November 17, 2022
The first announcements broke early Wednesday but confirmation reports didn’t come until Wednesday evening. Fox didn’t show the 218 count until this morning. The media covered Trump’s announcement that he is running for president extensively, but barely a whimper about the upset.
Oh well, it only took eight days to find out. Isn’t twenty-first century tech great?
I decided to delay my post until I had confirmation. I am not yet willing to analyze the midterms mostly because I want to be sure its my brain and not my ego talking when I do. Suffice it I have strong feelings about the matter – but feelings aren’t good analysis.
Nevertheless. this is BIG news. Democrats can no longer initiate legislation that will be able to get out of the House unscathed, if at all. The debt relief for college kids is well and truly dead. The executive order was always a joke – no one seriously thought it could pass Constitutional muster – and the courts are busily disassembling it now. Without control of the House, it cannot get out of committee, let alone get to the Senate. All those kids voting for Democrats just voted themselves into keeping their debt.
The problem with that isn’t the kids naivete – we were all there ourselves at some point – but the cynical way the Democrats used and discarded the voting block. Youth vote is fickle historically. The younger they are, the less likely they are to vote unless highly motivated. So assuming this block helped save the Democrats, they are unlikely to in 2024 both because they were burned and because they aren’t going to keep being highly motivated forever.
Now, back to the proverbial elephant in the room – feeling like we lost despite the fact that we won. Not having that red wave we expected is disheartening. It’s okay to feel a little down about it. But the truth is, we had a heck of a good year and this is not anything like a real defeat.
The Senate isn’t fully out of play. Georgia has to deal with its runoff which historically favors the challenger. If McConnell gets off his backside, this is winnable. That gets the Senate to 50/50.
But wait, there’s more. There were a LOT of red shifts in the midterms, including a massive one in West Virginia. Manchin faces re-election in a now red state in two years. If he wants to run successfully in 2024 his options are to stick with the Democrats and hope for the best, to remain a Democrat but vote Republican to placate his constituents or to switch parties. Don’t expect any change until next year but there’s a good chance that Machin will at the very least be voting much more conservatively.
While I was editing, word came that Nancy Pelosi is stepping down the Democrat leadership in the House next year. This one was reported by multiple outlets very quickly. It’s like the lamestream media doesn’t want to let Republicans celebrate their win or something. Anyway, this is good news. Democrats aren’t great in the minority position and starting the year off with a fight over leadership will not help them. Having mostly octogenarians in leadership doesn’t help, either.
At the state and local level things are not too bad. We lost two governors but gained massively in school boards. Stop snickering – school boards are high indicators of the local temperature. State representatives will be mindful before passing questionable legistlation.
That means Republicans have a lot of work to do. Election integrity has to be pushed like crazy in EVERY state. The re-election of Mitch McConnell as the minority leader is unfortunate but not insurmountable. Trump running will make things difficult for McConnell and you, dear voter, can make things MUCH more difficult. Write your senator and make sure he or she knows you want ACTION on election reform.
So, yeah, it’s not what we’d hoped for – but it’s more than enough to work with. Hey guys, WE WON THE HOUSE!
Cake and cookies for everyone! Then we get to work, not just as spectators watching the Republican leadership mess up over and over again but as active citizens of the greatest nation on Earth. We have just begun the fight to take back control not just of our political parties but of our government itself. Might not be what we’d expected, but this isn’t a bad little start.
2023 is gonna be a busy year!
