On the 2018 Midterms

What does Muttroxia think about the midterms? Not much. Glad to see the Democrats got the House. It could have been better, it could have been worse. Get ready for two more years of gridlock, partisanship, and dysfunction.

Three takeaways from the midterms:

  1. The Democrats overreached on Kavanaugh: For all the legitimate reasons to fight the nomination, it was never going to change the outcome. Instead of looking the grownups in the room, they looked just as bad as the Republicans. Playing to the base also means riling up the other base.
  2. Lying and Cheating works: Many Republican candidates out and out lied in their campaigns. Particularly on health care, where they have been fighting and sabotaging the ACA, it takes serious chutzpah to deny that and accuse the other guy of stripping pre-existing conditions (for example), but that’s what happened. The tone comes from the top, where Trump made up an immigrant caravan crisis that doesn’t exist for the midterms, on top of lies about middle-class tax cuts and innumerable others. When the president doesn’t care about truth and has no shame about it, it is no wonder that more candidates do the same. The sadness is that it works. Then there’s the voter suppression, the gerrymandering, etc.
  3. The USA is governed by a minority party. Trump was elected with a minority of the votes, as was Bush in 2000. The only time in the last 20 years the GOP has gotten more votes for the Presidency was Bush’s reelection. The House of Representatives hasn’t been close to a GOP majority for a while, but has been held by the GOP on and off. The Senate votes have also been majority Democrat. The Supreme Court justices have then been put in place by Senators who represent less than half the votes. The fact is, the Democratic party represents over half the country and has for some time, but the GOP has tightened its hold on the levers of power.

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