The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
The Mid Term Blues
Mandela Barnes lost the Wisconsin Senate by less than 30,000 votes. Seriously? When I saw the vote percentage of incumbent Ron Johnson at 50.50% and challenger Barnes at 49.50%, I excitedly thought “Runoff!” I was disappointed that Wisconsin has no such alternative to these kind of razor-thin elections. In spite of his backward, conservative platform, Ron Johnson won a third term. And in spite of his win, Republicans still came up short on their anticipated red wave.
Some of us have a memory of the Republican wave of 2010. That was the middle of the first Black president’s first term. Barack Obama and the Democratic Party were absolutely stunned. The Republicans snatched up 63 seats in the House, making it the largest political shift since the 1948 elections. On top of the House sweep, the GOP flipped control of some twenty state legislature creating trifectas and supermajorities in key battleground states.
Who controls the U.S. Congress is still up for grabs. Arizona, Nevada and Georgia will be the deciding elections that determine who will control the Senate. Hopefully, the Georgia Democratic electorate is so pissed off that Governor Brian Kemp will keep his seat that they pour all of their energy into a Warnock victory. Incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock is now in a runoff with Republican challenger Herschel Walker. The nation’s eyes will be on Georgia come December 6.
Tony Evers beat Republican Governor Scott Walker by about 30,000 votes in 2018. The rematch for control was pretty brutal right up to Election Day. To the victor go the spoils. The governor’s win will give the Democrats a much-needed edge in the 2024 elections.
The Democrats have not executed bold, strategic campaigns in battleground states. The work is to educate voters and engage them in the importance of the political moment. Simultaneously, the Dems have to fight hard to keep voting convenient and accessible. It doesn’t make sense if the work has been done to have an educated voter if they can’t get to the polls to cast their vote.
This voting thing may seem like a cat and mouse game, a cyclical partisan ruse that doesn’t allow the country to move decisively in a forward motion in the midst of ideological fanaticism rooted in white supremacy and patriarchy. It’s more than that.
Voting is important but it is a window into a fledgling and fragile democracy. The battleground is really about the future of this country. It is about whether we truly fight for a democracy that lifts up the most dispossessed and exploited in this country. They are part of America too, not just the corporate-controlled ideologues who are taking us down the slippery slope to authoritarianism.
The elections are determining more than who will be at the helm. With each victory of the MAGA Republicans at the local, state or federal level, we get closer to the brink. This is no time to be passive or unclear. There’s a democracy to save.