I’m too fatigued from worry to think much about the 2020 election but I’m sure it will be another doozy. I simply feel relief. A Reagan Era Republican and columnist Max Boot said it was a “rebuke” but not the “repudiation” he had hoped for. I am disappointed but not dissatisfied. I have one ultimate objective. I want the restoration of the Party of Lincoln. I don’t see how that can happen anytime soon if ever.
Under the best circumstances it will take a decade for voters to forget what Donald Trump said and did to shore up his base. As Republicans voters age and die and Democrats undo state-by-state the election law mischief of the last ten years they will deserve the Congressional level ignominy that they endured in the post world War II years. I was going to add “but didn’t deserve” but then I remembered Joe McCarthy, the Red Scare and the HUAC Investigations. But that all happened before I hit First grade. After that “Cloth coat” Republicans suffered a couple decades out of power. (It was forty-six years in the House of Representatives! From 1948 to 1994)
Here are a few of my takeaways:
Trump – He can’t escape the subpoenas of the Congressional Democrats. Hallelujah!
Hope in Florida and Louisiana Two Jim Crow Era laws have been buried. In Florida one million ex felons have been given the right to get their votes back. Denying them redemption was a good way to prevent them, many of them members of the minority, from exercising their vote. Both yesterday’s Governorship and Senate seat were won by Republicans with far fewer than a million votes. The surprise? The Koch Brothers helped talk Florida voters into doing the right thing.
Similarly in Louisiana, another Jim Crow Era law allowing just ten of twelve jurors to convict was changed by referendum. Now, as in most states, it will take a full twelve jurors to convict. When this law was originally passed it was intended to make it easy to jail poor and minority suspects who were then hired out at slave wages to work in dangerous industrial jobs.
The next two years – politically ugly, ugly, ugly. I anticipate an economic crash after the tax plan’s sugar high ends. If that happens it will be interesting to see if the super salesman Donald Trump can convince pro trade Suburban voters that its the Democrat’s fault.
Pete Stauber – Since he will be in the clear minority I don’t begrudge him his victory as minuscule as it was. He just cleared 50%. He will be a rare well-intentioned Congressional Republican. As such, he could be a bridge to some limited bipartisanship. But there are a couple BIG BUTTS here. The Rump Trump Republicans will be even more unhinged and pro-Trump. He will have to spend half of his productive daily hours grubbing for money for his next election. He’ll be like those pimply-faced teenagers forced to eke out money in phone banks. It won’t be a sit tight all day County Commissioner’s job. He’ll live in mortal terror of what might get thrown at him in the 2020 election.
The Duluth School District: It just missed out on passage of the third and highest level of tax increases. I presume it was a massive anti-Trump vote that got it so close. That was only possible in an urban area. There should be a recount but that’s not likely to change the loss which would have been a win had eight votes switched sides. Those eight votes? I wonder how many of them were decided because the geniuses at the Duluth News Tribune Editorial board advised voters to vote against the top two proposed increases. Thanks for nothing Trib! There are a ton of Duluth teachers who miss the Red Plan provided Smart Boards that are breaking down and which could have been replaced had the final tier passed. Dear Editors, Its a little late to show us how prudent you are with taxpayer dollars. That advice should have been exercised during the ruinous Red Plan from which voters were shut out. Ah, but you were too busy being the courtiers of Duluth’s elitists who assured the School Board it would be finely arrayed in their invisible cloak.
By the Way. The Trib and its readers are losing its educational reporter Jana Hollingsworth. She just got a real job. Its a sad day.
I had to crank out my next Reader column yesterday before the election results came in. In fifty years I have never been on pins and needles waiting for election results like I was yesterday. I may have made light of suicide in the last column but it was based on my real fears for the ideals expressed at the beginning of our Declaration of Independence. Having transferred power to the Democrats I’m prepared to face the future with equanimity. My daughter told a student who was worried yesterday that America’s been through worse. She mentioned 9-11 in her lifetime and the Civil War. I lived through 1968.
I think its too early to shrug off the future by suggesting that “this too will pass.” The worrisome issues today are far more grave – the long time survival of the Earth as we now know it. Will Americans stop denying science the way Peter denied Jesus? Listen for the cock to crow.
