Your 'Democratic Duty' is Done ... or Not

Notes on the 2018 Midterm Election:

• The suburbs had it up to here with Trump.  A general puke.
• Voter suppression still works.
• Nancy Pelosi quoted Reagan against Trump today.
• The most right-wing Democratic Party senators lost.  No tears.
• No one in the mainstream press ever interviewed journalist and researcher Greg Palast.  Even though he uncovered and sued Georgia and the Republican Kemp for, among other things, trying to kick over 350K people off the voter roles by mailing postcards to them.
• The new 'NAFTA' will be upheld by both parties.
• In Minnesota, urban & suburban areas united in their hatred of Trump and his minions.
• What environment?
• What do Ben Jealous, Beto O’Rourke, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum have in common besides losing or in troubled recounts?  They are in … the SOUTH.  A place not like other places.
• Again, stalemate, divided government, lawsuits, investigations.  Government by scandal.  Yet each faction of the capitalist class is still entrenched and has a loyal following.
• A blue …half-wave.  Some other midterms had higher changes in the House.  But the elections are not over.
• Trump actually came out to endorse pal Pelosi as Speaker of the House.  Like recognizes like.
• The dire Democratic lie that Ralph Nader lost the 2000 election for Al Gore is exposed once again.  A right-wing Supreme Court vote, Gore's gutless concession, 300K registered Democrats voting for Bush, white riots at the polls, ballot shenanigans, other small parties running and most of all - ‘voter suppression’ – as epitomized by 1.5M former felons in Florida now getting the right to vote back.  The white Democrats forgot about ol’ “Jim Crow” when they lied, but the non-white folks of Florida never did.  A count by the NORC later found that if the recount had been done properly, Gore would have won by 60 to 171 votes.
• Let’s see what the Sanderites / DSA’ers do when subject to the blandishments of the corporate Democratic leadership in the House.  Tough or naifs? Co-opted or confrontational?
• The vile anti-union viper and Republican Scott Walker lost in Wisconsin.  He just gave $45B to Foxconn, a Chinese conglomerate.  At that rate, Wisconsin could have hired plenty of people to do something useful other than build iPhones.  Now FoxConn is going to bring in Chinese engineers.  Who got conned by the fox?
• Was there anything more chickenshit and vicious than the Republican hysteria about thousands of destitute Honduran and Central American migrants slowly walking to the U.S. border?  15,000 soldiers?  Do they know what the word ‘invasion’ actually means?  They actually do, but a lie is useful for people who don't.
• Locally, the hated Rich Stanek, a Republican, lost the Sheriff's race in Hennepin County to a gay member of his staff.  His office had stood behind ICE, massive evictions and house sales, marijuana arrests, collaboration with DHS during the Republican convention and a shoddy evidence lab.
• Now that we have marked ellipses on a ballot, we can go back to watching Netflix and bitching at home or on FB. Or not.  I mostly choose 'not.'
• Honduran coup = refugees = Clintonian blowback.
• Wall Street gave 2-1 to the Democrats this cycle.  The market is up over 500 points today.  Even centrist Republican Michael Bloomberg issued an election ad all over the country to 'Vote Democrat.' 
• Glenn Greenwald pointed out that elections in Brazil are far fairer, far more efficient and less problematic than the shoddy U.S. version.  As are elections in many European countries. Of course, that does not guarantee a good result, as Bolsonaro shows.
• Did even 50% of the electorate vote in this 'huge turnout'? Sources say 49%.
• Upshot - the Democratic Party didn't really change their spots.  A bit more diversity, a few social-democrats, but otherwise... In fact, some of the women who won were former CIA or military, i.e. conservatives.

 Red Frog

November 7, 2018