This should scare the living crap out of the Republicans
It’s with a caveat that I tell you I think Republicans are in trouble. The caveat is that this good news should not be taken as a pretext to relax. We have much hard and vital work to do between now and November 8. That said, there is compelling evidence to suggest that Republicans might not only fail to reclaim the House and Senate this Autumn, they might fail in a way so spectacular as to repudiate their MAGA message entirely and create the biggest identity crisis in GOP history. We shall see.
But there is much evidence to suggest that is the way Republicans are headed. One thing that ought to scare the living crap out of them is that women are registering to vote in new record numbers across the United States. Women have a serious axe to grind with Republicans, and that axe is being honed and sharpened by the Supreme Court’s Dodd decision, the one that effectively obliterated Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose. November has been rechristened by many angry women and men as “Roevember” on that account.
Then there’s Kevin McCarthy’s “Commitment to America,” a deliberately vague “platform” that leaves out a lot of detail, and was introduced by a video misusing stock footage from Russia and Ukraine intended to represent scenes from America. It also contains a quote wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln.
The “commitment” kicks off with one of the most suicidal implied campaign messages I have ever heard of in my life. It’s the secret position of the Republican Party that you should pay more for medicines so big pharma can make more money and do better research. I imagine that one’s going to go over big in Senior Land.
Apart from this crack-brained trickle down theory for big pharma, the word is out that Republicans are going to try to reduce Social Security and Medicare. That should be really popular among the voting elderly as well.
But it gets better. The insurrection is hard to explain by diehard MAGAs to everyone else, and the fence sitters, independents and moderate Republicans are largely not amused. The fact that mere hours after the insurrection, where police were brutalised, Nancy Pelosi threatened with murder and Mike Pence with hanging, 147 Republican legislators actually voted to not certify the election has made many voters sit up and take notice. A lot of people have been waiting for this November 8th to tell those Republicans exactly what they think about that and about them.
Then there’s Kansas. Back in early August, voters in Kansas turned out in record numbers to categorically insist that they wanted the right to choose and they wanted that right in the Constitution. If it can happen in Kansas it can happen anywhere.
Then there’s Alaska. I still can’t quite get my head around this, but Sarah Palin’s attempt to return to politics was roundly refuted by a comparatively unknown native Alaskan woman named Mary Peltola. Peltola won by 51.5% to 48.5%, a respectably big margin.
Additionally pertinent, of course, are the twin blows Donald Trump has received from the DOJ’s lawfully executed search warrant of Mar a Lago looking for stolen classified documents and the recent $250 million lawsuit against Trump, his kids and the Trump organization, filed by New York AG Letitia James.
The storied Blue Wave of the 2018 midterm election was largely about Trump and repudiating him. This time around the 2022 midterm election will be about repudiating Trump, Trumpism and the whole rotten, lying Republican Party. Democratic voters, independents and moderate Republicans are angry in ways that mainstream Republican voters are not, and they’re not going to stand for it any more,
But it is still true that we remain the instruments of change. No one is going to do it for us. No one is going to go out and cast our vote on our behalf. So we must get out there In November and vote. Bring as many people as you can with you. Make it an event, a voting party. But let’s get this done. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.