A New Hope

I’ve given myself a few days to ruminate on the results of last weeks election. Things did not go quite as I hoped. Of the major races, I had a personal interest in, no one I supported won. Texas Senator, US House Representative, Texas House Representative, Texas Attorney General, Texas Governor, Florida Senator, Florida Governor all went Republican. It’s a bit disappointing.

But.. but… since then I’ve tried to look at the bright side. Florida races are still not final and going through recount proceedings. That’s not really a bright side but that means there’s a chance things could change. Arizona is also not final. (Edit: Arizona is now final and flipped to Democrat for the first time in more than 20years).

Even if nothing changes with those there are far more positives. The House went Democratic for the first time in a decade. Now, if Nancy Pelosi becomes the speaker again and they ignore the progressive elements within the party it might not mean much. The Democrats being in control of the House needs to mean something. They have to be the party of helping Americans, not the party of opposing Trump. The Republicans were the party of opposing Obama.

Let’s see some movement on universal healthcare. Let’s see some taxes on the people with all of the countries wealth. Let’s see some climate change action. Let’s see some election reform to stop this voter suppression and get the money out of the equation.

All of these things are possible. We now have openly Democratic Socialists serving in the House. Embrace that. Don’t run from it. Make the government work for the people again.

Turning back to Florida for a second, another positive comes in a state constitutional amendment that gives felons who have served their time their right to vote back. This could be huge next election. With a few more people screwed by the messed up penal system now able to vote, maybe we’ll see some changes to that moving forward.

Looking elsewhere, we’ll turn to Wisconsin. Scott Walker is gone. That smarmy SOB who stripped teachers of collective bargaining rights. That idiot who undermined his state’s wellbeing for his Kock masters. Defeated. Now maybe Wisconsin can start to recover like her neighbor Minnesota.

Let’s not forget the simple fact that we had record voter turn out. Sure, it’s still a far cry from everyone voting. But you gotta start somewhere. In Texas, voter turn out was 53% of registered voters, close to the levels for Presidental elections. 2016 had 8,969,226 and 2014 had 4,727,208. There were 8,334,221 votes for Senator this year. That’s really close to 2016 numbers. 

Across the country, numbers aren’t final but they look to be around 113 million people, up 30million over the last midterm and only 25million below 2016. If this trend continues, in 2020 we could have a real surge.

That could make a huge difference because we still have a long way to go. Over 8million people voting in Texas is a lot better than just under 5 million. But it’s still a far cry from the almost 20million eligible voters.

This wasn’t the sun breaking through the clouds turning point we wanted. But, really, that was unrealistic. It was a turning point though. It did not continue the trend into madness. That train hasn’t stopped but at least there are now people fighting for the controls instead of just sitting passively in the dining car.