This has turned out to be a very good week. Democrats smoked the GOP this week - taking over most of Texas, winning senate seats in both Carolinas, Kansas, possibly even Mississippi - building a massive advantage in the house. It's a beautiful thing. The only Republican stronghold that hasn't been broken up was Florida, though if the Democratic Party leadership had committed to winning that senate race they might have. Impressive.
Still - Florida's power is impressive. Then even picked up and extra seat in Maine, sending Paul LePage back up here and winning one of the congressional seats. I don't know. You'd think we'd vote against he summer folk. What can I say - we have to do somethign stupid in every election.
The rest of Maine's election went very well. I worried about Troy Jackson - he seemed like a good candidate, a good man for the job - but Collins has been around forever and she was running some of the most vicious (and stupid) ads I have seen in ages. Jackson himself has the charisma of a rusty F150 - there were reasons to worry. There shouldn't have been - he smoked her. It is very gratifying. It is all the more gratifying given what a bullet we dodged in dumping Platner. Late - but we got rid of him. He, to his credit, more or less, did manage to keep his drunken mug off TV after he left, too - not all states have been that lucky. Witness Haley Stevens in Michigan. Though that didn't matter either - Al-Sayed smoked the Republican dipshit there.
It's good. It's encouraging - people like Al-Sayed, Talerico, Jon Ossify have been revelatory, not only winning, but winning by driving right into the teeth of their opponents. Not shrinking from their attacks - not backing off the things they believe in. It feels like this is a new generation of Democratic politicians - Al-Sayed, Talerico, Andrews, Pappas, Flanagan, Turek - are all in their 30s or 40s - they all come off as confident and appealing, and young - which American politics needs. It doesn't just feel like we've blocked Trump's takeover cold (or as cold as we can), but we're setting up to run the country going forward as well. I am happy to see it.
I hope they can change the leadership - Schumer in particular really had to go. As for policies - they do need to go after Trump and his administration, for their corruption, incompetence, their criminality and sometimes, almost open treason. There has to be justice. But beyond that, they need to take advantage fo this and make something stick. Some things seem obvious - at least restoring ACA subsidies, and ideally working toward universal health care; raising the national minimum wage. Abolishing - at least defunding - ICE is necessary. Undoing the tariffs, getting out of the Iran mess. Plenty to do. Even things that have little chance of getting past Trump's veto are worth doing. Make Trump veto a minimum wage law, or restoration of Medicaid subsidies, or legalizing marijuana, or passing federal law to legalize abortion - make him veto it. This is the time to define yourself - what you do, what you are for - and who exactly, is stopping us from having nice things.
I am optimistic about it - I can almost see the Democrats doing these things! And it is going ot be fun to see Trump dissolve in front of our eyes.
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