I share the ache of those that are deeply upset that People have chosen, for the second time, an unhinged, misogynistic, racist strongman for president.
A majority voted for a former president described as a “fascist” by his personal former employees members, who has promised “mass deportations” of the thousands and thousands of undocumented immigrants, who has vowed to reinstate his misbegotten Muslim ban, who intimates that he’ll hand Ukraine over to Russian President Vladimir Putin and permit Israel free rein in Gaza.
I’ll depart the election post-mortems to folks whose jobs it’s to determine how and why Vice President Kamala Harris and different Democrats did not make their case, and what the celebration should now do to regain the belief and votes of the pissed off working-class People and others who’ve abandoned them in droves.
As a mom, grandmother, aunt, buddy and proud Californian, my project now could be to look ahead, and to assist these I really like discover some shards of hope on this darkish second.
In spite of everything, some good issues occurred Tuesday evening.
For starters, this interminable marketing campaign is lastly over. Many people could hate the outcomes, however a minimum of we received’t must take heed to 4 extra years of President-elect Trump’s whining, wheedling and lies about who received.
California’s Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), who led the primary profitable impeachment towards President Trump, handily received a seat within the U.S. Senate. Not that his Republican opponent, former skilled baseball participant Steve Garvey, ever actually stood an opportunity, nevertheless it’s comforting to know that such an outspoken Trump antagonist received in a blowout, and can turn into one of many highest-profile Democrats in Washington. When the wildfires come and Trump as soon as once more performs politics with federal aid {dollars}, California will want somebody who can play hardball.
In different excellent news, American voters delivered one more rebuke to the Supreme Courtroom’s horrible 2022 resolution that ripped away the 50-year-old constitutional proper to abortion.
Ten states had measures guaranteeing entry to abortion on their ballots on Tuesday. Voters in seven — Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and New York — supported amending their state constitutions to guard that basic proper.
Voters in solely three — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota — didn’t. However even in Florida, nicely over half the voters — 57% — voted in favor of preserving the precise to abortion to the purpose of viability. Sadly, the brink for amending Florida’s structure is 60%, so the state’s ban on abortion after six weeks will stay in impact.
Now we’ll be taught whether or not Trump and his Vice President-elect JD Vance have been telling the reality after they repeatedly claimed to oppose a nationwide abortion ban. Personally, I feel they may do all the pieces of their energy to appease their right-wing Christian base by working to limit entry to treatment abortions, which contain a routine of capsules, not surgical procedure. The excellent news is that there might be a wholesome resistance to this transfer, and an already well-developed underground treatment pipeline will develop. As they’ve because the Dobbs resolution, ladies will proceed to finish pregnancies they don’t want to carry, whilst the federal government threatens them.
I do know it’s common to pooh-pooh id politics; Harris, neatly, by no means overplayed her hand as probably the primary Black and South Asian girl to turn into president. However typically id not solely issues — it’s price celebrating.
For the primary time in historical past, two Black ladies will concurrently serve within the U.S. Senate: Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. Additionally in Delaware, voters elected Democrat Sarah McBride, 34, as the primary out transgender member of Congress. That is greater than symbolically vital at a time when Republicans equivalent to Trump have ginned up worry with outlandish, unfaithful tales about youngsters going to high school within the morning and coming house within the afternoon having acquired gender transition surgical procedure.
Blessedly, North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, who reportedly referred to as himself a Black Nazi and declared that slavery was not dangerous, was trounced for governor by his Democratic rival, Josh Stein.
In Florida, Democrat Monique Worrell, the reform-minded African American state lawyer who was ousted by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in a blatantly partisan transfer, was reelected: Fifty-seven p.c of Florida voters repudiated DeSantis, who had accused Worrell of pursuing lenient sentences and declining to prosecute sure expenses.
“No governor’s petty political maneuvers and no quantity of darkish cash can silence the voices of hundreds who demand a good, good strategy to justice over the failed, outdated insurance policies of the previous,” Worrell mentioned in an announcement launched by her marketing campaign.
I refuse to surrender hope as a result of our nation’s voters so typically features as a self-correcting organism. When politicians go too far, voters slap them again towards the middle.
It received’t take lengthy for People to tire of the inevitable chaos and cruelty of a second Trump administration. They could be briefly lulled by his promise to proceed the tax cuts that promised to assist the center class however overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy.
However as soon as they notice that his tariffs may have raised costs they suppose are already too excessive, his mass deportations may have left hundreds of employers stranded and greens rotting within the fields, that inviting Russia to do “regardless of the hell they need” to NATO international locations may have undermined America’s function as a superpower, they may bitter on him. Simply as they did in 2020.
It might take 4 ugly years, however belief me, the pendulum will finally swing again towards regular. It all the time does.
Threads: @rabcarian
