My Blog Week: November 1 to November 7

A Word on the Week

Yippie Yi Yay

My fellow American writers, and our country’s well-wishers everywhere…

(Wishing you well right back!)

It may be a little hard, since Saturday, to get yourself into writing mind. I know the feeling. The long national nightmare—is not really over. People have been lamenting the amount of support for MAGAism shown by Biden’s narrow, though eventually more decisive, win. On the bright side, no one has ever tried harder, or spent more money at it, to corrupt an election than the 2020 Republican party. And the system defeated them. They conducted themselves as though they believed the count could just be stopped, and that the stuffed (if not packed) court would rule Trump into a second term. On the bright side, Biden’s voters, at approx. 75,000,000, outnumbered all victorious voter totals of the past. People who didn’t feel included and motivated, found their motivation, and made themselves included by speaking out.

On the dimmer side, the Suzy Q’s who have so conquered the imagination of the conquerable, achieved a little foothold in the House. And some sour-milk senators, like Lindsey Graham, haven’t had their seats refreshed. Yes, we’d like Mitch McConnell to sit out his term as a grumbling bystander, but the senate won’t be settled (and only for the next two years), until January. Georgia has stopped reporting, but it’s worth wondering whether all those Atlanta votes for Biden were not also votes for Democratic senatorial candidates. Maybe only one runoff? Maybe none? Anyway, out of the gate, we’ll expect the Republicans to follow the lead of Giuliani, and promote unfounded claims of voter fraud. “Your chance to fix this,” will be their appeal to voters. 

The progressive left has been blamed for throwing uncertainty into Biden’s prospects, but we owe these younger, outside-the-machine candidates a lot for introducing the excellent practice of speaking normally to voters. What do we want to solve? How do we want to solve it? By what stages can we reasonably expect successes? How do we measure those successes? What is our logical next step? That catch-phrasing carry-on of the MAGA era is a relic; still a dangerous one. Voters who are not asked to shoulder their part of the job easily fall into (or for) magic thinking.

The big fight for the Democratic party before 2022 will be to educate on taxes. Republicans like taxes, need taxes. They are not the party of never-tax; and the Democrats are not the party of always-tax. There is not one of us who doesn’t every day of our lives benefit in several ways—depend on—the taxes we and others pay. The shameful notion that taxes worry the simpleminded, that the “good folks” are inherently simpleminded, that taxes should never be mentioned, lest the good folks be spooked, that lengthy explanations should never be entered into, because the voters can only think in soundbites, needs the boot. The Democratic party needs to hammer this message. The lifestyle you enjoy is owed to the taxes you pay, no matter how hard you think you work. Borrowing money is only taxing the future. Mobility will supercharge the American workforce. Mobility comes from having available, affordable housing, and no worries about healthcare. Pinning people down in poverty is a constant drain on resources; your probability of paying less tax is greater when fewer social ills need solving. Fewer social ills need solving when more of the population is gainfully employed. More of the population is gainfully employed when people in any state have the mobility to take work in any other state. This is achieved by taking away the Hobson’s choice of having to stick with a bad insurance plan, or an overpriced apartment, because nothing better may be attainable.

We don’t see MAGA-regret yet, from a number of bad actors of the past four years. The tactics used by this party are known; they need to be countered, from immediately onwards.