So Tuesday night was a disaster, obviously. And, perhaps more so than in 2010, we know just how terrible Republicans are likely to be with their added power. We
know what a Scott Walker is capable of. Still, you have to try to remain sane, and for me, that means trying to find enough bright spots that the bad spots produce a motivating rage rather than tipping over into crushing despair. This is why, if you talked to me in the days after the 2004 election, you were likely to hear about how Florida voters had raised the minimum wage even as they kept George W. Bush in the White House. Which is to say, sometimes the bad stuff outweighs the good stuff, but I still have to remember the good stuff exists, or I crawl into a cave and rock back and forth in the fetal position for the next couple years.
Each of us will have a personal worst list about this election. Hopefully you are all, as I am, trying to also compile a best list. So, below the fold are a few of Tuesday night's results that were, for me personally, the worst, and a few of the things I'll be holding onto as I try to stay positive and functional. I won't say "don't mourn, organize." There's a lot to mourn. But keep your mourning to a few days, then double down on organizing. And before you double down, it helps to clarify what you're organizing for. What are the principles that make winning or losing elections so powerful? By thinking about what moves us, can we figure out how to get to where we want to be?
The worst:
- The balance: As someone who both writes about politics for a living and has actual political convictions that define my life and sense of self, I respond to elections on two levels: what is happening in the world around me? And what am I going to have to write about? From that standpoint, ballot initiatives are at a significant disadvantage to candidates. A vote raises the minimum wage or extends paid sick days and that is a wonderful thing in the world. Unfortunately for my professional life, once that raise or those sick days have reached workers, we tend not to hear a lot about it beyond the follow-up, a year or two later, when we learn that the economies of these places have not been damaged by treating workers with a modicum of decency. Whereas awful Republican politicians will be walking around in the world, saying hateful, stupid shit and going on Fox News the Sunday talk shows constantly.
The nature of our political discourse is that I'll be writing a lot more than I want about Paul LePage and Joni Ernst and the latest terrible things they said, is what I'm saying, even though I'll always be seeking out stories about working people and how these new laws—or others we should be passing—affect them. So that's a deeply frustrating thing about the way our political world is structured, no matter how we try to push back.
- Maine Gov. Paul LePage: There are other Republican governors who can do more harm, but are there any who wear less of a disguise about who they are and what they stand for? Even Florida's Rick Scott occasionally tries to pretend; he can't help it that his efforts in that direction are undercut by the fact that he looks like Lex Luthor. So to have LePage, who doesn't pretend not to be a horrific human being, re-elected sucks extra hard.
- Massachusetts gas tax: The Massachusetts legislature did a good thing. It indexed the gas tax to inflation so that it would increase gradually rather than stagnating and then jumping up. A ballot measure repealed that. Now the legislature will have to get its act together to increase the gas tax regularly and get the signature of Republican Gov.-elect Charlie Baker, or revenue for our roads and bridges will slide into an even worse state than it is currently. It's a good thing Massachusetts workers will now have paid sick leave (see below), because they'll need it when bridges collapse under them.
The best:
- I've already written about these, but they bear repeating. Four states and two cities raised the minimum wage and one state and three cities passed or expanded paid sick leave. These are the kind of policy advances we fight to elect Democrats in order to pass. Stuff like this, that raises pay for hundreds of thousands of underpaid people and lets a million people stay home if they're sick, without wondering what bill they won't pay to make up their lost income, is a reason to keep fighting.
- How we got to those minimum wage and sick leave wins: Organizing. I'll repeat myself:
When fast food workers first started organizing and striking, with a $15 an hour wage as one of their centerpiece demands, it sounded outlandish even if you knew that in some American cities it still wasn't a living wage. Now, two American cities have passed $15 an hour. Washington, DC, is on its way to $11.50. Massachusetts is on its way to $11. Vermont is on its way to $10.50. Hawaii, Connecticut, and Maryland are on their way to $10.10. California is on its way to $10. These are real advances that would not have happened without working people fighting, and making demands that establishment politicians would never make and the media couldn't quite believe were real.
There have been a lot of think pieces about whether fast food organizing is for real. About whether the workers can win, given the power of the companies they're up against. Well, they changed the discussion on the minimum wage already. I hope they win more—union representation, stable work schedules, and more. But it's important to recognize what they've already done and what it tells us about winning.
- California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson: Dante Atkins wrote about this race that:
It features two Democrats, but the ideological contrast between them couldn't be clearer. The incumbent Superintendent, Tom Torlakson, is a strong supporter of public education, and has the endorsement of labor, the Democratic Party, and just about every single Democratic elected official across the state.
Billionaires, anti-teacher advocates, and education privatizers have their own candidate, however: Marshall Tuck, a former Wall Street banker who decided to turn his efforts to helping establish charter schools. Tuck supports the dangerous Vergara lawsuit that is attempting to strip teachers of their due process rights, and he is being supported by some of the most notorious names in the corporate privatization movement: Students First, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, just to name a few. This race has become a proxy war of independent expenditures: teachers are weighing in heavily to support Torlakson, while anti-union and anti-pension billionaires are putting in millions into the effort to replace a pro-teacher incumbent with a charter school executive.
So it's excellent news that Torlakson won. Due process for teachers also had a good election in Missouri, where voters said no to ending teacher tenure and tying teacher evaluations to unproven standardized tests.
- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy: Sure, Dan Malloy has sucked baby elephant balls on education, but I didn't want to see the first governor in the nation to sign paid sick leave go down to yet another Republican whose wealth was what supposedly made him worthy of running a state. Malloy also pushed to raise his state's minimum wage, and, since Sandy Hook, has been outspoken on the need for stronger gun laws. He won in a squeaker in 2010; this time he had a little bit more of a margin. I'll take it. But I won't stop wanting him to get better on education.
As Markos has written, 2016 is likely to be much better for Democratic candidates, but the challenge is to break the boom-bust electoral cycle. We need to figure out how popular Democratic policies can translate to electing more Democrats—so that we can pass more good policies, not just to keep Republicans from passing bad ones. For that matter, we have to get Democratic politicians to wholeheartedly embrace those polices. We have to decide where and how to change the discussion, as fast food workers have done on the minimum wage. To move from defeating attacks on teachers to going on the offensive to improve education by working with the people in classrooms every day. You know, little things like that. But knowing where we want to get is the first step.