Thursday Ramble: How did this happen, and how do we move forward

 

Political Content Warning

I am going to talk about politics

If this upsets you, skip this post

I will see you tomorrow with something foodie. 

Like many of my readers, I am unhappy with politics in the United States. How did we get here? 

People voted, the difference was not huge, 1 or 2 or 3 percent difference in most states.  A few thousand more voters showed up for one side. 

How did Kamala not draw those few voters? 

I have talked with a few people who were unhappy with work her office did when she was attorney general in California, and felt that they couldn't vote for her. They would sooner not vote, than vote for her, some of them chose to sit the election out. 

I have talked with a few people who were unhappy that Kamala was not on the primary ballots when they voted. They felt uncomfortable with the way she became the candidate of the Democratic Party. They would not have voted for her in the primary, and would sooner sit the election out than vote for her in general election. 

I have talked with a few people who would not vote for any woman for President.  Sexism is still a part of our culture. 

Joe Biden was okay as a President, but the administration didn't leave a lot of people in awe looking for ways to carry on the work, when he was pressured to withdraw. There was a lack of enthusiasm. 

Personally, when I voted for Joe in the primary, I didn't think he would complete a second term, I was really voting for Kamala, expecting that she would finish the term, and then run for election on her own.  But many didn't share my feelings on this. 

Hence, just enough people, didn't show up. 

Slightly more than half of the people who did show up, are either core voters who would vote for a convicted felon if that was the candidate of the party, or voters who feel left behind or abandoned. 

Anger and helplessness leads to scapegoating, blaming what has happened or not happened in their lives on other people, government, or other countries. The real message in "Hillbilly Elegy" is about failure in working class middle America. The rage is real. And leaders of the past 50 years have done little to improve the lives of those impacted. 

In fact we have raised the cost of higher education, making it harder to climb the economic and social ladder.  We have encouraged businesses to lower the cost of goods, leading to offshoring of many working class jobs. Business owners who put their communities and workers first, were made increasingly larger and larger offers until they were bought out and despite promises to the contrary most of the jobs were shipped out of the country. At the same time other countries around the world encouraged industrial growth with expanding power grids, transportation infrastructure, and very low cost financing of industrial facility construction. 

Rather than insist that Congress update our outdated immigration laws, we selectively enforced or simply didn't enforce the laws. Congress left laying around on the books emergency authority that allows the President to set tariffs, that was passed decades ago at a time of need, and never repealed (and was poorly worded potentially allowing it's application decades later.) 

How do we move forward? 

We need to stay angry and motivated. 

We need visionary leadership - come on Pete. 

AND 

We need people to show up and vote, even when we are not perfectly happy with the candidate. The people who didn't show up and vote for Kamala, who also wouldn't vote for HWSNBN, elected HWSNBN.  Not voting, elects a person you wouldn't vote for. The margins were not that large. Turn out was the key. 

You can change this in the mid-term. Make sure you vote, and encourage like minded friends and neighbors to show up and vote. One on One, we can make a difference.