Thoughts on the tiny red ripple

Some of you may have heard there was a Midterm Election in America last Tuesday. As of Saturday evening, the Democrats have maintained their control of the U.S. Senate and there remain a handful of U.S. House races the votes of which are still being counted. Although due to those uncalled races in which nothing is certain, it is projected that the GOP can count on a weak 4 or 5 seat House majority AT BEST! Even though in several places where they had booming success, by most accounts among the Conservative punditry this Midterm was a resounding failure and defeat for the Red Team. As is usual after such an electoral debacle, there is much wailing and moaning and slinging of blame in the Republican camp. Among the losers were those who paid any sum of money for agenda-driven pre-election polling. In the end the fact remains that the only poll that matters is on Election Day and so many so-called experts got it not only wrong but egregiously wrong. So, what happened? The voters in no uncertain terms communicated via the ballot box what their priorities are and who made the best case for their endorsement. Below are a few thoughts and takeaways from what went on last week.

One of those aforementioned places where the GOP had booming success was my own beloved home state of Oklahoma. The voters of the Sooner State opted to reelect our embattled Republican governor and elect or reelect Republicans to all state offices. Very few races aside, the voters also elected or reelected supermajorities in both bodies of the state legislature. If nothing changes, nothing changes and remaining in the bottom 20% of U.S. States in certain critical categories is just fine with the voting majority. I must admit watching the place of my birth remain mired in the muck of the worst elements of modern American conservatism is very disappointing, but at the same time not at all surprising. Fortunately for many of us, we are largely unaffected by the executive and legislative doings of our state government. Despite this, we non-conservatives are still here and are not going anywhere. However, to tolerate the world around us in this state we must understand that reasonable change will not occur until enough of our fellow citizens have felt enough of the pain and discomfort of state laws and policies to be moved to action. Only then when the squeeze of neglect and abuse motivates enough persons to register and vote for their interests will the needle move in their direction. In the meantime, Oklahoma will retain the claim of being the Mother Road’s most conservative stretch, all 432 miles of it traversing the state!

So, what would be a reasonable assessment of what really happened last Tuesday? What occurred to make so many conservative media talking heads walk back all their previous assertions and predictions like a bunch of confused Oceania Ministry of Truth hacks who just received the memo from Big Brother to make their history fit the facts in front of their face? First, it must be understood that there is a downside to choosing to live in a soundproof bubble where selective hearing allows only those things which fit a predetermined narrative that contain only items which are consistent with a given party line. The part of this that played heavily into the electoral result was the fixation on the assertion that inflation was the #1 issue for most Americans as everyone pays more for goods and services in post-pandemic America. As it turned out, inflation was in fact an issue but not nearly as important as safeguarding democracy, the democratic process and above all, women’s reproductive rights. Yes, everyone is paying more for nearly everything now, but economic trends tend to be cyclical. The overturning of Roe v Wade carried with it a much heavier sense of finality. More than that was that more voters who could get pregnant than not took it very personally. Perhaps the reason most GOP candidates shied away from this issue was because they could not or would not hear all the disgruntlement about half the voting population losing their bodily autonomy when the speaker volume on the economy and immigration was dialed up by conservative media. I remember many times in years past telling my pro-life conservative family and friends to be careful, be VERY CAREFUL what they wish for because they might get it. Well, they finally got it! I would dare predict that future political historians with mark the date of June 24th, 2022, the day Roe was overturned, as the highwater mark of Conservative populism. In one fell swoop of a SCOTUS decision, Conservative Pro-Life America found itself suddenly on the defensive. One thing that hasn’t gone unnoticed is that abortion bans on the ballot in traditionally conservative places like Kansas have not been met with much if any approval by the voters, particularly women voters.

Among other things that have not escaped notice in this election cycle is the liability the 45th President has become to his party. Candidate quality and the former President’s endorsement of them played a significant factor in many GOP losses. Although several candidates who sold out to and accepted the big lie that the 2020 Presidential Election was stolen did manage to get elected or reelected mostly in GOP-safe races, the tactic of election denying appears to have reached the end of its shelf life. The facts revealed by the Congressional January 6th Committee may have exerted some influence on undecided voters, but President Biden successfully used the bully pulpit of his office to effectively spread the message that democracy was on the ballot along with better candidates and many other things near and dear to most Americans. As it turns out, Social Security and Medicare are popular. Any ideation toward rolling them back is not part of a winning strategy. The best messaging the GOP could muster was some lofty platitudes, most of which many including myself appreciate and agree with on principle. They failed however to delineate any sort of plan of how to accomplish those things like “a nation that’s safe, a government that’s accountable, a nation that’s strong and a future built on freedom.” Their heretofore modus operandi of cutting taxes on billionaires and rolling back social programs isn’t popular at the moment. As was noted above, many of the candidates endorsed by the 45th President failed to emerge as winners on Election Night. For someone who proclaimed that “You’ve never going to get tired of winning,” enough people in his party have become so weary of losing such that his power and influence appears to be waning by the hour regardless of what his future political aspirations may be.

So, where does all this leave us? As stated above, those uncalled House seats are still being counted and it is expected that the GOP may win a paltry few seat majority at best. Whatever it may be, it will NOT be a mandate by any reasonable metric. It may in fact be just enough to put the entire GOP in a very precarious position. If they fail to grasp the reality that their ideas overall are not as popular as they think and remain tone deaf to the message sent by the voters last week going into the 2024 cycle, they may well find themselves relegated to being the minority party much like they were from the late 1940s until the Gingrinch revolution of 1994. As was predicted over the summer, it was the Independent vote and surprisingly the youth vote that boosted the winners. The GOP’s intention to impose a national ban on abortion and birth control is not part of a sellable message among enough young voters to matter and any intent to roll back and/or abolish Social Security and Medicare are not any part of a viable plan that a majority of over-50 voters will be willing to buy. One thing that simply failed them this time in grand fashion was their usual tactic of stoking fear, grievance and outrage. That was surprisingly for once a cudgel the Democrats used to their advantage, that and a return to normality. At the end of the evening, it was a big blue Democratic wall that emerged to give an emphatic “NO” to rightwing extremism and keep America on track with moderate leadership founded in reality and reason. My thanks to everyone who participated in the democratic process last week be they candidate, campaign volunteer or simply a dutiful voting citizen who took the time to mark a ballot and deliver to all a sense of continued hope for the grand American Experiment in self-governance.