Let’s spare the pomp and circumstance of tedious phraseology and channel the immediate stupidity that abounds from the punditry of all political ideologies. TOMORROW EVERYTHING CHANGES! WE’LL HAVE TYRANNY! WE’LL HAVE FREEDOM! WE SHOULD ALL DESPAIR! WE SHOULD ALL CELEBRATE! WE LOST! WE WON!
I fucking hate current pundits. There used to be a time, when semi-intelligent people spoke on TV shows that encouraged a modicum of nuance. Now we have every asshole with a phone vying to amass Twitter followers with irresponsible and polarizing messages of fear and false hope. Fake news isn’t doing half the damage pandering and vanity are to our country. But this isn’t why I’m writing this at 4:00am before the Clown Show descends on the Capitol Steps. I’m here to tell you that despair or celebration are both vain and useless.
My proof? Midterm elections.
Whether we like it or not, Liberals & Democrats needed a swift kick in the ass. And while DJT may break it off in the process — everything he does to reverse the meager Progress made — we absolutely deserve. President Obama’s Historic presidency made us feel all-gooey inside. I’m no exception. Except that I am in that I had no disillusions that the battle had not been simply won. Uber-leftists, usually White ones, have some weird, Bagger Vance, magical-Negro idea of President Obama. That he was a disappointment, That he had to render legislation beyond the limits of Congress. He did do this by the way. And we may regret the precedent set by every Executive Decision he, and all other Presidents put together, have made while under Trump. But really, it didn’t even have to come to all that. Or whatever else is coming. If we all just gave the beginning of 1/10th of a shit about local and state politics.
63% of eligible voters came out in 2008. That was ground breaking. It literally almost shook the voting apparatus apart. I say this because I have many intelligent Liberal friends who said “the only way to fix voting is by abstaining”. The FUCK? These are SMART PEOPLE, folks. Who forgot this an easy 7 years after it happened.
So in 2010? How many of these courageous agents for Progress backed up their champion with the legislative body known to be necessary to an agenda by any 6th grader who got a C in civics?
Less than half of 37.9%. Motherfucking that’s it. So ended this Supermajority & basically handcuffed President Obama to the new invigorates: The Tea Party. Of that dismal fucking 36.9%, who dropped off the most? Youth. By 60%.
Then after FOUR years of Tea Party insanity, did the agents of Progress, the Social Justice Warriors rebound and rally behind state campaigns like they did Obama’s? Working for a Senator or Congressman like the freaking SCOTUS depended on it? Nope. They didn’t even show to vote.
2014 had the lowest voter participation in SEVEN decades. 36.3%
Holy shit, America.
So fuck your despair, your celebration, your boycotts, hell I’ll say it, your protests too. We have 22 months till an election DAY that will decide ALL 435 House of Representative seats (ALL OF THEM), 33 Senate seats, and 36 Governors. This will lead up to REDISTRICTING efforts in the 2020 census. Considering how LGBTQ rights and the healthcare of 30 million people hang in the balance of a Republican lead bicameral Congress, along with SCOTUS appointees — PUNDITS SHOULD REALLY BE TALKING ABOUT THIS RATHER THAN SOME KID WHO SAID SCREW THE PRESIDENT.
22 months till D-Day. 16 Months till primary. 9 months till campaigning starts 6 months to start helping your candidate. Tomorrow is your wake up call to figure out who that is.
Don’t let me down America.