2018 Midterm Endorsements

Sigh, I guess we had better talk about the American Mid-term election ( I am writing this in 2018 AD, in case the Republicans win everything, and you are reading this in annihilated ruins in a lifeless desert).

Throughout my life, American elections have traditionally been formalistic affairs between two similar parties.  Indeed, years ago, in a more innocent (!) time, I proposed that everyone should vote for the non-incumbent party to prevent the ossification and stalemate which were coming to define American politics.  Alas! such fantasies are now relics of a distant past: the two parties have diverged very greatly (although the false equivalence of “horse race” style reporting still occludes the true distance between them).

The Democrats concentrate far less than I would like on blue sky research, space exploration, and defense funding (which, ideally, is where our national R&D budget comes from).  Additionally the Democrats have not created a compelling narrative for the future and they have petrified national leaders…along with all of the various problems of ego, corruption, and incompetence which occur in politics at a granular level.

I endorse them completely for everything without reservation. Vote Democratic up and down the ticket.

This is not an ordinary election. The Republican Party is changing and metastasizing into something fundamentally un-democratic and truly awful.  Looking at their efforts to dismantle government, rob the state, roll back fundamental constitutional protections, and destroy our international alliances, it is perhaps finally time to use the F-word.

Indeed, President Trump is an obvious and self-avowed fascist. He makes no pretenses about it.  He openly denounces the press, threatens political opponents, espouses violence, and gleefully supports white supremacists.  Additionally he lies endlessly about everything, trusting that his propaganda mouthpieces will concentrate on other stories to feed to his imbecile brownshirt supporters.  Based on Occam’s razor, he is most likely operating on orders from Russian superiors (he squandered his family fortune, and then misrepresented his crooked finances to increasingly dodgy investors till all that was left for him was to launder money for Russians).  Trump throws everyone under the bus and talks garbage about them…everyone except for Vladimir Putin.  Why would that be?

So I am no fan of Trump, however, this year, he is not on the ticket.   Instead we must concentrate on the other portions of government which are in play tomorrow.  The founders left us a system of checks and balances to constrain the crimes and excesses of unfit executives.  These systems do not work if weak, foolish, and pusillanimous legislators refuse to engage the failsafes.  This is the situation we are now in.  The Republicans in Congress have abdicated all responsibility for the national well-being. They are like the sycophantic senators of the Roman Empire after the Republic fell: they still have the trappings and appurtenances of high office, but all they do is eagerly acquiesce to the whims of Caligula and Nero.

Vote them out. They all must go.  Vote against the Republicans in congress, even if they once allocated a highway in your district 27 years ago, or served in the Air National Guard, or went to the same school back in the fifties.  Unless you are a billionaire, they care nothing about you and are only looking for ways to take away everything you have. First they will take away your healthcare and then your property and then they will squeeze you dry for their robber-baron friends.

After Mitch McConnell’s successful theft of a Supreme Court seat, and the recent elevation of abusive and unfit apparatchiks to the Supreme Court, there will be no succor from an illegitimate Supreme Court.  If congress does not immediately push back against the rot in the White House, elections will most likely not be free in 2020.  This may be the only chance for voters to prevent tyrrany from breaking the world’s oldest and most powerful democracy–maybe for a generation…or maybe forever.

This is a pretty grim picture.  I did not paint it.  You can see it by looking out the window or picking up any international newspaper.  I suppose we all crafted it together by letting monopolies pour money into Washington and by pursuing our own short-term self-interest (and by letting fear get the better of us).  Historians know that democracies are fragile.  Our democracy is in real peril from within, perhaps for the first time since FDR assumed the mantle of life dictator. Indeed this might be the most extreme challenge to our institutions since the Gilded Age or the Civil War.  There is only one way to fix democracies. So vote! And drag every registered voter you can find to the polls.  If you love Trump and think he is America’s radiant savior, vote! (and maybe check in with the neurologist). If you are like me, uneasy with the Democrats, but appalled by the treasonous perfidy of he Republicans, then vote! Let us throw the GOP out of power so it can rediscover bygone virtues in the wilderness.  We will work on fixing the many many things that need fixed (and on crafting a new paradigm that better suits the changed times) once the house is not on fire.

Advertisement