Like a lot of you, I’m sure, the countdown to Tuesday’s vote triggered the 2016 flashback from hell. The night where we would dodge the reality-TV bullet and celebrate the historic election of the first woman president. Instead an outrageously unprepared, unethical, immoral, misogynist pseudo-populist cult figure changed our country for the worse.
As a result, this time it felt like America was in the doctor’s office awaiting STD results. Looking through finger slits at a TV screen as the results came in.
The good news, of course, is that President Donald Trump’s scaremongering antics couldn’t keep the House of Representatives in GOPster hands. Instead they energized enough Americans–not all of them Democrats–to stand up for something besides partisanship, nativism and media demonization. As former President Barack Obama said, “The character of our country is on the ballot.” It was.
Let’s savor the reality that a new House majority will be using its oversight powers to investigate the Trump Administration and issue subpoenas to officials. Hopefully, those results will remind Americans that our constitutional democracy only works if enough of us actually practice it.
Then there’s “Flori-duh.” Still. Governor-elect Ron DeSantis and (presumably) Senator-elect Rick Scott–a fawning, Trump acolyte who was more Fox-than-Florida friendly and a self-serving Trump supporter who once again wrote enough checks to buy a win against an uninspiring opponent. We know their back stories. We know their values. We know the implications for this state. It’s unconscionable that this is who now represents us in Tallahassee and Washington.
Those who voted for DeSantis and Scott–or didn’t vote–deserve what they get. The rest of us don’t.
But, yes, both the transportation and schools initiatives passed locally, as did (former-felons’ voting rights) Amendment 4 statewide. So maybe the Kavanaugh keg is half full. Maybe.