One my my favorite signs from last January's Women's March read "Women Are the Wall". It was a declaration that women stood as a bulwark against the depredations and depravities of the new Trump regime. Last night, with the Democratic electoral victories in New Jersey and Virginia, women were the wave, rising up against the racist, sexist, homophobic and religiously bigoted GOP candidates.
The elections of women, people of color, and LGBTQ candidates, all first-timers, was remarkable. Many of these candidates had been inspired by the Women's March, and trained during the post-march organization period. Women were the wall, now women are the wave. Let's hope that the momentum of the movement will build in the coming year, so the wave can wash away all of the flotsam in Congress.
This post was hastily composed before I head out to work- I will clean it up and post links at a quiet moment.
UPDATE: There were a lot of ugly campaigns this election season, with appeals to racism, transphobia, sexism, and religious bigotry... all of which failed. 2018 is shaping up to be quite the year, as long as people remain angry, and organized.
It's Trump.
ReplyDeleteIt really IS that simple.
A huge portion of the electorate finds him loathsome, ineffective, incompetent, dangerous and embarrassing on the global stage. (One of the challenges of writing about Trump is deciding what adjectives to use - the options are myriad.)
As long as we have an idiot blowhard buffoon leading the other party, and being supported and even emulated by that party, they will have a hard time winning any election that isn't in a dead-red state or district.
Can the Ds take back the House? Almost certainly not, but with another year of Trump (and Ryan, and Mueller) to go before the election, it's very possible they won the most Pyrrhic victory in the history of American national politics...
Trump really did awaken the proverbial sleeping giant. The real task now is to keep people active until the congressional districts can be redrawn, to get rid of the crazy gerrymandered 'safe' districts for Republicans.
ReplyDelete