Midterm Relief

Midterm elections in the US were this past Tuesday. I am overwhelmed with relief with how they turned out. I was expecting it to be a bloodbath for Republicans, but flipping several southern states including Texas completely blue is a shock. Florida was a close race! Florida!

There are definitely a few concerning outcomes. Turek won on a pretty viciously transphobic campaign. Several Democrats ran on transphobia. Very concerning. On the other hand, a lot of Democrats won on platforms including protecting trans kids. I hope the lesson the Democrats take is… mostly just to leave us alone? I would love protection but literally just things not getting worse would be an improvement.

There’s still a few races yet to be called. Even still, the Dems have an overwhelming majority. The next few years are going to determine a lot. Trump has pledged to veto everything. We need to pressure Democrats to do everything they can to pass good bills. We need the Democrats to make it clear who is causing the inevitable gridlock (and not frame it in such a way as to make it sound like they’re whiny and pathetic).

Outside of politics, we need to be finding ways to improve our communities. This is perhaps the most important thing. Peoples’ lives need to be made tangibly better than what they are now. Both because that’s just the right thing to do, and strategically because we need people to stop associating the regressive, destructive policies of the Republican party with things being somehow “better”. We also very desperately need Democrats to start actually giving a shit about the south and about rural areas? There’s a lot of work to do, but at least we have a pretty good start.