I’m going to try to do something a bit less structured this week. No outline, no plan, no goal, just my thoughts on the page. As I’m just starting, I don’t know if it will turn out well or not — We’ll just have to find out together. I do want to preface this by saying that I’m writing it on Wednesday night, so at time of writing there are still 18 congressional seats in the air, but majorities have been decided for both the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
Overall, I’d say I’m placated but far from happy. The house is back in the hands of Democrats. I’ve talked in the past about how Democrats are often just as corrupt as Republicans. The thing is, Democrats at least pretend to be on the correct side of social issues. Voting on party lines in the house will at least lean progressive instead of regressive. There are still massive changes that need to be made to the system as a whole, but at least we might stop moving back in time.
The Senate is another story. At the time of writing, 51 seats will belong to Republicans, 44 to Democrats, and 2 to others (Bernie Sanders and Angus King). This poses a problem for me, as someone who has real issues with practically every hire the Trump administration makes. The Senate gets to confirm nominees. Taking the house is great, and while they have a lot of checks on the executive branch, it’s reactive. Issuing indictments, holding hearings, and impeachment are all reactive, not proactive. The Senate could stop this insanity before it gets in the door, but instead, we end up with a woman who never spent a day of her life in public school (nor have her children) running public education. We end up getting 2 positions filled on the supreme court with dangerous nominees. This is, to say the least, not ideal.
I genuinely, at this point in my life, do not understand how anyone can vote for any Republican incumbent for federal office and still claim to have a functioning moral compass. Every one of them makes decisions that harm the public welfare, whether by their own morals or by their lack of backbone to stand against party leadership. The Republican platform today, in 2018, contains the sentence, “Every child deserves a married mom and dad.” Something so plainly homophobic cannot be allowed to stand in any modern party, let alone one in control of more than 50% of the federal government. The platform is littered with small “facts” like that, claiming science “plainly” shows things that have never been remotely proven.
I’ve said it to many of my friends, but I would like to mention it here: Voting for Donald Trump in the last election was nearly morally reprehensible. There was the possibility of hiding behind lack of knowledge of how he’d do, or that Hillary Clinton would’ve somehow been worse. There can be no question now, with the fascist moves the Republicans and Donald Trump have been making of late: Voting for Donald Trump in two years is morally indefensible. Hell, Republicans have just learned that they can make overt moves towards a fascist state and retain the support of the American public. They are going to become energized. They cannot be allowed to destroy the freedom and democracy that so many have worked so hard to create in this country.
Be First to Comment