Bad And Good News: Midterm Lessons
Two years ago my angry post-election blog (11/13/16) focused on how hate trumped love; last year my celebratory post-election blog (11/12/17) focused on the lessons the Democrats could learn from our victories in Virginia and New Jersey. This year the results were mixed, but we can still learn or relearn some important lessons:
1) Although the Georgia and Florida results are not yet final, early returns show that the bigots beat the blacks, that racism once again beat history. But whatever the final outcome, it is clear that racism is as big a problem now as it was in 2016.
2) Thirty years later, the Bradley effect is still a thing. Before the election, polls suggested that Andrew Gillum was going to be Florida's first black governor and that he was going to help Senator Nelson beat Governor Scott. However, when the votes were counted, Nelson did better against Scott than Gillum did against the bigot. The pundits rushed to explain without mentioning race. They claimed Scott's performance during the recent hurricane helped him as did the way he treated the Puerto Ricans. His activities helped the bigot win more votes. Pundits, please! As the California white voters did in the eighties, the Florida white voters (and maybe some of the Latinos) pretended that they were going to vote for a black man for governor, maybe even thought they would, but when they filled out the ballot, they somehow voted for the white man. In some ways, what happened in Florida is worse than what happened in California. Governor Deukmejian, whose entire political career was built on beating more famous and supposedly more popular black politicians (he beat a famous black woman for attorney general), was not an overt bigot like Gillum's opponent, and he wasn't as white as the Florida bigot is. Like OJ's lawyer friend and the K sisters' father, who was mistaken for Latino when he was first seen walking into OJ's house in 1994, Deukmejian was a swarthy Armenian. We're regressing, folks!
3) Voter suppression still works. It worked in North Dakota and seems to have worked in Georgia. Too often it works (as it did in 2016) to elect a bigot, who will, of course, continue to try to suppress the votes of people of color and young people.
4) Republicans don't believe in democracy. They believe in winning by any means necessary. Donald Trump is now accusing the Democrats of Arizona, Florida, and Georgia of cheating because they want all of the votes to be counted and because he believes if all of the votes are counted the Republicans will lose.
5) When Democrats seem to have lost a close race, they should follow the lead of Al Franken, Bill Nelson, Stacey Abrams, and almost all Republicans. They should refuse to concede until every vote has been counted and recounted. They should not do what Democrats whose last names begin with G (looking at you, Gore and Gillum) have done--concede early. Trump (for once) is right when he says that Democrats usually win during the post-election counts and recounts, probably because Democrats tend to be in more populous areas and so it takes longer to count their votes. They are also more likely to be given provisional ballots, which will be counted last. And heavily Democratic districts are probably more likely to have dysfunctional machines and incompetent poll workers for the same reason that the schools in urban areas tend to be less highly ranked, and cops in those areas tend to be more violent and less able or willing to protect and serve.
6) Although the Democrats will probably blame the two black candidates if they lose in Georgia and Florida and give credit to the suburban white women for wins in places like Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, they probably won't blame METOO for possibly costing them the Senate. They won't wonder if Al Franken could have made a difference on the campaign trail or if they could have helped the endangered senators more if they weren't spending money and time helping the totally unknown outside Minnesota and forgettable Tina Smith win a seat that shouldn't have been vacant until 2020. Nor will they blame the defeat of the red-state female senators who voted against Kavanaugh on METOO, even though the male West Virginia senator who voted for him won. The Kavanaugh sexual misconduct mess helped fire up Trump's despicable base but at best didn't help our side and at worst hurt us.
7) The media spotlight is a curse, especially for dark-skinned blacks. In the three 2018 races that received the most media attention, one media darling--O'Rourke-- has lost, and the other two--Abrams and Gillum--are behind. But a white woman whose name I still don't know beat the voter-suppressing bigot in Kansas and a Native American lesbian also won in that state. A dark-skinned black woman won a district in Illinois that is more than 80% white and so obviously is a rural/small town area. Another unknown to me white woman became the Democratic governor of Michigan, and an elderly unknown to me white man beat Governor Walker (Hallelujah!) in Wisconsin. What happened in this election reminded me of the congressional race last year that featured a young white man running in a special election in Georgia. He received a lot of media attention and won the initial race, but since he didn't win 50% of the vote, there was a runoff, and he lost to the Republican woman. Where is he now? Even the 2017 Alabama Senate race proves my point because the attention in that race was on the Democrat's crazy, possibly child-molesting opponent, not on him. So, Democrats, if you want to win, act like the Koch brothers (not like Trump). Hide from the media.
8. The pundits need to admit (and some do) that they are just guessing, and often our guess is as good as theirs. After convincing us that Hillary had the election sewed up in 2016, they acted as if Gillum was going to win this year. And clearly some of the wins by Democrats on Tuesday shocked the pundits because they were too busy paying attention to the media darlings that they created to know what was really going on with other important candidates. By the way, what happened to the Democrat, another media darling, running for Ryan's seat in Wisconsin? Did he win? Since I haven't seen him on television, I assume he lost.
9. Florida is a shithole state that causes more stress and anxiety on election day than all of the other states combined. It was Florida that created the mess in 2000, and it was when I heard that Florida had voted for Trump that I literally started shaking in 2016. Now Florida (joined by Georgia this time) is once again creating drama. Learn how to design ballots, protect the ballots, and count the votes, Florida fools! I'm sorry that he lost his home in the recent hurricane, but I'm happy that my first cousin William is moving back to California. If I have any other relatives, high school classmates, Goodreads or Facebook followers/friends in Florida, "Get out!"
10. While California is better at voting (during this period anyway; we've had our racist and stupid moments in the past) and counting the votes than Florida and most states, what happened in Claremont when I voted on Tuesday shows that all government officials in all states need to work harder to make voting easier, not more difficult. There was a line at our polling place, not because there were so many people voting (although more people showed up than during most midterms), but because there weren't enough poll workers and voting machines. I don't see the long lines at polling places as signs of democracy at work. I see them as signs of why our democracy isn't working. If we can figure out ways to make grocery shopping (some stores deliver), banking, filing for insurance claims (thanks, State Farm), and serving as a juror (calling in instead of showing up as we had to do in the eighties) easier, then we can make voting easier. Our democracy depends on it.
When I finally had the nerve to check the election results early Wednesday morning, I initially thought the midterms were more bad news than good. I thought the bigots had beaten the blacks, and that demoralizing result overshadowed the Democrats gaining the House, but now I believe there was more good news than bad. I look forward to the golden girls of California, the salt and pepper team, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, taking it to Trump with some help from Representatives Cummings (I'm now calling him the black panther, and I haven't even seen the movie) and Schiff (a California golden boy). I love how many young women of color won and look forward to seeing them on House committees, replacing all of those ugly, old white men. But they're still fighting an uphill battle. Trump is still the President, people are still being killed by crazy white men of all ages, and racism still reigns supreme in this undemocratic country.
Let's keep fighting for a more perfect union, Americans! Let's keep voting!
1) Although the Georgia and Florida results are not yet final, early returns show that the bigots beat the blacks, that racism once again beat history. But whatever the final outcome, it is clear that racism is as big a problem now as it was in 2016.
2) Thirty years later, the Bradley effect is still a thing. Before the election, polls suggested that Andrew Gillum was going to be Florida's first black governor and that he was going to help Senator Nelson beat Governor Scott. However, when the votes were counted, Nelson did better against Scott than Gillum did against the bigot. The pundits rushed to explain without mentioning race. They claimed Scott's performance during the recent hurricane helped him as did the way he treated the Puerto Ricans. His activities helped the bigot win more votes. Pundits, please! As the California white voters did in the eighties, the Florida white voters (and maybe some of the Latinos) pretended that they were going to vote for a black man for governor, maybe even thought they would, but when they filled out the ballot, they somehow voted for the white man. In some ways, what happened in Florida is worse than what happened in California. Governor Deukmejian, whose entire political career was built on beating more famous and supposedly more popular black politicians (he beat a famous black woman for attorney general), was not an overt bigot like Gillum's opponent, and he wasn't as white as the Florida bigot is. Like OJ's lawyer friend and the K sisters' father, who was mistaken for Latino when he was first seen walking into OJ's house in 1994, Deukmejian was a swarthy Armenian. We're regressing, folks!
3) Voter suppression still works. It worked in North Dakota and seems to have worked in Georgia. Too often it works (as it did in 2016) to elect a bigot, who will, of course, continue to try to suppress the votes of people of color and young people.
4) Republicans don't believe in democracy. They believe in winning by any means necessary. Donald Trump is now accusing the Democrats of Arizona, Florida, and Georgia of cheating because they want all of the votes to be counted and because he believes if all of the votes are counted the Republicans will lose.
5) When Democrats seem to have lost a close race, they should follow the lead of Al Franken, Bill Nelson, Stacey Abrams, and almost all Republicans. They should refuse to concede until every vote has been counted and recounted. They should not do what Democrats whose last names begin with G (looking at you, Gore and Gillum) have done--concede early. Trump (for once) is right when he says that Democrats usually win during the post-election counts and recounts, probably because Democrats tend to be in more populous areas and so it takes longer to count their votes. They are also more likely to be given provisional ballots, which will be counted last. And heavily Democratic districts are probably more likely to have dysfunctional machines and incompetent poll workers for the same reason that the schools in urban areas tend to be less highly ranked, and cops in those areas tend to be more violent and less able or willing to protect and serve.
6) Although the Democrats will probably blame the two black candidates if they lose in Georgia and Florida and give credit to the suburban white women for wins in places like Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, they probably won't blame METOO for possibly costing them the Senate. They won't wonder if Al Franken could have made a difference on the campaign trail or if they could have helped the endangered senators more if they weren't spending money and time helping the totally unknown outside Minnesota and forgettable Tina Smith win a seat that shouldn't have been vacant until 2020. Nor will they blame the defeat of the red-state female senators who voted against Kavanaugh on METOO, even though the male West Virginia senator who voted for him won. The Kavanaugh sexual misconduct mess helped fire up Trump's despicable base but at best didn't help our side and at worst hurt us.
7) The media spotlight is a curse, especially for dark-skinned blacks. In the three 2018 races that received the most media attention, one media darling--O'Rourke-- has lost, and the other two--Abrams and Gillum--are behind. But a white woman whose name I still don't know beat the voter-suppressing bigot in Kansas and a Native American lesbian also won in that state. A dark-skinned black woman won a district in Illinois that is more than 80% white and so obviously is a rural/small town area. Another unknown to me white woman became the Democratic governor of Michigan, and an elderly unknown to me white man beat Governor Walker (Hallelujah!) in Wisconsin. What happened in this election reminded me of the congressional race last year that featured a young white man running in a special election in Georgia. He received a lot of media attention and won the initial race, but since he didn't win 50% of the vote, there was a runoff, and he lost to the Republican woman. Where is he now? Even the 2017 Alabama Senate race proves my point because the attention in that race was on the Democrat's crazy, possibly child-molesting opponent, not on him. So, Democrats, if you want to win, act like the Koch brothers (not like Trump). Hide from the media.
8. The pundits need to admit (and some do) that they are just guessing, and often our guess is as good as theirs. After convincing us that Hillary had the election sewed up in 2016, they acted as if Gillum was going to win this year. And clearly some of the wins by Democrats on Tuesday shocked the pundits because they were too busy paying attention to the media darlings that they created to know what was really going on with other important candidates. By the way, what happened to the Democrat, another media darling, running for Ryan's seat in Wisconsin? Did he win? Since I haven't seen him on television, I assume he lost.
9. Florida is a shithole state that causes more stress and anxiety on election day than all of the other states combined. It was Florida that created the mess in 2000, and it was when I heard that Florida had voted for Trump that I literally started shaking in 2016. Now Florida (joined by Georgia this time) is once again creating drama. Learn how to design ballots, protect the ballots, and count the votes, Florida fools! I'm sorry that he lost his home in the recent hurricane, but I'm happy that my first cousin William is moving back to California. If I have any other relatives, high school classmates, Goodreads or Facebook followers/friends in Florida, "Get out!"
10. While California is better at voting (during this period anyway; we've had our racist and stupid moments in the past) and counting the votes than Florida and most states, what happened in Claremont when I voted on Tuesday shows that all government officials in all states need to work harder to make voting easier, not more difficult. There was a line at our polling place, not because there were so many people voting (although more people showed up than during most midterms), but because there weren't enough poll workers and voting machines. I don't see the long lines at polling places as signs of democracy at work. I see them as signs of why our democracy isn't working. If we can figure out ways to make grocery shopping (some stores deliver), banking, filing for insurance claims (thanks, State Farm), and serving as a juror (calling in instead of showing up as we had to do in the eighties) easier, then we can make voting easier. Our democracy depends on it.
When I finally had the nerve to check the election results early Wednesday morning, I initially thought the midterms were more bad news than good. I thought the bigots had beaten the blacks, and that demoralizing result overshadowed the Democrats gaining the House, but now I believe there was more good news than bad. I look forward to the golden girls of California, the salt and pepper team, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters, taking it to Trump with some help from Representatives Cummings (I'm now calling him the black panther, and I haven't even seen the movie) and Schiff (a California golden boy). I love how many young women of color won and look forward to seeing them on House committees, replacing all of those ugly, old white men. But they're still fighting an uphill battle. Trump is still the President, people are still being killed by crazy white men of all ages, and racism still reigns supreme in this undemocratic country.
Let's keep fighting for a more perfect union, Americans! Let's keep voting!
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