In a just world the Republican pro-fascist, anti-woman Party would have been crushed under a blue wave. But given gerrymandering, voter suppression efforts and the norman trend of midterm elections to work against the party in the White House, holding Republicans to such modest gains is remarkable.
I’m particularly please by Cortez Masto’s win. Not only does her win give us control of the Senate (counting Vice President Harris’s tie-breaker vote), but I wrote GOTV postcards via Activate Blue on her behalf. It’s good to feel I contributed. It’s great to know that things like that help make a difference, that it really was a better choice than sitting on my butt. Not that success is guaranteed — I GOTVed for Cheri Beasley in NC and she lost — but it’s worth trying.
The clear message is don’t treat women like crap but I doubt Republicans will accept it. As witness Gab CEO Andrew Torba declaring women are a threat to civilization (heard that one before, asshat). Jesse Waters suggests we get single women married to make them turn Republican (spoiler: won’t work). Then again, Republicans lost every demographic but older white voters. Which explains why Florida went so red, I guess.
I am getting plenty of schadenfreude watching them go from “red wave!” to sputtering indignantly. It’s the fault of celebrity candidates with no political savvy. Marjorie Taylor Greene is shocked and appalled that anyone would blame Trump (guess she really does hope to be his VP pick). Tucker Carlson, talking head on America’s most-watched news network, blames the media. Kayleigh McEnany worries if Trump announces before the Georgia runoff, it’ll hurt Walker. From your lying lips to God’s ears, my dear. Paul Campos has a fantasy of 2024 that’s more implausible but it would be fun.
More likely the mistake was their choice of battleground. Culture war stuff didn’t trigger a red wave. White supremacism and fascism turned voters off. No wonder white supremacist Nick Fuentes
That Walker still has a shot tempers my delight. So does JD Vance winning in Ohio. But we have multiple gubernatorial wins, multiple election deniers — not all of them — going down to defeat. More gays and women in high office. Abortion rights measures won in multiple states. It looks like Sarah Palin’s political comeback ain’t happening. While Cheri Beasley lost as NC senator to a Republican, NC forced-birther Bo Hines went down in flames.
Newt Gingrich, a man who built his brief political career on smearing Democrats now pretends outrage that Biden has demonized Republicans. Of course the stuff Biden says about their misogyny, theocracy and opposition to democracy is absolutely true, which is not something anyone can say about any view Gingrich ever expressed.
While I’ve only seen Gingrich mouthing off on Fox News it’s depressing that he does occasionally do op-eds or interviews for reasonably sane media outlets. He’s been outside the halls of power for years, he never had any deep insights when he was in them, who cares what he thinks? The same with Trump. Yes, it was amusing to know he was freaking out but there’s no need to report every furious accusation he flings on Truth Social or track who he’s mad at for failing him. He’s an ex-president and he won’t say anything we haven’t heard before so why not just ignore him?
In the last analysis Superman was right: fighting for truth and justice is a never ending battle. I’m looking around for ways to keep contributing to the fight, whether it’s donations, writing Please Vote postcards (I’ve signed up to write postcards for potential Warnock voters) or whatever. Victory is not assured, but Tuesday showed us that neither is defeat. And contrary to some pre-election takes, victory without compromising our principles.
Fraser Sherman's Blog 