Heading into the 2018 midterm elections, the Republican Party just delivered a massive middle finger to the majority of Americans not on their donor shortlists.
All the various and sundry “conservative” talking heads continue to double-down on the idea that this shit-sandwich they served up to the poor and middle class is actually filet mignon. Never mind the Kobe being served up the wealthiest individuals and corporations in the country. Never mind your lives not getting measurably better. Pay attention to the rhetoric not the results.
This remains a huge gamble that the GOP’s mostly older and whiter constituency will continue to be the only Americans who vote in midterm elections. I believe that paradigm is finally coming to an end as Gen X and Millennials start to realize how fucked they have allowed themselves to become by not paying close attention to economic damage coming from both parties.
We’re already starting to see movements like Brand New Congress with their stated goal of fielding primary candidates in all 435 districts, red and blue. The only litmus test for their support is to agree on a simple and executable legislative platform. It is telling that the political professionals who led Bernie Sanders’ unprecedented presidential campaign came to this conclusion.
Our primary weakness as a nation is the lack of authority and ethics from our representatives in government at the local, state and federal levels. This has been the Boomer generation’s lasting legacy to their children and grandchildren. Many have great grandchildren now. They squandered a successful system of government in pursuit of social gains and economic nihilism.
It is clear that a civic showdown approaches as relentlessly as climate change. Like our responses to that existential crisis, our behavior as citizens appears to be shifting toward a greater level of logical engagement. We’ve gone beyond useless outrage and into focused action. Newbies now run for office across the country, many taking on once unassailable incumbents.
The only way to negate gerrymandering is overwhelming turnout for midterm elections. The math is never better for grassroots transformation of entrenched dysfunction. Further, there is nothing preventing progressives from running campaigns against republican incumbents during midterm primary elections and use gerrymandering to win in November. Channel Ike and go from there.
Point being, no matter how bad shit seems from whatever hole has been dug on your behalf over the last four decades, We The People have always had a powerful solution at our disposal that most of us never use.
Carpe diem.