The conservative columnist was perched on a dining-room chair, Zooming into an Election Night panel for The Bulwark, the Never Trump conservative website for which she writes. As Joe Biden lost Florida and then appeared to lose North Carolina, Charen sighed and muttered, “Nightmare.” Another Bulwark writer said that although the prospect of Biden losing Pennsylvania was not what “we wanted,” the Democratic nominee could still win the presidency if he won Arizona, plus two electoral votes in Maine and two in Nebraska. At that point, Charen lost the rest of her chill.

“Right now, we are facing the possibility of not only not getting that, but having that fucker in office for four years!” Charen cried.

This surprised me because although the Bulwarkers had been dropping more f-bombs as more states went for Trump, Charen, a nice Jewish woman in her 60s, seemed too prim for that. She had done her makeup and dressed in a blazer. She had corralled her dog, Ike—like Dwight D. Eisenhower—away from the camera. She had made printouts of various polls and bellwether counties.

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