban areas have highest population growth but start from a small base; rural areas may be growing slightly but again account for a small proportion of the nation’s population (albeit a large proportion in many states). Meanwhile, as Teixeira and Judis point out, some of nation’s highest population growth areas (particularly in the southwest) are in areas trending Democratic, while inner suburbs are sharply trending Democratic and Dem margins in cities are widening. Orange County, California is one example: population growth in south OC is being offset by the wholesale conversion of its older, northern end to a satellite of multiethnic, heavily Democratic Los Angeles.

– If our country is divided halfway between cultural conservatives and “liberal elites,” why is it that they get to own the “American” label? Left Center Left has a trenchant analysis on how Bourdieu can inform the divide: we the cosmopolitans have “stakes in the status game,” while those outside resent both their loss of status under the shift to cultural capitalism (after all, geography is worth mega bonus cultural points, placing red-staters at a huge disadvantage) and, by extension, the entire system — and thus view as alien and foreign anyone who bothers to play the system.

– Can I mention again how utterly stupid the Health Savings Account is? The high deductible of the HSA has no exceptions, which provides an incentive to consume zero health services, but no incentive to wisely choose the health services one will inevitably consume. The High Deductible Health Plans (HDHPs) associated with HSAs (under law!) have no mechanism to even begin to offer these incentives — and, as a result, preliminary studies have shown that consumers just cut costs with an axe by simply not going to the doctor, ever. The meddlesome middlemen of HMOs, whatever their faults, almost always rewarded preventive medicine with financial incentives like lower co-pays. Markets are imperfect, and the market for medical care is even more so;doctors don’t exactly post prices on the door, and when one really needs a doctor, one’s usually not in a position to inquire about prices first. In these cases, I want a meddlesome bureaucrat to sort through the system for me — and I trust government bureaucrats more than insurance industry bureaucrats.

I spent several years of my childhood with health insurance from Kaiser Permanente, which is about as close to socialized medicine as is possible in America. (You go to Kaiser hospitals, wait long whiles in Kaiser waiting rooms, use a Kaiser ID card, make appointments far in advance, etc.) And yet I remember that it worked just fine: the few times I really needed care, like the time I stumbled in with a broken bone after a bike accident, I got good humored care without any hassles. And now I read in the Times: “Kaiser has a different setup with different incentives. It emphasizes preventive care and managing chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes to keep people healthier. And that saves money because healthier people require less costly care like hospitalization.” Gee, funny that: different incentives (not strictly price incentives!) result in better care with lower costs.

– Matt Miller on KCRW’s “Left, Right & Center” has a good closing thought: liberals have seen ten lost years, from 1994 to 2004. This is obviously the moment to assess how we demonstrate that progressive goals can stregnthen American values.